Sixteenth report of the Derbyshire County Pauper Lunatic Asylum.

  • Derbyshire County Pauper Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
[1868?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sixteenth report of the Derbyshire County Pauper Lunatic Asylum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    a fact entitled to the grave consideration of every man who loves his country, or his kind. At the close of the year 1867 there were one hundred and seventy-three men, and one hundred and eighty-six females, or a total of three hundred and fifty-nine Lunatics in the Derby County Asylum. Since the opening of the Asylum in August, 1851, one thousand seven hundred and seventy Patients have been admitted, and of these six hundred and seventy-six have been discharged Cured ; and sixty-six Men, and eighty-one Women have been dis¬ charged—relieved, i.e., notwithstanding the very large proportion of Idiots and persons rendered hopelessly demented by epileptic fits, and by Paralysis, who have been admitted—[and who would have been regarded, as incurable, and therefore not admissible for treat¬ ment in Bethlehem Hospital, London]—and the still greater numbers who have from various causes, such as strong, instinctive parental feelings, or from pecuniary motives, been detained at home, or elsewhere during the more curative stages of the malady—- about 40 per cent, of all the cases admitted, have been discharged, Cured. In an elaborate article on Lunatic Asylums published in an Encyclopaedia some years ago, and giving a result of 10 years’ experience ending in 1845, the mean of cure was given as 21-26, although it embraced Bethlehem Hospital in the category where, all chronic, epileptic, and paralysed cases are excluded, and where cures consequently range high. The result achieved here, has, probably been achieved over a like extent of time in other Public Asylums, and it is most gratifying to feel that the great cost and cure which during the past twenty years have been bestowed upon the Insane, have met their reward in the restoration of nearly double the number, than heretofore, to health and sanity. Nine of the Patients admitted during the past }^ear were suffering from Epilepsy. This complaint almost always renders the mental disease incurable. The turbulence produced in the heart, the lungs, and the brain, during the convulsive attack, lays the foundation to per¬ manent organic change in the latter organ, and leads on to great fatuity and helplessness. These convulsive attacks are frequent in some individuals—no less than 569 seizures have been recorded a