Report of the Royal Commission on the care and control of the feeble-minded, Volume VIII.

  • Great Britain. Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-minded.
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Report of the Royal Commission on the care and control of the feeble-minded, Volume VIII. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    liave received application for relief on the grounds of mental defect, but have for any reason not provided that relief, no matter whether the mentally defective persons were certified or not. In suggesting this I am in agreement with the majority of the Com- mission, for in their Scottish Recommendation X. a similar suggestion is made. The constitution of the General Board of Lunacy is a matter which is not included in the reference to the Commission, and I do not intend to discuss it, but I desire to draw attention to the fact that if either the scheme of amendment embodied in the Commission’s Scottish Recommendations or the scheme of amendment described in this memorandum be adopted, there will be a very large increase of duty put on that Board, and that the appointment of an additional medical Commissioner will be required. The small ex- pense which that appointment would entail would be a very small price to pay for the advantage to be gained from efficient medical inspection of poorhouses, and skilled management of a central asylum. The scheme of amendment which I venture to suggest as an alternative to that suggested in the Commission’s Scottish Recommendations, and which I consider not only less extreme but also better fitted to secure that care and protection and control bo provided for those classes of mentally-defective persons in Scotland who at present are improperly cared for, or not cared for at all, may be summarised as follows :— (1) That parish councils should be responsible for the provision of care, treatment, and control of mentally-defective children as they now are for the care and treatment of adult mentally-defective persons. (2) That the provision of imbecile training institutions should be a duty of the district lunacy boards as it is now a duty of those boards to provide asylums for adult mentally-defective persons, and that for reasons of economy the provision of these training schools should be by those boards in combination and not separately. (3) That there should be a central asylum for the reception of mentally- defective habitual offenders, the management to be by the General Board of Lunacy, the cost to be borne by the parishes of the mentally-defective persons there treated, the procedure of admission to be that described in Section 89 of the Lunacy (Scotland) Act, 1857, and that for reasons of economy and good management this asylum might be combined with the criminal lunatic asylum and with the State inebriate reformatory. (4) That care, treatment, protection and control be provided for habitual inebriates by the same authorities and under a similar procedure as the care, treatment, protection amd control of other mentally defective persons is now provided. (5) That the term “ lunatic ” be taken out of the lunacy certificate and the term “ mentally defective ” inserted in its place, the latter term being defined as “ applicable to all persons afilicted with mental defect, whether that defect be congenital or acquired ; whether it be due to disease, or to age, or to any other cause ; whether it be acute or chronic ; whether it be curable or incurable ; and whether it be such as might be described as lunacy, or idiocy, or unsoundness of mind, or imbecility, or feeble-mindedness, or by any other name indicating mental unsoundness, or mental disorder, or mental incapacity, or mental infirmity.” (6) That medical certifiers should be protected from vexatious prosecution, and for this purpose that no action against a medical practitioner for any opinion expressed in a Imiacy certificate should be brought before a court without the consent of the Lord Advocate. (7) That it should be a duty of the General Board of Lunacy to inspect the ordinary wards of poorhouses and order the transfer of any mentally defective persons found in them to institutions suited to their requirement. (8) That the General Board of Lunacy should be gi-ven power to license private institutions for the care and training of imbecile children. (9) That an additional medical lunacy commissioner be appointed to enable the General Board of Limacy to efficiently overtake the increased duties. 4 A 103—Vlll.