Report on lunatic asylums / by Fredc. Norton Manning.

Manning, Frederick Norton, 1839-1903.

Date:: 1868

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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$LDJsAflC ABTLt'MS. Avliilst at the Tle^v Prench a*;ylum.s t?iey .ire— At St. Anne's 16-to OCK) VilleEvrard 0 to COO Evreux 8 to 500 Qiiatre Mares S to -100 St. Yon 15 to 800 [)i'opoi'tions even more strikingly sniall, as c(nn[)iU'e(l witli the En^'lisli, than^ the Araeriean are large. Dr. Morel, one ol the nu)st eniiiuMit French alienist physicians, considers that any asyliun may be properly managed with one single room for 50 patients. And M. Parchappe, late Inspector of Asylums in France, in his Tj-catiseon Asylum Construction, states, thatl single room for every 12 males, and 1 for every 11 female patients is ample. At Guislaiu's Asylum, (ihent, the proportion is 2A to 180, or J. to 20 ; Avhilst in the Dutch and the new German asylums the relative numbers are— Hamburg 8 to GOO Gottingen 1 to 12 Frankfort 1 to 4 Til these ninnbers the proportion is given foi- indigent ])aticnts only : in all countries the pi'oportion of single roiuns ibr paying patients is much lai'ger. A largei or smaller proportion of single dormitories will be necessary, according as the asylum is intended to contain acute or chronic cases ; and cases of a special class, likt! those for which the Broadmoor Asylum was erected, require a proportionately large nnmher of single rooms: but all the asylums mentioned above, with this exception, are general asylums to acconnnodate all classes of cases, and as such are on one level in their re(piirements. Tlie cause for such a difierence in the pi'oportion caiuiot be found altogether in tlie ditference in temperament and character of the insane, as was suggested tVc(|ncntly in America; for, though the American insane ai'e undoubtedly, as a rule, iri'irable as compared with those in Great Britain, and may so recjuire more sepai'ation, whilst the French and Germans are more quiet and manageable, and may do well ^\•ith less,—still, the difference in the proportion of single and associated dormitories is too great to be accounted for on this ground only. The habits of the lower class of the population of the dilferent coiuitries must be taken into account in any attempt at an explanation of this great difference. Jn France and Germany the loAver classes ai-e much accustomed in their ordinary life to sleeping in association. The entire male members of the family, or several of them, occupy one dormitory ; and the liking for privacy in bed-room accommodation, which is felt among all classes except the very lowest in Eiigland, does not exist in In-ance ; consequently a patient in a French asylum would accept the fact of accom- modation in an associated do7-mitory as natural and riglit. On the other liand, associated dormitories are exceedingly uncommon in America. Tlie mass of the population are better off, inul able to procure for themselves better houses than in England ; a great privacy in bed -room accommodation therefore exists ; so that a lied in an associated dormitory would be considered in numy cases as a degradation, and be the cause of irritability and l)erhaps violence. It must also be remembered that the American asylums contain many patients who, though paupers in reality, are by the kind laws of the States called by the name of indigent only, and are provided for with a liberality, even in the matter of bedroom accommodation, Avhich is not accorded to the pauper class in England. In some of the English asylums, as at Colney Hatch and Worcester, the associated doruntories, whjch are additions to the original building, are of large size 86 patients are contained in one room at Colney Hatch, and 78 in two rooms at Worcester At ;;re not common abroad$

Report on lunatic asylums / by Fredc. Norton Manning.

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