Report of the Committee of Visitors of the Lunatic Asylum for the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire : presented at the Epiphany quarter sessions for the respective ridings, 1863 together with the superintendent's sixteenth annual report, presented at the Easter sessions, 1863 and an account of the receipts and payments to the end of the year, 1862 / North and East Ridings of Yorkshire Lunatic Asylum.

  • North and East Ridings of Yorkshire Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Committee of Visitors of the Lunatic Asylum for the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire : presented at the Epiphany quarter sessions for the respective ridings, 1863 together with the superintendent's sixteenth annual report, presented at the Easter sessions, 1863 and an account of the receipts and payments to the end of the year, 1862 / North and East Ridings of Yorkshire Lunatic Asylum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    5/32 (page 5)
    North and East Ridings’ Asylum, 23rd and Ath July, 1862. We have found this Asylum, at our visits yesterday and to-day to its several wards and departments, in excellent order. Since the visit on the 2nd and 3rd of September last there have been 113 admissions, 106 discharges, and 34 deaths. Of those, the numbers in the male and female divisions respectively were, of admissions, 60 and 53 ; of discharges, 52 and 54 ; and of deaths, 24 and 10. The rate of mortality is low. The proportion of recoveries out of the number discharged were, of males, 17, and of females, 24; and of the rest, 27 were patients belonging to York, lately removed to Bootham. There are now on the hooks 273 males and 225 females, in all, 498; whom, with the exception of 4 men and 2 women at present away on leave, we have seen at our visit. We found them all, in both divisions, singularly free from excitement, which, in great measure, we attribute to the system of regular employment, carried out here on a scale so extensive as to include the idiotic and epileptic patients, and the class regarded generally as imbecile and helpless. The results of the system, as well in its profits to the Institution as to the patients, have been too frequently mentioned to require further reference at present; but we may state, that in the interval since the last visit there has been a larger than the ordinary amount both of in-door and out¬ door labour, and that by the sales of produce from the work of the inmates, besides what has been done for the Institution, upwards of £400 was realized last year. On the evening before our visit there had been an entertainment in the grounds, at which 250 of both sexes were present, with dancing, music from two bands, and a good supply of refreshments. The general arrangements for amusement and leisure include daily walks for patients employed in-doors, Sunday afternoon walks of larger extent, and, according to the season, occasional out-door and in-door games, with special and elaborate Christmas shows. A suggestion was made at the last visit for setting apart, during the