Twenty-fifth annual report of the directors of the Dundee Royal Asylum for Lunatics : submitted, in terms of their charter, to a general meeting of the directors, 16th June, 1845.

  • Dundee Royal Asylum for Lunatics.
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Twenty-fifth annual report of the directors of the Dundee Royal Asylum for Lunatics : submitted, in terms of their charter, to a general meeting of the directors, 16th June, 1845. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    demand to get out of this instanter, to enable me to raise an action at law against all concerned in my illegal detention; I expect tremendous damages, and if I do not get a large amount, and ample justice, I shall revenge myself; I have over and over again addressed letters for redress to the first people of the land, and given them to visiters to forward; but somehow I never get any answer; will you post a few letters for me V3 These, or similar expressions, are almost constantly used by various patients when visiters are introduced. Deaths.—We have had fourteen deaths this year, out of a grand total of 243 patients, or a daily average of 190. This exceeds by two only the highest gross number of deaths ever recorded in this Asylum. It will be observed that the excess is in the number of females, as the males are two less than they were last year. The causes of this excess are obviously to be found in the extraordinary severity of the weather last spring, the manner of death, and the number of patients who were admitted, almost, as it were, just to die. The deaths, however, did not come up to the proportion exhibited by the statistics of mortality in other parts of the kingdom, where the severity of the weather appears to have produced similarly fatal effects. According to the tables published by the Registrar- General, at London, the number of deaths in the metropolis, registered in the thirteen weeks, ended the 29th March, 1845, amounted to 14,528, which was 1,928 above the average of the five winter quarters from 1839 to 1843. This excess of mortality is distinctly ascribed, in the Registrar-GeneraPs report, to the unusual severity of the weather, during the spring months. It states that the temperature was lower in these months than had ever before been observed and recorded in the vicinity of London ; and that, in consequence, the deaths during the first quarter of the present year were 49,874, or 4,390 above the average of the March quarter of the previous five years. In the same public document we find the statistics of the weather, which leave no room for doubt as to the principal cause of the extra mortality of the year. From the close of January to the end of March, the mean tem¬ perature was 8° below the average of the same period during the previous twenty-five years; and in one week (March 9th to 15 th)