The fortieth annual report of the visitors of the County Lunatic Asylum, Stafford : for the year ending December 31, 1858.

  • Staffordshire County Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
[1859]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The fortieth annual report of the visitors of the County Lunatic Asylum, Stafford : for the year ending December 31, 1858. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    all the available space will be speedily exhausted, there being only room for five or six more beds, and some permanent means must be adopted to afford the required accommodation. With the object of relieving the pres¬ sure on the male side of the house, several perfectly harmless but incurable patients were, during the last year, sent to their respective parishes ; but from want either of the necessary accommodation or of sufficient paid attendants, most of these patients have been brought back again to the Asylum. The committee are happy to say that the Asylum has been entirely free from epidemic disease, and the general health of the patients is very satisfactory; the per centage of deaths has been lOjth per cent, on the number under treatment, as compared with 11^ per cent, last year; still they wish to remark that in many instances patients continue to be admitted into the Asylum in a far advanced stage of disease, and in some cases, after having been retained in the workhouses until recovery was hopeless, they have been sent to it so extremely debilitated that no care or treatment could prevent their rapidly sinking. A new steam washing apparatus has been lately erected in the laundry, by which a great saving of labour is effected: over 5,000 articles are washed by it weekly, and not only are the clothes more thoroughly cleansed, with less wear and tear, but the additional advantage has been gained of having a smaller number of the patients exposed to the damp and steam of the washhouse. The dietary scale remains the same as last year; but the weekly charge to the different unions has been reduced from 7s. 9d. to 7s. 6d. since March last.