Twenty-first annual report of the Suffolk Lunatic Asylum : December, 1858.

  • Suffolk Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
[1859]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Twenty-first annual report of the Suffolk Lunatic Asylum : December, 1858. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    all private patients should be from those that are known only, and recognized only as pauper institutions. There is a sensitiveness which is almost morbid, on personal de¬ tention under almost any hut the most violent proofs of insanity, and the subsequent and sometimes injudicious urgency for removal from those who make an indirect demand as themselves contributing towards the support of the patients, may not warp the judgment, but it tends to render its exercise perplexing. If a patient’s relatives pay for his support they think they can remove him whenever they please, and call somewhat peremptorily for the sanction of medical authority to do so. Without attempting any thing like a running commentary on the last report of the Commissioners in Lunacy, it may be remarked, that some of the objections raised by them against some parts of the Asylum, are not confined to the older portions of the Building, but extend to its later additions: the stone floors, the narrow windows, and the confined passages. We have removed a vast number of similar de¬ fects in the original Building, but if these improvements are to be continued and extended to the new parts, we have full employment in prospect. Experience of course would be of little worth if it were not suggestive of improvement. This House no doubt (like any palatial residence even) might be altered for the better, but it is very questionable, if every brick were taken down to-morrow, that a more comfortable abode for its inmates, or one upon the whole more conducive to their cure, could be built up in its stead. To correct its faulty structure, and to secure its permanent prosperity has been the object of what has been truly in connection with Asylum management, a very long life, and we may be permitted to say, that with the single exception of the suggested extension of the associated-dormitories in the upper story of the Buildings, we have hitherto been fortunate enough to anticipate every recommendation of the Commis¬ sioners in Lunacy.