Report by Her Majesty's Commissioners appointed to inquire into the state of lunatic asylums in Scotland : and the existing law in reference to lunatics and lunatic asylums in that part of the United Kingdom. With an appendix.

  • Scotland. Royal Lunacy Commission.
Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report by Her Majesty's Commissioners appointed to inquire into the state of lunatic asylums in Scotland : and the existing law in reference to lunatics and lunatic asylums in that part of the United Kingdom. With an appendix. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    106/944 (page 64)
    Condition of Establish- ments, Cliartered Asylums. Locality. also dirty, violent, and unmanageable. Hence, also, the condition of an asylum receiving any considerable number of such patients is injuriously affected ; for not only do they engross a great share of the time and attention of the attendants, but they have a tendency to communicate a lower tone to the institution, and to deteriorate the condition of the other inmates. The pa- tience both of physician and attendants is apt to become exhausted, and they are induced to have recourse to seclusion, and to adopt contrivances to palliate bad habits, instead of attempting the difficult but not hope- less task of effecting a cure. The asylums that suffer most from the admission of patients of this description, are those of Aberdeen, Montrose, Glasgow, and Edinburgh: the two former, owing to their comparative vicinity to the Highland districts; the two latter to the facility of intercourse by means of steamers. Site, Size, and Construction. Site. r^i^Q important influence exercised upon the inmates of asylums, by the nature of the sites upon which they are built, can hardly be over-estimated. With the ex- ception of the institution at Montrose, the sites of all the chartered asylums are Avell selected, although few possess sufficient land to afford full agricultural employ- ment for the male patients. They are generally placed in elevated situations, com- manding agreeable prospects, and, although at a sufficient distance from a town to secure privacy to the inmates, and to enable the patients to take undisturbed exercise beyond the limits of the premises, yet they are not so remote as to shut out the officials and servants from general society, nor to prevent the more trustworthy patients from enjoying the benefit of an occasional visit to the public amusements of a city. Size. The size of an asylum has a considerable influence upon the condition of the patients; and it may be con- sidered as a settled rule, that, everything else benig equal, moderate-sized asylums can be more efficiently conducted than large institutions.