Twenty-seventh annual report of the county and city of Worcester Pauper Lunatic Asylum.

  • Worcester Pauper Lunatic Asylum
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Twenty-seventh annual report of the county and city of Worcester Pauper Lunatic Asylum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    90/98 page 90
    By many observers it has been recorded, upon appar¬ ently sufficient data, that during the periods of strikes, with the concomitant distress and reduced scale of living resulting therefrom, the insanity of the district in question has perceptibly declined, as was shown in evidence from the reduced number of admissions. There appears to be no doubt of the truth of this proposition so far as it goes, and the reasons assigned are also probably correct, for during such a crisis the large earnings from various kinds of labour are at once reduced or altogether arrested, and savings (if any) have to be drawn upon for subsistence. As a consequence, thrift, frugality, and abstinence from all excesses in respect of food, drink, and any course of dissipation are laid aside, and the mental and bodily health of the district improves, as has been frequently shown by the statistics of many observers. Let the strikes, distress, hardships, and resulting poverty continue to prevail, however, in any district beyond the exhaustion of all acquired means, and a new set of agencies is found to come into active operation. Insanity becomes more frequent, the health of the community is lowered, the death-rate increases, and there is a tendency to the occurrence of epidemics, which spread with great rapidity, and are very virulent and fatal in type. History confirms the truth of this hypothesis, and it is painful to be obliged to report that, especially during the latter months of the year, the appearance of the Patients admitted exhibited the usual indications of poverty, want, and insufficient nourishment. In examining Table X. in connection with this factor of mental disease, with which, for the purpose of our argu¬ ment, must be associated pecuniary difficulties, reduced circumstances, losses of situations, want of employment, destitution and desertion, old age and its privations,
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3