Report of the Committee of Visitors of the Lunatic Asylum for the City and County of Bristol, as presented to the Town Council on the first January, 1865, together with the reports of the medical superintendent and chaplain / Bristol Lunatic Asylum.

  • Bristol Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Committee of Visitors of the Lunatic Asylum for the City and County of Bristol, as presented to the Town Council on the first January, 1865, together with the reports of the medical superintendent and chaplain / Bristol Lunatic Asylum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    aspect of warmth and comfort to the rooms. As the work has been executed entirely by patients, the expense is limited to the cost of the materials. All the dormitory windows, as well as those of the Infirmary day-rooms have been fitted with cornices, and valances of various coloured materials, and the floors of all the dormitories pro¬ vided with strips of carpeting. Plaster figurettes have been placed on the brackets already fixed on the walls of corridors and day>* rooms.* Comfortable arm chairs have been distributed throughout the Asylum, and the walls are gradually being ornamented with framed coloured prints; the so called refractory wards receiving equal attention to those occupied by the more tranquil inmates. The Superintendent suggests that papering the dormitories will give them a more comfortable appearance, and be more economical than the colouring now in use, which requires frequent renewal, and^ffect^of a^mos^ unprecedented drought of the season was as distressing the dry season, to this Establishment as to the country in general. The ordinary sources of water began to fail early in the Summon, and for many weeks the Asylum was compelled to submit to a scanty and quite insufficient supply of water, derived from a quarry in the neigh¬ bourhood, and brought in carts at a heavy cost; yet the period of drought has not been an unmixed evil. The necessity of providing an adequate supply of water, permanent at all seasons, and unfailing under all atmospheric conditions, has been so cogently enforced by the inconveniences, discomforts, and dangers also, in the event of fire, that every plan and source available for preventing a deficiency of water in future have been laboriously investigated by your New source of Committee, and it is believed with complete success. Application supply. wjq pe maqe to the Secretary of State for his sanction to purchase six acres of land, extending the whole length of the North boundary * of the grounds of the Asylum to the river Eroom. A tank has been sunk in this valley, from which about 5,000 gallons of water per diem are pumped by means of a small steam engine to the higher level of the original cistern. This extra supply of water from the