On the construction and management of hospitals for the insane : with a particular notice of the institution at Sieburg / by Maximilian Jacobi ; translated by John Kitching ; with introductory observations, &c. by Samuel Tuke.

Date:
1841
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the construction and management of hospitals for the insane : with a particular notice of the institution at Sieburg / by Maximilian Jacobi ; translated by John Kitching ; with introductory observations, &c. by Samuel Tuke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    in regard to the patient’s action, in going out and coming in at pleasure, a point which, in connexion with English habits and feelings, is of considerable importance. This object, as well as that of preventing collision between the several patients, and between them and their attendants, is greatly promoted by the division of the patients into moderately sized classes, and by not allowing their intermixture except on special occasions. The defect, however, if so it be, which I have ventured to suggest in Dr. Jacobi’s plan, is by no means essential to the general form of his structure, and might easily be obviated ; I imagine the arrangement is adopted to preserve as large a piece of ground together as possible, which is certainly an object worthy of con- sideration, though it appears to me to be obtained at too high a cost by the subjection to the inconveniences above enumerated. In regard to the position of the windows in the apartment of the four lower classes, I must venture to express my decided dissent from the plan which Dr. Jacobi recommends. The windows in the apartments of the three lower classes, comprising about thirty-six of the patients of each sex, are placed at their lowest part at nine feet from the ground, so that from week to week, whilst in their apartments, they have no cheerful view of the surrounding objects. Doubtless there will be a number of these patients who are in a state of great indifference and apathy, and others in a state of great excitement; for the latter, at least at some times, a dark roonj may be the best accommodation ; but at other times, the sight of external objects may tend to draw the mind from its internal sug- gestions ; and even the idiotic or demented class, are not gene- rally, wholly inaccessible to the cheering influences of free light, and the sight of objects beyond the walls of their enclosure. I should not object to the position of the windows for this class in their night apartments, if the windows in the galleries were pla- ced so as to allow the inmates to see through them : certainly out of such a number of patients in our asylums, there would not fail to be a considerable number who might be safely permitted access to windows within the range of their eyes and hands. Dr. Jacobi, however, in regard to these classes, collectively, has adopted the