A letter to the Right Honorable Spencer H. Walpole, M.P., &c., &c. Chairman of the Select Committee on Lunatics / [John Charles Bucknill].

  • John Charles Bucknill
Date:
[1860]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to the Right Honorable Spencer H. Walpole, M.P., &c., &c. Chairman of the Select Committee on Lunatics / [John Charles Bucknill]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    3/16
    TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE SPENCER H. WALPOLE, M.P., &iC., &c. Chairman of the Select Committee on Lunatics. Sir, When I had the honour to appear as a witness before the Committee over which you preside, I declined to give any opinion respecting Chancery lunatics. I did this from not feeling myself prepared at that time to place my opinions before you in a manner which would give them value. As, however, you kindly requested me to communicate by letter anything further I might wish to say, and as I have recently been reminded by a member of your Committee that your enquiry is still open, I beg leave, most respectfully, to lay before you some considerations on the subject of Chancery Lunatics, chiefly founded upon my personal knowledge. I see it proposed that the office of medical visitor of the Court of Chancery shall be abolished, and the visitation of the Chancery lunatics transferred to the Commissioners in Lunacy; yet the great and continuing increase in the number of inquisitions, and the demands of the public service, must lead the Court of Chancery to feel itself more than ever in need of medical officers of its own, a need unequivocally expressed in the provisions of the Bill introduced by the Solicitor General just before the last dissolution of Parlia¬ ment. The Committee, in investigating the duties of the Medical^ Visitors, appears to have exclusively directed its atten¬ tion to that of the visitation of dunatics after inquisition.
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