Report of the Manchester Royal Lunatic Hospital, (situate near Cheadle, Cheshire), from June 25th, 1858, to June 24th, 1859.

  • Manchester Royal Lunatic Hospital.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Manchester Royal Lunatic Hospital, (situate near Cheadle, Cheshire), from June 25th, 1858, to June 24th, 1859. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    it be destitute of them. And with regard to amusements, all experience shows that they should be as frequent and as varied as possible. It is a false supposition which regards the insane as incapable of enjoyment; they are easily pleased and easily displeased, and with many of them to be pleased is to be exalted to a high state of happiness, to be displeased is to be plunged in profound despair. In entering a Lunatic Asylum, we are not stepping into a new world; we find there, as Esquirol has said, “ the same ideas, the same errors, the same passions, the same misfortunes; it is the same world ; but in such a house the traits are stronger, the shades more marked, the colours more lively, &c.” It is a duty, therefore, to provide the insane with amusement, a duty which extends not only to those who are curable, and for whom it forms a most valuable agent in treatment, but which extends also to those who are incurable. Happily no one is to be found, now-a-days, to defend a system which permitted to the insane only the monotony of a life-long incarceration and the inestimable privilege of wishing, like Hafiz, “ to break up the tiresome old vault of heaven into new forms.” It is a regard to such considerations as these that has dictated the amusements provided for the patients in this Institution. During the summer a brass band has attended occasionally, and there have been dances on the bowling-green; cricket was in request for a time amongst the men. A billiard-table has been recently added, and forms not the least interesting or least attractive amusement. A large increase has been made in the periodicals in circulation throughout the house, and the Institution is indebted to the kind liberality of a member of the Committee for a considerable addition to the Library. Besides the weekly papers of an interesting character, such as Punch, the Illustrated News, See., several daily papers, including the Times, are in circulation. In fact, as the good of the patients is the sole object of the