On escapes, liberty, happiness, and "unlocked doors," as they affect patients in asylums / by J.A. Campbell.

  • Campbell, J. A.
Date:
[1884?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On escapes, liberty, happiness, and "unlocked doors," as they affect patients in asylums / by J.A. Campbell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    of lunatics in Scotch asylums to be extolled rather at the expense of that in force in England, and we have heard a very great deal of the open-door system, the farm-vsrork and the boarding-out system.- As I reriiarked in a former paper, why do we not have these matters all laid before us in such a form that we can trace their actions on the prosperity of the asylum as to recoveries, comfort, happiness and safety of its inhabitants, as well as in its monetary aspect? It should be borne in mind also that before the Scotch Com- mission was formed, two English Commissioners, Mr. Camp- bell and Mr. Gaskell, gave their assistance and labour in the original Eoyal Commission. At the present moment the two principal Royal asylums are superintended by physicians who practically made their fame in charge of English county asylums, while in two other Eoyal asylums, the physicians acted as assistants in English asylums, and the same is the case as regards three of the district asylum superintendents. Now, with these facts before them, it does not look too well to have an attempt made to elevate a Scotch system of lunacy and its treatment into too high a position at the expense of English confreres. It is quite true that some of the Scotch asylums are most admirable, that one of them has cost more per bed than any asylum in Great Britain, but at my visits I have seen asylums with grave defects, and within the last eleven years I have seen in Scotch Asylums evidences of want of progress of a more glarmg character than I have noticed in any English asylum I do not think it profitable to enter on this subject in detail* I believe that many misapprehensions are caused by writing about and discussing modes of treatment and amount of hberty which should be given, recovery and death-rates, without really knowing whether the character of the material dealt with IS at all similar. I would respectfully suff^est to my fellow-superintendents the advisability of giving in their reports a table such as is to be found in my report of this year which contains data concerning the inmates of this asylum on December 31st--the nationality, numbers of those epileptic general paralytic, suicidal, above 70 years of age, under con- tmuous night-supervision, employed usefuUy, bed-ridden from age or disease probably curable, and the number and propo?^ t on of attendants. To anyone conversant with asylums and asylum-management such a table will at once convey with com- SwtllnTthr^ ?-fT '^'r' '''' P^*^^^*^ the^dlffic^^^^^^^^ ot working the institution. In remarking on, reporting of, and