Fourth annual report of the Trustees of the State Lunatic Hospital, at Northampton : October, 1859.

  • State Lunatic Hospital (Northampton, Mass.)
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fourth annual report of the Trustees of the State Lunatic Hospital, at Northampton : October, 1859. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    adult age with a constitution already enfeebled by his previous habits. With an absorbing interest in and devotion to the cares and excitements of business, he enters on some one, or many in succession, of the various commercial speculations of the day, or on the no less exciting struggle for professional or political distinction. Without regard to the effect of such a course upon the health, with no thought of rest or relaxation, or perhaps seeking relief and amusement in questionable or even vicious indulgences, he rushes on until the overtaxed powers fail, nature asserts the supremacy of her laws, and the sufferer pays the penalty of an unsound mind in an unsound body. Females, it is true, after the period of childhood, are not exposed to the same causes of deranged health, nor to the same strong mental stimulus. Many of the habits and cus¬ toms, however, of our advancing civilization, are not merely unfavorable to the acquisition and preservation of a desirable soundness and vigor of constitution, but are directly instru¬ mental in producing various forms of nervous derange¬ ment, which not ^infrequently terminate in confirmed mental disease. The farm has been under the same efficient management as during the previous, year, and lias afforded the means of health¬ ful and useful employment to many of the patients. From it we have also drawn a bountiful supply of vegetables and fruits for the use of the household and the farm stock. Several acres of unproductive land have been brought under cultiva¬ tion and made to give good crops; and other pieces, the produce of which has for many years been nearly worthless, have been brought into good condition, and will now add mate¬ rially to our resources. Several hundred fruit and ornamental trees have been planted, and the greater part of them show promising signs of vigor. One hundred and thirty rods of substantial stone drain have been laid, to the great improvement of the land, increasing considerably the quantity capable of remunerative cultivation. The contents of the sewer are now carried, by means of proper conductors, to the meadow, and are made to flow over the grass land and upon heaps of muck and compost, thus affording a large quantity of valuable enriching material very