The nursing and management of the insane : a lecture / delivered by T. Duncan Greenlees to the nursing staff of the City of London Asylum and (with certain alterations) to the nursing staff of Grahamstown Asylum, Cape Colony.

  • Greenlees, T. Duncan.
Date:
[1892]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The nursing and management of the insane : a lecture / delivered by T. Duncan Greenlees to the nursing staff of the City of London Asylum and (with certain alterations) to the nursing staff of Grahamstown Asylum, Cape Colony. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    person is taken care of and liis affairs properly managed during his incarceration. In this philanthropic age large sums of money are annually expended to provide for the care of the insane—a class who used formerly to overcrowd our prisons and workhouses. In one of the recent lunacy enactments, an attendant on the insane is legally defined as follows (Yict. 16 and 17, c. 96, sect. 36): “ An attendant glial! mean any person, whether male or female, who shall be employed, either wholly or partially, in the personal care, control, or manage¬ ment of any lunatic in any registered hospital, or licensed house, or of any single patient.” The following remarks were made by the Com¬ missioners in Lunacy, in one of their annual reports,, relative to the duties of attendants and nurses on the insane: “ The skill and judgement of a superintendent ... are of little avail unless he is zealously supported, and his orders effectually carried out by an adequate staff of well qualified attendants. To them, in a great measure, must of necessity be intrusted the personal charge of the patients. . . . Attendants should be firm, and at the same time combine gentleness with firmness, and they should be able to superintend, direct, and promote the employment and recreation of the patients.” There are certain legal enactments to which I wish to direct your attention, as it is important that you should all be thoroughly acquainted with those laws affecting you as nurses in a public asylum. As I have already said, the law exercises a jealous care over all those certified to be insane, and should a nurse so far forget herself as to be cruel to a patient, or injure her in any way, the law punishes that nurse most severely. No amount of provocation from the patient will be accepted in extenuation of vour crime, and you will receive no sympathy or protection from those in whose employment you are. The following three clauses are from the Lunacy Act of this Colony (Act 35 of 1891), and show the gravity of wilful neglect or injuring of insane patients: 1. “ E^ery person wlio shall contravene any of the provisions of this Act in respect of which no other penalty or punishment is by this Act or by any law otherwise provided, or who shall contravene any of the provisions of any rales or regulations made by the Governor under this Act, shall, upon conviction, be liable to a penalty not exceeding twenty j ounds.