On improving the condition of the insane. By an increased inspection of private asylums / by Henry Munro.

Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On improving the condition of the insane. By an increased inspection of private asylums / by Henry Munro. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    of the high position of their character as a body, and the experience in medical and legal matters which they indivi- dually possess. I need say no more on this subject, as I believe few would prefer the inspection of the provincial to that of the metropolitan districts. Upon the Additional Expense which this increase would occasion. The chief diflBculty which would be raised against an increase of the Board would no doubt be the additional ex- pense thence entaUed upon the country. Upon this head I would be sparing and cautious in my remarks; for, while I feel that a medical practitioner has not only a perfect right, bnt a direct call to express himself boldly on all matters which fall under his immediate notice (and perhaps under his notice alone), he has little right to make suggestions as to the fiscal aiTangements ot the legis- lature. The question of salaries, and of- the respectability and character which various amounts in salary can ensure, no doubt requires much and anxious consideration and experience. But if additional commissioners were enrolled, it is not, I presume, necessary that they should all hold equal rank, or rather that they all should have equal pay. The present stipend of our Com- missioners is well known to be on a very liberal scale. I do not say that it is a bad economy to have the highest officers in any department as highly paid as they are, but I see no reason why there should not be junioi*s as well as seniors, or why half the amount of the pi-esent stipend might not ensure the accession to the Board of some of the most res]>ectable members of the legal and medical profession, and of gentlemen of birth and position in society. The increase to the Commissioners’ Board which would be necessary to ensure a visit every month or three weeks would not bo so great as might at first sight appear. For, first, it must be remembered that what I ask for is, not an increased inspection of all asy- lums, but only of private asyliuns. Second, to make the visitation three or four times as frequent as it is at present would not entail throe or four times the amount of the work which the Board has at present on its hands; for the Commissioners have much to do besides visitation, for which the present Board might still 1)0 equal; while the addi- tional membere might give up their at- tention exclusively to visitation. But I have already said enough on this head. I feel that many injurious reflections may be raised against me for making even this allusion to the public purse in favour of what may seem to be a class interest. And certainly, if the pro])rietors were alone inte- rested in increased inspection, the sug- gestion would be simply absurd. But the public will and must think of the patients in this matter: they are a people touchingly dependent on their sane brethren for support; they are wandering in a region where but few rays of comfort and hope enter, and are borne along on a course which has no bright horizon of hope, such as tliat which generally dawns ou the elastic mind of the sane amid the greatest troubles. And yet they are brethren, borne along with us in the same vast river which is ever flowing towards the eternal ocean; their bitter cries rise up, mingled with our careless voices, from that broad stream towards the heavens above them, and botli the plaints of the one and the insensibility of the other are registered there.
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