The thirty-seventh annual report of the visitors of the Staffordshire County Lunatic Asylum : for the year ending December 31, 1855.

  • Staffordshire County Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
[1856]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The thirty-seventh annual report of the visitors of the Staffordshire County Lunatic Asylum : for the year ending December 31, 1855. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    rence to their former occupations has appeared injurious, the patient has been either employed at some other occupation, or both his mind and body have been allowed to remain idle, and he has simply been encouraged to amuse himself with some of the ordinary games, such as skittles, marbles, ball playing, battledore and shuttlecock, or even with music and reading. A great majority of the inmates of the Asylum coming from this district, are agricultural, and amongst them are many in whom the amount of intellect has always been limited; in such cases, from the natural obtuseness of the faculties, no great amount of intellectual recovery can be expected; and it has been found, that after being submitted to the tranquil mode of life pursued here, such patients have gradually subsided into a state of chronic and harmless but incurable imbecility, or even demen¬ tia. For these, to whom a life-long residence here is essential, full employment is found in the cultiva¬ tion of the gardens and grounds, and in no instance has the necessary liberty and confidence granted them been abused or found misplaced. The total absence of all coercion, and the unde¬ viating system of kindness and conciliation pursued for some years in this Asylum, and indeed in most others of recent date, have fully justified the benevo¬ lent efforts of those philanthropists who introduced these important considerations into the treatment of the insane; at times temporary seclusion from other patients during paroxysms of excitement may be not only necessary but even highly beneficial, Absence of Restraint.