Suggestions as to the expediency of erecting a public asylum for the insane, belonging to the counties of Cumberland & Westmorland : in a series of letters to Edward Williams Hasell, esq., chairman of the Quarter Sessions / by Richard Oliver.

  • Oliver, Richard.
Date:
[1842-1843]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Suggestions as to the expediency of erecting a public asylum for the insane, belonging to the counties of Cumberland & Westmorland : in a series of letters to Edward Williams Hasell, esq., chairman of the Quarter Sessions / by Richard Oliver. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    <u TO EDWARD WlLLIAMh HASELL, ESQ., Chairman of the Quarter Sessions for the Counties of Cumberland and IFestmorland. Sir,— In ognin presuming to call your attention to the subject of a public provision for the care of the insane be- longing to these Counties, I would at present prefer to abstain from offering any observations on the detailed arrangements requisite for carrying the purpose in question into execution ; as the time for such observations will be more appropriate after that purpose shall have been finally settled. I have hitherto endeavoured to point out the circum- stances which would appear to render the establishment of such a provision necessary ; and I need perhaps scarcely say that 1 have carefully refrained from giving any undue colour to the facts which I have submitted to your con- sideration. It is of course for yourself, and the other gen- tlemen in the Commission of the Peace within these counties, to determine whether ihete facts ate of such a nature as to justify the design which I have taken leave to suggest; whilst it still remains for me to counteract or re- move whatever erroneous impressions on this subject may have been made by the statements of another party. At all events 1 trust I am fairly entitled to request that you will suspend your decision upon this point, until the state- ments here alluded to shall ho satisfactorily explained. You will do me the justice, too, to bear in mind, that my observations were not directed against any particular establishment; and that whatever offence the publication of my letters may have given to any individual interested in the management of a private receptacle for the insane poor, I can in no manner be held accountable fur unwarrantahly advancing the general charge of inefficiency against such establishments; as that charge bad been fully substantiated by the result of investigations which I had previously referred to, and which Mr. Wilkinson himself has nut at- tempted to call in question. It may be unnecessary io revert to this part of the subject; but the following extract from Dr. Conolly’s Work on Insanity, is so much to the purpose, that I cannot forbear presenting it to yoiir notice:— “ The care of Lunatics being generally lucrative, rt has happily followed, that many respectable, well educated, and humane individuals have, in different parts of the country, devoted their lime and their talents to their management. But there are many exceptions; the prospect of certain profit allures some capable of no feeling hut a desire for wealth, and the most ignorant and uneducated men, or women, are, in some instances, the keepers of houses for the reception of Lunatics. The patients are transmitleil, like stock in trade, from one member of a family to another, and from one generation to another; they come in jouth to the father, they linger out their ago with the son. An uniform system of restraint is enjoined, which saves all trouble ; and n book of prescriptions is liequcalhed ns a substitute for the Physician or Apothecary.” In vindicating his own estnlilishmcnt from the imputations supposed to be conveyed in iny previous remarks, Mr. Wilkinson has chosen to appeal to a comparison between