Report of the Committee of Visitors, and eleventh annual report of the medical superintendent, of the asylum for the insane poor of the County of Wilts / Wiltshire County Lunatic Asylum.

  • Wiltshire County Asylum.
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Committee of Visitors, and eleventh annual report of the medical superintendent, of the asylum for the insane poor of the County of Wilts / Wiltshire County Lunatic Asylum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Average Numbers. Crowded state of Asylum. (10j with; and on the next day he was admitted under the proper order and medical certificate. At the end of about a month he was discharged recovered. At the beginning of the year, there were in the Asylum 350 patients, of whom 141 were men and 209 women: the present number is 366; viz., 153 males and 213 females. Two of this number (one man and one woman) are <e absent on trialand one man who escaped on the 27th Dec., has not yet been recaptured. The average numbers resident during the year have been 141.5 men, and 209.7 women; total 351.2. From a comparison of the above numbers, it appears that the “ gradual increase” reported last year has not diminished; but, on the contrary, has continued to progress. The number of men is greater by 12, that of women by 4, than at the commencement of the year. The Asylum is all but full on the male side, whilst in the female department the dormitories are, and have been for more than twelve months, unavoidably over-crowded. During the past Autumn, there were often 214, and even 215, women in the house; a number which could not be permanently accommodated in the existing building without inconvenience and risk as to the sanitary condition of the Asylum. This will be obvious, when it is remembered that the original accommodation provided consisted of only 143 beds for each sex (First Report, p. 27); and that, in 1858, an additional ward was added to the female wing, affording