Report on lunatic asylums / by Fredc. Norton Manning.
- Manning, Frederick Norton, 1839-1903.
- Date:
- 1868
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Report on lunatic asylums / by Fredc. Norton Manning. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.
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![111 this ease the grating is placed outside the lower half only. In a few instances both parts of the sash are of iron, balanced, and opening top and bottom to the extent of 5 inches only. The Continental asylums are usually lilted with some modification of the Frencli rroise'e in either wood or iron frames. The lower two-thirds of these windows open down the centre, and are placed under the regulation of an attendant's key. There are seldom any arrangements to prevent them opening to their full extent when once unlocked, and the consequence is that they are less frequently opened than the windows in Englisii asylums. At Evrcux there' is a chain to prevent the window opening beyond 4 or 5 'inches. At Hamburg a small portion of the up])er third of the windows is made to open, and some ventilation is thus secured. At the new asylum, Ghent, there is a j)eculiar arrangement, invented by, and called after, Guislain. As seen from the inside it presents the appearance shown in A])pendix F, Fig. 10. Below the window, which is of the ordinary French type, is an opening, closed with shutters on the inside. On opening these an ornamental iron guai'd is seen. The window is made to open, but is usually kept closed, and the small shutters below are opened for ventilation. This window is in tise at the new infirmary, (Jheel. 3. Size of Panes.—The date of erection of an English asylum may almost be j udged by the size of the panes in the windows. In the older asylums the panes are almost all .small; but in some of the more recent examples of asylums, the windows are not to be distinguished by the size of their panes from those of ordinary houses. At the Cupar Asylum the panes are about 2 feet square, and are considered by the superintendent much too large. In the American asylums the panes are usually about 6 inches by 12, and in the Continental ones they are similar in size, and, in all respects, like those most usually seen in ])rivate houses. 4. Guards.—-The iron bars and wire guards, which were formerly so common over asylum windows, have all but disappeared. In no publit- English asylum, so far as has been ascertained, are bars fitted to the windows, except at the Criminal Asylum, Broadmoor, and there, on the men's side, the form is as ornamental and unprisonlike as possible. Wire guards were in use in the violent wards at Colney Hatch, and in the women's side at Murthly only, out of all the asylums visited. At the latter institution the windows in the violent ward are only 2.V feet from the ground, and the guards are used because the breakage was found to be great in the windows thus placed so unnecessarily low. In the modern Continental asylums, even with the large croisc'es opening to their are none but at 1 1 • r • - ^^'^ orna- mental Gothic pattern. The windows in most of the seclusion rooms have wire guards. In the American asylums bar guards are more used, and are fitted to all the mndows except those havini; iron frames, and biilanced so as only to open to 5 inches top and bottom. _ At some institutions simple bars are used, corresponding in their crossiiiffs to tJie divisions of the window ; but at others an ornamental wroughl-iron guard is used to till in the space to which the windows open, and when painted while is not unsightly Wire guards are placed over the windows in the rooms for violent patients, in several American institutions. 5. Shutters and Hangings.—Shutters of various forms may be seen in the British asylums; but they appear to be considered necessary only for 'the rooms occuijied bv single patients, who are, as a rule, of the more violent class ^and, for purposes of decency in associated dormitoi-ics placed on the ground floor. For the single rooms the shutters are made either to fold back, and lock ao-ainst the wall by the attendant's key ; to slide sideways, out and in, of the adjoining thidvness <)t the wall; or, what appears to be the best form, to slide up from a locked receptacle beneath the window. AH these forms, both when closed and open, are under lock and ;key. At Frestwich the shutters slide up from below the window, and can be fastened by an attendant s key, either when three parts, or fully up ; so as, in the former positioif to allow of some light m the room, and of fuller ventilation by means of the windovv oj^)di 1.1 L L lie tiOp. D](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21292450_0057.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
