State of the Lincoln Lunatic Asylum (instituted November 4, 1819) : [seventeenth report].

  • Lincoln Lunatic Asylum (Lincoln, England)
Date:
1841
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: State of the Lincoln Lunatic Asylum (instituted November 4, 1819) : [seventeenth report]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    from a thraldom, of which one constant and lamentable consequence was the acquisition of uncleanly habits. “ The substitution of mental control, implying constant superintendance, for physical coercion, has rendered it indispensable to increase the number of Male and Female Attendants. “To maintain quiet and decent behaviour in the wards, airing-courts, grounds, and gardens at all hours; to preserve the patients, many of whom are feeble and helpless, from various dangers, in all situations and seasons; to prevent scenes of sudden violence, and put a stop to quarrels before abusive and irritating language leads to outrage; to protect the weak, and exercise an habitual control over the powerful, the mischievous, and the destructive; to guard the maniacal during the acute stages of their disorder, and to overpower the very violent with¬ out an unequal and dangerous struggle ; can only be effected when the attendants in an Asylum are sufficiently numerous to ensure the extension of their super- intendance to every part of the building or grounds, in which the patients are employed, and the constant presence of at least one, but generally of two, and. sometimes of three attendants in each w7ard, according to its size and character. Without this provision, particularly in large wards containing several patients who are occasionally violent, the most objectionable forms of restraint become necessary, and are yet insufficient to maintain peace or create security. Too severe an economy, perhaps more than any other cause, led to the prevalence of those extreme restraints in other establishments, to which public attention has been at different periods so much directed. But physical restraint often fails to extend its effects beyond the body and the limbs; shouts and execrations attest its powerlessness over the excited brain; and the turbulence of the most re¬ fractory, thus uncontrolled or exaggerated, becomes a powerful obstacle to the well doing of all the rest. No knowledge, no experience, no vigilance, no benevolence in the heads of an establishment, can preserve the constant and perfect discipline required for the protection and cure of the insane, if their orders are not executed by an efficient body of intelligent, active, and watchful male and female attendants.” 1840, January. Extracts from the British and Foreign Medical Review. Esquirol, Pasquier, Ellis, Hill, Sfc., on the Organization and Management of Lunatic Asylums. P. 148. “ Vainly do they boast of the neatness of their halls, and the silence and order of their wards, who have, in some unfathomed corner of the house, miserable credtures sitting strapped in chairs, with their restless hands in heating and con¬ straining leathern muffs. More vainly still, if, as on too good grounds we fear to be the case, they have others in chains, and kept in chains for years. F