Report of the Committee of Visitors of the County of Warwick Pauper Lunatic Asylum : 1859.

  • County of Warwick Pauper Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
[1860?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Committee of Visitors of the County of Warwick Pauper Lunatic Asylum : 1859. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    3 with epilepsy, are among those presenting the smallest probability of recovery ; on the contrary, their tendency is slowly to degenerate, so that the epileptics in Asylums, instead of being improperly confined there, have to take their position, ultimately, if not immediately, among those affected with the worst forms of mental disorder. Of the maniacal, they are the most dangerous; of the demented, the most lost; of the idiots, the most debased. Fourteen of them have been admitted here in the past year; and the whole number of epileptics now in the Asylum is forty-seven, viz., twenty-nine males and eighteen females. Of the deaths during the year, eight were occasioned by general paralysis ; three by apoplexy; four by chronic disorganization of the brain, with or without convulsions ; eight by general decay and old age; four by exhausting mania; five by consumption; one by carbuncle; one by chronic asthma; and one by mesenteric disease. It is satisfactory to be able to state that, from the opening of the Asylum, I have not had to record a death by suicide. There have been periodic variations in the general health of the patients, but only similar to those experienced in the community at large; and we have throughout the year enjoyed an immunity from anything beyond the ordinary average of sickness. In the case of an old man with extensive and dangerous car¬ buncle, and who persisted in tearing off all dressings, I found it necessary to restrain the hands with a handkerchief, as his inter¬ ference with the wound endangered life. This restraint was required for only about two hours—as, finding the irksomeness of it, and how easily he was defeated in his object, lie promised no longer to interfere with the dressings, and kept his word. There are no advocates for the treatment of the insane in Asylums without mechanical restraint who do not recognise the occasional necessity for its appliance in surgical cases. In general management and discipline there has been no devia¬ tion from the practice of former years ; and the occupations and amuse¬ ments have been much as before recorded, and with similar results. In their detail, the only novel subject meriting notice has been the