Second annual report of the Suffolk Lunatic Asylum : December, 1839.

  • Suffolk Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Second annual report of the Suffolk Lunatic Asylum : December, 1839. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    greatest integrity of intention, or the utmost energy of effort, it would be well if a regular interchange of such Reports could be effected amongst those to whom practical suggestions must ever be valuable. It will be the object, in future, as far as possible, to secure this, that a profitable result may be obtained, not from in¬ dividual only, but from combined observation. The published investigations on the later, and the better, or perhaps the best, regulated Institutions, lead to conclusions so entirely in accordance with the opinion held for more than twenty years, and invariably expressed in regard to our inmates here, that they encourage a hope that before long, we shall see in all our Lunatic Asylums, as the test of good management, the NO-RESTRAINT PRINCIPLE entirely car¬ ried out—constant employment actively promoted —and a liberal diet universally secured. The cases of admission, where the cause of the disturbance may be traced to some exhausting process, are very many; and a generous diet acts upon such, as a more certain specific, than ever Mercury did in Syphilis, or Bark and Arsenic in Intermittent Fever. More solid food, and better beer, are required in winter than in summer, to counteract that languid circulation which is the