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.

    50/78 (page 50)
    ££ It is of much consequence to observe that, in whatever Asylum it is determined to abolish Physical Restraints, several inconveniences must at first be experienced. There must be numerous adaptations to the new system. Under the restraint system, bad conduct is first permitted, and then punished: under the other it is prevented. Under one system, coercion of the body is relied upon in every emergency : under the other, numerous resources must supply its place. “ The mere liberation from restraints, although it will prove a measure of extensive operation in a large Asylum (concealed or slight habitual restraints being generally numerous where severe restraints are tolerated), is only a small part of the undertaking. The security and good behaviour of the patients must then be placed in entire dependence on the constant watchfulness and care of the attendants ; and a system of treatment be substituted for the restraint system, sustained by the cheerful co-operation of every officer; so that the whole government of the house may become kind, protective, and, as it were, parental. For the completion of such a plan, therefore, a united household is indispensable. No one is qualified to be an officer, a keeper, a nurse, or a servant in a Lunatic Asylum, in which such a plan is pursued, who is not able and disposed to make every part of personal conduct more or less conducive to one great end—the comfort and cure of the lunatic inmates. “ When restraints are to be discontinued, it may be found, for the first time, that there is not a room in the Asylum properly adapted to the safe-keeping of a violent patient; not a shutter that can be properly secured : no ward door that cannot be opened without a key; nor any clothes or bedding that cannot easily be torn. The Attendants may be too few in number; at once severe and slovenly; inefficient to the duties of guardianship devolving upon them, and unprepared either to prevent any accident, or to remedy any evil, when denied the support of restraint upon which they constantly leaned. The new system must also be much dependent for success, in a large institution, on the Officers acting under the Physician. Accustomed to witness all the abuses of restraint, and distrustful of other expedients, they, may be prone to neglect other resources, and even the prompt application of remedial means; and their negligence will lessen the confidence and alacrity of the attendants. No superintendent, desirous to give the system an effectual trial, must be discouraged by these circumstances; or even by finding that all his substitutes for restraint are, for a time, represented as more objectionable than restraint itself. “ Lastly, the Resident Physician would observe, that, with every advantage, it would be presumptuous to say that bodily restraints may be abolished in every instance from every Asylum. Physicians of other countries, after seeing Han- well, have expressed their doubts of the possibility of applying the plan of Non-restraints to the Lunatics of their own; in consequence of peculiarities of character, which they conceive are not met with in this part of England.