Twentieth annual report of the medical superintendent of the lunatic asylum, for the counties of Salop and Montgomery, and for the borough of Wenlock, 1864 / [Salop and Montgomeryshire Counties Lunatic Asylum].

  • Salop and Montgomeryshire Counties Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Twentieth annual report of the medical superintendent of the lunatic asylum, for the counties of Salop and Montgomery, and for the borough of Wenlock, 1864 / [Salop and Montgomeryshire Counties Lunatic Asylum]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and 9 Women, who had been removed to the Prestwich Asylum, making the actual numbers on the Register of this Asylum at the end of the year 429. Allowing only 600 cubic feet of air for each Patient, which is 200 feet less than the amount which is necessary, there is now accommodation for 377 Peds, if however the rooms in the basement below ward 3 are considered fit to be used as sleeping apartments, 10 more beds will be added to this number. In table 17 will be found a general statement of Admissions, Discharges, and Deaths, since the opening of the Institution; the same table also contains an account of the average number resident in each year; together with the per-centage of Recoveries on the Admissions; the per-centage of Deaths on the average number resident; and the per-centage of Deaths on the total number under treatment. The number of Admissions in 1864 has exceeded that of the previous year by 26, and is larger than in any former year, this increase has been on the side of the Men, the number of Women being less than for several years past. The number of Re-admissions (41) appears to be large, but by referring to table 2, it will be seen that the greater number of these Patients had been absent from the Asylum from periods varying from 2 to 15 years. Among the discharges there is a very fair proportion of recoveries as compaired to the former years, but the number dis¬ charged relieved only appears unusually large, as it includes 40 Patients sent for a time to the Prestwich Asylum. The causes of Death have been chiefly General Paralysis, Epilepsy, Consumption, and Senile Decay. The number has been greatly increased by the hopeless state of many of the Patients when admitted. Ry referring to table 10, it will be seen that 45 persons are stated to have been in bad health and exhausted condition on admission ; this description can hardly convey to your minds an idea of the miserable state of many of these poor creatures; 7 of them were dying when brought in ; one man died half an hour after his admission,—he was suffering from acute mania, and died from sheer exhaustion. I have little doubt if he had been brought sooner his life might have been saved; two were in the last stage of consump¬ tion, and 4 were cases of persons between the ages of 70 and 90, suffering from the Dementia of extreme old age; and no doubt troublesome to their friends, but perfectly harmless, and certainly not fit cases for an A.sylum. All these died within a few days of their admission.