Twenty-fifth annual report of the medical superintendent of the lunatic asylum, for the counties of Salop and Montgomery, and for the borough of Wenlock, 1869 / [Salop and Montgomeryshire Counties Lunatic Asylum].

  • Salop and Montgomeryshire Counties Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Twenty-fifth annual report of the medical superintendent of the lunatic asylum, for the counties of Salop and Montgomery, and for the borough of Wenlock, 1869 / [Salop and Montgomeryshire Counties Lunatic Asylum]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    9/68 (page 9)
    And among the advantages enjoyed by this Asylum, we think it a not inconsiderable one that the Yisiting Magistrates should them-” selves he in the habit of giving an amount of personal care and attention to the wards, which cannot but have a beneficial effect on both inmates and officers. Since the last visit, in August 1868, 142 patients have been admitted, 67 males and 75 females; 79 have been discharged, 36 males and 43 females, of whom all hut 7 males and 8 females are entered as recovered; and there have been 55 deaths, 32 males and 23 females. Of these there was only one in which an inquest was thought necessary, a man having been admitted with a self- inflicted wound in the throat of which he died shortly after. The principal causes of the other deaths were general palsy, epilepsy, apoplexy, and other diseases of the brain, phthisis and disorders of the lungs and heart, and senile decay. The numbers on the books to-day are 230 males and 268 females, 498 patients altogether; of whom only one, a man now absent on leave, was not seen by us; and these leave 24 vacant beds, which we find upon enquiry not likely to be wholly occupied by county patients for one or even two years from this time. It might therefore be desirable, as well for advantage of the asylum as for relief of the present unexampled pressure, to offer them in the interim to out-county patients, or to persons somewhat above the condition of paupers who could pay above the pauper rate, and for whom there is so little available accommodation of any kind. The existing weekly charge to unions in the united counties is nine shillings and sevenpence half-penny. The records of employment continue to shew that some kind of work is found for all that are in any way capable of it, and that such as are wholly incapable of it do not comprize more than five and thirty of the men and seventy of the women. Putting aside the ward scrubbers and cleaners as 25 and 57 in the male and female divisions respectively, we find in the latter 87 at needlework, 33 in the laundry, and 20 in domestic offices; while in the former there are 43 employed in the ward sculleries and domestic offices, 30 in the shops, and as many as 98 are described as going out upon the land. Of these, however, there cannot be said to be more than 65 who do really useful work there; and this number, such as it is, might be employed upon it with more profitable result, as well to their own advantage as to the reduction of their cost of maintenance, if there were more land to cultivate. We repeat therefore the suggestion made with this view at the last and former visits ; and in further aid of the all-important subject of means of profitable employment, we again call attention to the inadequate size of the tailor’s shop, and to the bad lighting and ventilation both of this and the shoemaker’s.