Annual report of the Committee of Visitors of the Surrey Lunatic Asylum.

  • Surrey Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report of the Committee of Visitors of the Surrey Lunatic Asylum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    16/70 (page 16)
    districts of the great Metropolis are of the worst description. Of the Admissions during the past year, 68 males and 36 females were considered as possibly curable; 91 males and 38 females as probably incurable. Of those admitted, 21 males and 5 females have died within the year. In some instances parishes are, from motives of economy, desirous of retaining in their own hands paupers of un¬ sound mind, supposed to be quiet and harmless, and they wish to remove such patients, from time to time, from the Asylum. The adoption of such a plan must lead to great changes in the working of this Establishment; an increas¬ ing, demand for paid labour in the wards, as well as in the kitchen, the laundries, the garden, and on the farm, would of necessity arise. Expensive alterations in the building itself would become necessary. At this time the accumulation of helpless and feeble patients is making itself felt; there is a considerably increased consumption of the extra articles of diet required to meet the wants of such cases. Wards, but recently easy of management, are now crowded with patients requiring constant