Twenty-sixth annual report of the Belfast District Hospital for the Insane Poor of the counties of Antrim and Down, and the county of the town of Carrickfergus : from the 1st April, 1855, to the 31st March, 1856.

  • Belfast District Hospital for the Insane.
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Twenty-sixth annual report of the Belfast District Hospital for the Insane Poor of the counties of Antrim and Down, and the county of the town of Carrickfergus : from the 1st April, 1855, to the 31st March, 1856. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the usual average. This matter, however, the Inspectors have promised to explain in their next official Report. To return, however, to the deaths of the last year, all, with one excep¬ tion, arose from causes quite usual in such an Institution as this. The largest number—viz., four (three males, one female), died of chronic diarrhcea, merging into dysentery; two of pulmonary disease (both females); three (one male, two females) of general debility, or, in other words, a gradual exhaustion of the vital powers, without manifesting marked symptoms of any diseased organ in particular; two (males) of scrofulous disease; two (males) of paralysis ; one (male) of dis¬ eased liver; one (do.) of epilepsy; one (do.) of apoplexy ; one (do.) of suicide; one (female) of lumbar abscess ; one (do.) of pulmonary hcemorrhage. The oldest, a female, in the above list, had reached the age of seventy, and had been an inmate between nineteen and twenty years. She was, throughout, harmless and controllable, and very industrious, but always under the unhappy delusion that she had committed a capital crime, for which she had been tried, found guilty, sentenced to death, and transmitted here for its execution, the carrying of which into effect she was in daily dread of, and daily, for a lengthened period, earnestly implored its being delayed. This hallucination never ceased to prey upon her mind, and for ■which no cause could be assigned. The next oldest, both in years (fifty) and inmateship (fifteen years), was a male, whose case, also, had some remarkable features. He conceived he had been placed in the house to fit himself, by an apprentice¬ ship of seven years, to be the “ Governor ” of the Establishment, and, accordingly, he was generally known by the name of the Governor,” a mode of address with which he was much pleased. When the term of his apprenticeship had expired, and “ the keys of the whole establishment,” to use his own words, were not given into his charge, he became restless and turbulent, and ultimately adopted an expedient which he conceived would obtain for him his rights, which was that of taking furtive op¬ portunities, under cover of the dark, of throwing stones against the windows of the “ Governor’s” house, and, by thus bringing