Report of the medical superintendent with the accounts of the treasurer of the Norfolk Lunatic Asylum, for the year 1874.

  • Norfolk Lunatic Asylum (Norfolk, England)
Date:
[1875?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the medical superintendent with the accounts of the treasurer of the Norfolk Lunatic Asylum, for the year 1874. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The attempts at escape have been unprecedentedly few ; one male patient however, succeeded in getting clear of the grounds, but was soon re-captured. The health of the patients continued remarkably good, until the last two weeks of December, when owing to almost Arctic Weather, many of the aged and infirm were attacked with Bronchitis and Pneumonia. There have been but 3 accidents requiring any notice, viz : one case of frac¬ ture of the neck of thigh, and 2 of dislocation of the shoulder. 1 am thankful to say, I have no death to record from suicide, although sever¬ al of the patients attempted self-destruction in various ways; these attempts however must be expected, in Asylums which always contain a proportion of patients in whom suicide is a fixed determination of the will, the all-absorbing subject of their thoughts, and object of their lives. One woman threw herself out of a window, and fell 30 feet, she sustained a serious contusion with concussion of the spine and brain ; for several days her life was in jeopardy, she however recovered from the injury and (as is not un¬ common in such cases) seemed mentally the better for it. A male epileptic died suddenly apparently from spasm of ihe glottis super¬ vening upon 2 fits, which he had in rapid succession ; this patient slept in an associated room, under the care of a special attendant, who was at his bed-side at the moment of the attack, and who being struck with its peculiarity sent for one of the Medical Officers, but it was then too late to perform tracheotomy; the patient being in articulo mortis. Had this man been visited, only, every hour as was formerly the practice, he would, in all probability, not have been seen alive ; and had his head been at all entangled in the clothes, as commonly happens, death would have been ascribed to “ suffocation during an Epileptic Seizure.” Post-mortem Examination, as a rule simply reveals a congested state of the Brain, and does not, therefore, help us much in such a doubtful case.