Twenty-ninth annual report on the County Pauper Lunatic Asylum / Buckinghamshire County Pauper Lunatic Asylum.

  • St. John's Hospital (Stone, Buckinghamshire, England)
Date:
[1882]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Twenty-ninth annual report on the County Pauper Lunatic Asylum / Buckinghamshire County Pauper Lunatic Asylum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    a smell indicative of the escape of sewer gas into the building. We were sorry however, to observe that the waste pipes of Baths and Sinks are arranged on the imperfect system of discharging directly into the Sewer or into Soil Pipes instead of being carried outside the Building and discharging freely on Gratings, the communications of which with the Drains are properly trapped. Wre recommend the adoption of this system to the Committee. The soil pipes of the Water Closets are we understand, now properly ventilated, and to-day we noticed that the Closets of No. 14 Ward have been altered and improved. In all there appeared to be a good service of Water. Some of the Wards have been painted and repapered since the last inspection and work of this nature is now in progress. The Patients were remarkably quiet and free from excitement during our visit, and the only subject of complaint was detention in the Asylum, We regret to say that the vast majority of the present cases appear to us, as regards the prospect of recovery, to be very unfavourable. There are very many old and feeble cases here, but the general bodily health of the Patients is fair. Those under Special Medical Treatment are 13 Males and 27 Females, and there were to-day confined to bed 12 men and 8 women. As regards personal condition, we have to repeat a remark made in former entries, that on the whole the dress of the men was more tidy than that of the women, many of whom were even more untidy than their degraded mental condition and personal habits could, we think, excuse. A little variety might with advantage be introduced into the Materials and Colours of the Women’s dress. Inquiring into the use of Mechanical restraint and seclusion, we find that there has been no resort to the former, since the last visit, but that 3 Males have been secluded, on 10 occasions, for a total of 105J hours, and that 5 women have been similarly treated on 9 occasions, and for 49 hours. We saw the Patients at Dinner in their Wards, and were satisfied with the quality and amount of the Food supplied as well as with the variety