Report of the medical officers of the Lunatic Asylum for the County of Lancaster : instituted 28th July 1816 1841.

  • Lancaster County Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
1841
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the medical officers of the Lunatic Asylum for the County of Lancaster : instituted 28th July 1816 1841. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    lately appeared, on the subject of restraint, in the medical journals, a strong tendency to division has unfortunately manifested itself amongst those engaged in the treatment of the insane; one party boldly asserting that in no case whatever is mechanical restraint ever necessary, the other as warmly supporting opposite views. With whatever favourable opinions your Medical Officers may be impressed as to the value of the system of non-restraint, they are not with their present amount of experience prepared to assert that every case of insanity ought to be so treated. Laxd. —Your Medical Officers would beg most earnestly to call your at¬ tention to the o-reat difficulties the'institution is labouring under from a want of airing-courts. To many of you it may be a matter of great surprise to learn that the area of the whole building, including all the present airing- yards, is as denseley populated as the most crowded parts of London. Your Officers are well aware of the strenuous exertions your various committees have made, from time to time, to remedy this defect: and, although they deeply regret your inability to accomplish this desirable object, they never¬ theless feel it incumbent on them to urge you to renewed exertions ; feeling persuaded that until accomplished your establishment will never be perfect, that all their plans of classification will be thwarted, that they cannot afford the patients the air and exercise which are absolutely necessary-and, in short, that they are placed in such a position as to be utterly incapable of putting into practice those means which they consider essential to the treatment and general comfort of the patients. To such of the magistrates as are not ac¬ quainted with the locality of the County Asylum the anomalous position in which the establishment is placed, will forcibly occur when they are informed that there are several hundred acres of waste or common land, adjoining the boundary walls of the institution, which at present yield no pecuniary benefit whatever to the parties claiming a right in the common. Nevertheless difficulties of no ordinary character have occurred with one of the parties so interested: but your Officers earnestly hope, that, on a renewed application, the common dictates of humanity alone will yet induce all concerned to aid in relieving them from their present difficulties, and lead them to act in that liberal and generous spirit which usually results on an appeal in behalf of our suffering fellow creatures. At present the few airing courts we possess are immediately contiguous to the main building on the slope of the hill towards the institution, and