The annual report of the Dorset County Lunatic Asylums, Charminster and Forston, for the year 1869.

  • Dorset County Lunatic Asylum (Charminster, England)
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The annual report of the Dorset County Lunatic Asylums, Charminster and Forston, for the year 1869. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    well-being of the Patients by reading to them and inducing them to employ themselves. The agreement for the maintenance and care of the Oxford and Berkshire Patients will expire on the 29th Sep¬ tember next. That for the Abergavenny Patients has been renewed till 30th June, 1871, and for the Poole Patients till 25th March, 1872. The charge for each Patient under these renewed agreements is 12s. per week. The only material outlay made upon the buildings of either Asylum in the past year, besides the alterations for the Chaplain’s Residence in the old Mansion House, ordered in the year previous, has been a new boiler at the Forston Asylum, contracted for by Messrs. Hick, of Bolton, at the sum of £116, and the setting, Ac., contracted for bv Mr. Gregory for £53 6s. The two Asylums were visited by two of the Commis¬ sioners on the 27th and 28th of April last. In their minute they speak of many alterations and improvements having been made, chiefly in pursuance of suggestions offered by the Commissioners in their visit of the previous year. The chief matters in the condition and arrangement of the Asylums to which they made objection were the quality of the diet for dinner on one day of the week, and the circular windows in the dormitories, and the want of some simple decorations and objects of interest, with more furniture of a domestic kind in the wards of the Forston Asylum. With regard to the former the Visitors are not of opinion that the dietary should be altered, as there is only one soup dinner in the week, and the dietary table has been acted on now for many years with the very best results, as shown in the uniformly good health of the patients. With regard to the second re¬ commendation, the Visitors do not see that any material advantage would be gained by substituting square for round windows in the dormitories; but they have, in accordance with the suggestions of the Commissioners, introduced more tables