The twenty-second report of the Committee of Visitors of the County Lunatic Asylum at Hanwell : January quarter sessions, 1867 / [Middlesex County Lunatic Asylum].

  • Middlesex Lunatic Asylum at Hanwell.
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The twenty-second report of the Committee of Visitors of the County Lunatic Asylum at Hanwell : January quarter sessions, 1867 / [Middlesex County Lunatic Asylum]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    48/112 (page 48)
    guage and example of some of the more intelligent Patients lias an injurious effect on those warded with them. I constantly hear the remark from others, “ I want my liberty, and then I will work or go to church as I please.” I am, however, glad that almost all the Patients who have recovered and were discharged have been regular in their attendance at all of our means of grace. It has been a cause of satisfaction to me that whatever has been the state of the weather our congregation has not been lessened by it. During the last year we have had more than an average number of wet and boisterous Sun¬ days ; but however inclement the weather, the aged and delicate, as well as the other Patients, have been able to get to the Chapel. On several Sundays it would have been almost impossible for the Patients to have gone a hundred yards through the open air without being wet through, and I suppose the medical men would not have allowed them to sit during the services in wet clothes. Indepen¬ dently of the religious question the moral effect on the Wards of a very large number of Patients being drafted off for a time is very important, for as none of the Patients are engaged in the shops or grounds as on the week-days, the crowded state of the Wards would be most trying; but happily on the wettest days we have had the average number of both sexes at each service. On the 20th of March, being the day appointed by the Lord Bishop of the Diocese as a day of Humiliation for the Cattle Plague, there were two full services in the Chapel, which were attended by large and devout congregations of the Patients and other Residents in the Institution. Although as Patients they are not affected by the vicissi¬ tudes which occur in the world outside, it seems to me