Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A bill intituled An act to amend the acts relating to lunatics. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
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![MEMORANDUM ON THE LUNACY ACTS AMENDMENT BILL. [h.l.] The principal objects of the Lunacy Acts Amendment Bill are— I. To furnish safeguards against the improper confinement of persons as lunatics. II. To put a stop to the system of single patients, except in the case of lunatics so found by inquisition, and to prevent the establish- ment of any new licensed houses. III. To give facilities for the medical treatment of persons who desire to submit to treatment and of idiot and imbecile children. IY. To enable public asylums to be provided for the reception of lunatics not paupers. V. To give increased powers to the court for administering the property of lunatics. VI. To make certain amendments in detail, with a view to a consolidation of the Lunacy Acts. The Bill adopts in the main the recommendations made by the Report of the Select Committee on Lunacy Law in the year 1878. I. The principle of the Scotch procedure has been adopted with somewhat fuller elaboration of details. The Bill provides (section two) for the appointment of special justices to make orders for the reception of lunatics not paupers, and (section three), except in cases of urgency, a person not a pauper is not to be confined as a lunatic without an order of a county court judge, stipendiary magistrate, or justice, to be obtained upon a petition presented, if possible, by a relative and accompanied by two medical certificates. Provision is made to secure privacy, and in order to give the county court judge, magistrate, or justice something more than “ merely ministerial ” functions in cases which require investigation, be is empowered, if he considers the statements in the medical cer- tificates unsatisfactory, to make inquiries, and, if he thinks it necessary, to visit the alleged lunatic. In urgent cases (section four) a patient may be confined upon an order by a relative, accompanied by one medical certificate ; but in that case a petition for an order must be presented to a county court judge, stipendiary magistrate, or justice within seven days, and the urgency order remains valid only for the seven days or so long as the petition is pending. Sections six, seven, and eight are intended to secure that the medical certificate shall be signed by disinterested persons. (12.) a Principal objects of the Bill. Report of Select Com- mittee, March 28, 1878. Confinement of persons as lunatics. Select Com- mittee Report, p. v. Urgency orders. Select Committee Report, p. iv. Disinterest- edness of medical practitioner. Select Committee Repdrt, p. iv.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24908083_0003.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
