On the state of lunacy and the legal provision for the insane : with observations on the construction and organization of asylums.

  • Arlidge, John Thomas.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the state of lunacy and the legal provision for the insane : with observations on the construction and organization of asylums. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    be carried out by the Committees of Asylums. The scheme of separately providing for many chronic lunatics has also received the valued support of Dr. Boyd (Seventh Report, Somerset Asy- lum, p. 10), who appears to contemplate the erection of the pro- posed building contiguous to the existing asylum, so as to make use of the patients' labour in preparing stone and lime, and in doing all the heavy part of the work/' and to unite the two establishments under a common administration and commissariat, as a plan attended with considerable economical advantages. We do not deem it necessary to quote other authorities at large, in support of the system advocated; otherwise we might adduce many continental writers, especially among the Germans. It is fair to add, however, that in France generally mixed asy- lums are the rule, and that a few of these contain five or six hundred inmates, but none, we are happy to say, have acquired the prodigious dimensions of several of our English asylums. Moreover, the French system is to erect a number of detached buildings, or sections within the general area of the establish- ment, adapted to the different classes of the insane, according to the character of their disease, or to their condition as pensioners or paupers. We cannot here discuss the advantages or disad- vantages of this plan, but it certainly obviates some of the evils of aggregation evidenced in English asylums, consisting of one continuous structure. It has just been said, that in no French asylum are so many lunatics congregated as in some English in- stitutions ; yet it is true, that the great Parisian hospices contain similar numbers; for instance, La Salpetriere holds as many as 1300; but in this case the arrangement is such, that each of the five sections it is divided into, constitutes practically a distinct hospital for the insane, structurally separated, or quite detached; with subordinate quarters or sections, to provide for a proper classification of the inmates, and having its own grounds for ex- ercise, &c, and its own medical staff. Thus, to the 1300 patients there are five physicians, having equal power and privileges, each one the head of his own section. We would not in any way adduce this extensive Parisian hospice as an example to follow, either in structure or organization; and have alluded to it in so many words only to show, that though equally large in its population, it is comparable in no other respect to the huge receptacles for the insane to be found in this country. Of the prevailing system in Germany we shall presently find occasion to speak. Lastly, the 8th & 9th Vict. cap. 126, gave express powers to provide for the chronic insane in distinct establishments; in order, according to the marginal abstract to sect, xxvii., to prevent exclusion from asylums of curable lunatics; separate provision