Twelfth report of the Somerset County Pauper Lunatic Asylum : from 1st January to the end of the year 1859.

  • Somerset County Pauper Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Twelfth report of the Somerset County Pauper Lunatic Asylum : from 1st January to the end of the year 1859. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    for sewage, &c., have been performed by the patients and attendants; the requisite materials only haying been paid for from this fund. Much healthful and useful occupation has hitherto been Occup provided for the patients in this way ; but as these resources of more are likely soon to be exhausted, it will be necessary for the Visitors to provide some fresh means of employment. This can be done in no more beneficial way than by the occupation of more land, which may now be obtained in the neighbour- hood, and held for the use of the inmates of the asylum. The quantity of land is quite insufficient, being only fifty acres for an institution which at present contains nearly four hundred and fifty inmates. According to the views of the Commission¬ ers in Lunacy, there should be at least one acre for every four patients. In a report transmitted to the Senate of the State of New York, 7th February, 1858, on the construction of Hos¬ pitals for the insane, it is asserted that “at least one hundred acres should be possessed by every State Hospital or other institution, for two hundred patients.” In the report for 1857, it was mentioned that some of the B ^ Bath Patients having been removed, the Visitors were enabled and James’ to comply with the request of the Cardiff Board of Guardians ents. to receive their lunatics, until the asylum for Glamorgan should be completed; of these there are only thirty remaining in this asylum at present. Some of the patients transmitted to Bath have been again returned to the asylum. Several chronic cases have also been sent back from the workhouses* It is submitted that under the present poor law, no depend¬ ence can be placed on the workhouses to relieve the asylum of chronic cases to any great extent* All the patients sent * The Commissioners in lunacy recommend the erection of inexpensive