Annual medical report of the Kent County Lunatic Asylum, at Barming Heath, Maidstone, for the year 1853-4, ending July 4th : presented to the Committee of Visitors, September 9, 1854 and to the Court of General Sessions, October 1854.

  • Kent County Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual medical report of the Kent County Lunatic Asylum, at Barming Heath, Maidstone, for the year 1853-4, ending July 4th : presented to the Committee of Visitors, September 9, 1854 and to the Court of General Sessions, October 1854. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    permanent mental injury; and, also, the other instances in which Dementia may exist, either as the primary disease, or, as the sequel to other forms. “ Mania with Imbecility” is a convenient phrase for the active symptoms with decay of mind, common to old age; and, also, for those cases of Imbecility, in younger persons, which present some of the more obvious features of Mania, in addition. The last division is restricted to objects of “ Imbecility and Idiocy” proper, in whom the deficiency is both congenital and existent in the full degree. Taeles 4, 5.—The admissions of private patients have been fewer by one than in the last previous year. They numbered 5 only, and were all of the male sex. The necessity for declining to receive any more private female patients from the want of spare room, which led to the discontinuance of the practice two years since, still exists. Several applications for such admissions have been refused; and, not long since, it became necessary to deprive an adjoining county of the privilege it had enjoyed, of sending male patients. The com¬ position of the number remaining, as respects the sources whence the patients are derived, remains about the same as last year. The ten succeeding tables require no comment. Table 16 gives the Causes of the Deaths; of which, 24 were due to cerebral and nervous disease; 14 to disease within the chest; 2 to abdominal disorders; 17 to exhaustion of the vital powers by mania, epilepsy, or, old age; 1 to erysipelas of the legs, occurring in a person already enfeebled by mania (which had been caused by spirit-drinking to a great excess); and 1 to suicide by hanging. The particulars of the last will be found in a later page (page 32). Table 17 exhibits the results of the year in numerical proportion. Thus:—31 per cent., nearly a third, on the population left at the close of the year next before, have been added to the latter, forming the whole number under treatment. A tenth part of the patients received had been previously admitted into the Asylum. A fourth part of the patients received had suffered one, or, more previous attacks of mental disorder. The total discharges, including the deaths, equalled little more than nine-tenths of the admissions: thus leaving nearly one-tenth of them as a standing addition to the list of patients. The Recoveries were 39T per cent, on the admissions; a return slightly improved upon the 37‘4 per cent, of the last pre¬ vious year. Three various modes of computing the rate of recovery are in use. They are all given in the table; but that mode which estimates the proportion in reference to the admissions, appears the fairest for a statement made from year to year. The Deaths were 11T per cent, on the mean number of patients daily resident. In the last previous year they had amounted to 10 4 per cent. As in recoveries, so in deaths, there are different modes of estimating the