Report of the Committee of Visitors of the Lunatic Asylum for the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire : presented at the Epiphany quarter sessions for the respective ridings, 1855 together with the superintendent's eighth annual report, read at the Easter sessions, 1855 and an account of the receipts and payments to the end of the year, 1854 / North and East Ridings of Yorkshire Lunatic Asylum.

  • North and East Ridings of Yorkshire Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Committee of Visitors of the Lunatic Asylum for the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire : presented at the Epiphany quarter sessions for the respective ridings, 1855 together with the superintendent's eighth annual report, read at the Easter sessions, 1855 and an account of the receipts and payments to the end of the year, 1854 / North and East Ridings of Yorkshire Lunatic Asylum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    <r> O males aged respectively 56, 41, and 39, general palsy. 1 33 33 19, epilepsy. 1 }) 33 61, scrofula. O O 33 33 62, 57, 68, apoplexy. 1 33 33 69, gradual decay,—paraly¬ sis agitans. 1 33 33 63, Fistulous disease of rectum and urethra. 2 females 33 S3 and 48, epileptic convulsions. 1 33 33 46, epilepsy, asthma. 1 33 33 52, syncope. 1 33 33 38, general palsy. 1 33 33 32, palsy and phthisis. 1 33 33 63, mania,—very attenuat¬ ed on admission. 2 33 33 54 and 36, phthisis and scrofula of joints. 1 33 33 55, gradual exhaustion, scro- fula and erysipelas. The female aged 63 years, who died of Mania, was a very dis¬ tressing case. Her daughter is a patient here, the subject of recurrent Epileptic Mania, which continues for many days together producing perfect unconsciousness. The mother visited her daughter when passing through one of her paroxysms of insanity. On her requesting permission to see her, it was observed that she was herself excited and unnaturally anxious, as from several years’ experience of her daughter’s malady prior to her becoming a patient in the Asylum, she was familiar with the symptoms and nature of her disorder. An attempt was made to dissuade her from seeing the patient, hut without success ; and to soothe her anxieties an endeavour was also tried. The result was, she saw her daughter, who was in bed, lying without the power to notice any thing around her. The day after, the mother became furiously mad; her strength gave way; six days subsequently she was brought here by the parish authorities, and admitted as a patient, and in eight clays she expired. This poor woman’s history is alluded to, as it affords an instance of the necessity for cautiously regulating the visits of friends. That she wrould have been insane had she not seen her daughter I think is more than probable, from what her husband told me afterwards, and that she left her home in a state of Maniacal excite¬ ment, premonitory to the overthrow of her reason, is clear; but in how far the permission granted the mother to see her daughter accelerated death, is difficult to say. She was doubtless in a con¬ dition of nervous excitability wholly unfitting her, for both the journey from home and back, and the bedside visit to her daughter;