First annual report of the medical officers on the state and management of the asylum for the insane poor of the County of Norfolk / [Norfolk Lunatic Asylum].

  • Norfolk Lunatic Asylum (Norfolk, England)
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: First annual report of the medical officers on the state and management of the asylum for the insane poor of the County of Norfolk / [Norfolk Lunatic Asylum]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    accident having occurred in consequence; thus the cheerfulness of the apartments is much increased. The necessity of corridors for exercise within the house, and an amusement hall, is much felt in wet and cold weather; and to supply this deficiency it will be necessary to separate the passages, and erect a new room in the centre for recreation; as we conceive that the benefit to be derived from such a building, for the exercise of the “ feeble-minded” and convalescent, would be a sufficient equivalent for the outlay. During the summer months patients are able to walk in the cheerful airing courts, or to be em¬ ployed in out-door occupation, according to their several requirements; not so in the short and dark days of the winter months. The windows of the day rooms have a much better appearance than formerly, owing to the removal of the wire guards, and the number broken has not been in¬ creased. The small windows of 1814 have a gloomy appearance, which tends very much to increase the malady of the desponding, and might be altered with but small expense; and it is in the single-bedded sleeping rooms that this is felt. One great and neces¬ sary alteration has been made this year, viz., the substituting wooden floors for those of stone; and the introduction of carpet into the bed rooms, gives an air of comfort to these apartments. The infirmaries are placed on the first floor, and together are capable of holding but twelve patients, a proportion much too small, as there should be, in our opinion, means of affording all the necessary comforts to 15 or 20 sick patients on each side, having single dormitories, bath room, lavatory, &c., ad¬ joining them. Amusement Hall. Windows of Rooms. Infirmaries a