Report of the Committee of Visitors of the Lunatic Asylum for the City and County of Bristol, together with the reports of the medical superintendent & chaplain / Bristol Lunatic Asylum.

  • Bristol Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Committee of Visitors of the Lunatic Asylum for the City and County of Bristol, together with the reports of the medical superintendent & chaplain / Bristol Lunatic Asylum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    5/46 (page 9)
    OF THE Visiting Commissioners in Lunacy, Bristol Borough Asylum, November 3rd, 1882. There are on the books of this Asylum 425 patients; at the last visit 400 was the number. We find there is now vacant accom¬ modation on the male side for 11 patients, but in the female divis¬ ion the patients are 7 in excess of the proper number. In these circumstances the question of providing increased accommodation is pressing, and ought not to be delayed. We trust, however, that any scheme for extension of the buildings will also include the purchase of additional land. The airing courts are now crowded, and the laundry drying ground is too small even for the present population here, and we are decidedly of opinion that no increase of patients ought to be permitted unless more land be obtained. The work of the laundry even with the present numbers is, as we should think, carried on with diffi¬ culty ; there is no machinery, all washing is done by hand, and the foul linen is washed in the same room with the dirty clothes. The dirty linen also is left in the bath rooms till taken to the laundry, as there is no proper place in which it can be placed. With the exception of one man absent on leave, we have seen all the patients, and listened to their grievances and complaints. The majority of the patients were quiet and orderly, and were neatly dressed. The Head Male Attendant