Twenty-first annual report of the directors of the Dundee Royal Asylum for Lunatics : submitted in terms of their charter to a general meeting of directors, July 5, 1841.

  • Dundee Royal Asylum for Lunatics.
Date:
1841
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Twenty-first annual report of the directors of the Dundee Royal Asylum for Lunatics : submitted in terms of their charter to a general meeting of directors, July 5, 1841. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    In again presenting our Yearly Report, we have to congratulate the Directors on the increasing usefuhiess of the Institution, It is no doubt a Subject of regret that so many of our fellow mortals are suffering under a disease the most painful of all to the contemplation of those who enjoy health of body and mind—one which lays prostrate the noblest part of man, and in many cases reduces him to a condition little, if at all, superior to that of the beasts who perish. The knowledge, therefore, that you have been instrumental, and that the Institution over which you preside has in many cases been the means of alleviating the worst of all diseases to which flesh is heir, must impart a feeling of satisfaction corresponding in degree to that of regret with which you cannot fail to look upon the afflictions of the unfortunate objects of your care. The number of patients admitted during the past year is slightly greater than the preceding one. In the preceding year the number of males and females admitted approached nearly to an equality, but last year the num- ber of males has much exceeded that of the females. On looking at the tables it will be observed that the number dismissed as cured is much less than the number in 1839-40. This, however, is very easily accounted for. In both years we admitted nearly the same number of patients,—viz., fifty-seven in the former and fifty-eight in the latter ; but in 1839-40 there were only fifteen of them old cases, while in 1840-41 there were no fewer than thirty,—thus leaving in the one year forty-two, and in the other only twenty-eight cases in which there was a reasonable hope of cure. We have, besides, to complain this year, as we have had in almost every Report, that several patients have been sent to us in a dying condition—a circumstance which not only lessens the proportion of cures to the admissions, but which also swells the number of deaths which occur in the Institution. Notwithstanding this drawback, the number of deaths which occurred last year was only 8 out of a total number of 209 patients, and out of a daily average of 164. For reasons which will be obvious to every one, we cannot go into the details of any of the cases treated in this Institution to the extent that is allowable in hospitals for the cure of bodily diseases, or asylums where paupers only are admitted. A few of the more prominent delusions which are daily met with may, however, be slightly noticed, without lifting up the veil which ought always to cover from mere idle curiosity the mental infirmities of our fellow creatures, or without running any risk of wounding the feelings of relatives and friends. ^Ve have, as usual, several patients