Report of the Royal Commission on Lunatic Asylums of the Province of Quebec.

  • Québec (Province). Royal Commission on Lunatic Asylums of the Province of Quebec.
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Royal Commission on Lunatic Asylums of the Province of Quebec. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    3. In view of the price paid to the proprietors, for each patient are they maintained in a satisfactory condition ? 4. What reason is there for the differences which have arisen between the Government and the owners of the asylums ? 5. Does the law of 1885, exceed the rights which the Government acquired under the contracts entered into for the asylums ? 6. VVhat is the opinion of the religious authorities respecting this law ? 7. Has the law of 1885 been duly observed ? 8. Is there any necessity or means of modifying this law in such manner as to make the system more efiective and give fuller guarantees to the public, whilst at the same time respecting vested interests ? These were the principal points which formed the basis of the study, of which the details and results are given in the present report and they shew the division adopted by us in treating this important qiiestion, the object of the investigation of the Commission. Eefore going further, it may perhaps be as well to indicate the path the Commission thought proper to follow, in order to obtain all the information desirable and possible for it to procure. The work naturally commenced by the study of all the official docu- ments relating to the question, correspondence, special reports, reports of the proprietors of the asylums, reports of the inspectors of prisons and asylums, complaints made by the proprietors of the asylums against the working of the Act of 1885. A special study was made of the difficulties met by the medical officers of the Government in the discharge of their duties. To come at the origin of the difficulties which have arisen between the proprietors of the asylums and the Government,the Commission carried their researches back to the year 1880, the period at which these difficulties began. The Commission, in order to 'complete and verify the information necessary to attain this end visited all the asylums in the Province, and the Commissioners are able to say that this important portion of their mission was discharged with all the attention, care and impartiality w^hich the public, and the proprietors of the asylums had alike a right to expect at their hands. If the Commissioners have erred, they have done so in good faith. Throughout, they have been animated by a strong sense of the grave responsibility cast upon them, and they can safely say that in all that they have done, as well as in the conclusions