The reports of the resident physicians of the County Lunatic Asylum, at Hanwell, to the Epiphany Sessions, 1839 / [Middlesex County Lunatic Asylum].

  • Middlesex Lunatic Asylum at Hanwell.
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The reports of the resident physicians of the County Lunatic Asylum, at Hanwell, to the Epiphany Sessions, 1839 / [Middlesex County Lunatic Asylum]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    16/44 (page 16)
    It) THE FOURTH REPORT O F SIR WILLIA M ELLI S, M. D. Presented at the Epiphany Quarter Sessions, 1835. FROM the great length of time during which nearly all the Patients in the Asylum at the close of the last year had been insane previous to their admission, it was stated in the Report, that, on a careful examination of each individual case, not more than fifty, under the most favourable point of view, could he considered curable. This opinion has been too sadly veri¬ fied. Of the Patients then in the House only twenty-five have been discharged cured ; though it will be seen by reference to the annexed Table, that eighteen oht of twenty of those re¬ ceived within three months from the commencement of the at¬ tack have recovered, and returned to their friends. Unfortu¬ nately, the evil resulting from the Patients not being placed in the Asylum immediately on their insanity being discovered is not likely to diminish; for, as the House is now quite full, no fresh Patients can be received, except on vacancies occurring from the cures or deaths of some of the present inmates; and the applications for admission are so numerous, that, with the utmost success that can be hoped for in cures, many months must now elapse after an application has been made before the Patient can be received. The insanity must, therefore, be ex¬ pected to become confirmed before the advantages of this Insti¬ tution are tried ; and, after the diseased action of the brain has continued for some months, the erroneous notions become so fixed in the mind, that the utmost that can generally be ef¬ fected is, by a course of kind and firm discipline, to procure