The Gheel question / by J. Mundy.

  • Mundy, Jaromir, Freiherr von, 1822-1894.
Date:
[1861]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Gheel question / by J. Mundy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    tion ? There is a general complaint all over Germany, which can be daily heard in the asylums, of the increasing lunatic popu- lation. Almost all German asylums are trying to increase their space by additional buildings. In almost all German States there are either new buildings for these purposes commenced or they are projected. In Austria alone, 5; in Prussia, 2; in Hanover, 1. It is not surprising, therefore, that this question should have been affirmed, but it is surprising that it should have been necessary to put it at all in face of these facts. It seems that the question has been raised chiefly as a basis to the following :—that this is a fact, not only in Germany, but all over the world. In Hol- land, the country we acknowledge as the model of our depart- ment, we find the great Schroder van der Ivolk at present occu- pied with the plan of a central asylum for all incurable cases, as the lunatic population in all asylums of Holland has “ increased” enormously. Belgium possesses fifty asylums, and only one Gheel; but all those in whose hands the management of this subject rests look to the latter, and are anxious to find a remedy by establishing a second Gheel in Ardennes. In France we find every year an iucrease of both private and imperial asylums for lunatics. Pmssia is much occupied at present with a complete reorganization of its asylums; such is also the case in Den- mark, Sweden, and Norway. Spain sanctioned a competition of the whole world to project a new model establishment near Madrid, and sent commissioners all over Europe, in order to gain information on the subject. Switzerland is now building new asylums. Italy and Portugal complain of their insufficient and antiquated arrangements, and are anxiously wishing to reform them. England, which formerly concentrated this branch too much, now seeks to separate it, and the lunatic physicians of Scotland personally acquainted themselves at Gheel with the principles necessary for the future organization of their own lunatic asylums* In the states out of Europe, including Turkey, which to this day remains indifferent as to the welfare of lunatics, we find, both in North and South America, only private asylums, large and small, and merely erected to gain money by their scientific arrangements. Grand new palaces (hotels garnies prisons) are daily established, which are called asylums. There are, however, some respectable institutions, and creditable excep- tions.!- Holland is trying, through the endeavours of the * The following Scottish physicians have visited Gheel :—Dr. Coxe (twice), Dr. Mitchell, and Dr. Sibbald, all three from Edinburgh. Dr. Coxe, one of the Commissioners in Lunacy, of that country, also published his views on Gheel in the jDaily Scotsman, September 5th and nth, October mb, 1857, and Asylum. Journal, April, 1858, p. 202. . t Defer to the Report of the Eastern Lunatic A si/lum, in the CUy of W illiamsburg, Virginia, 1858, pp. 56, 57. Richmond, printed by Bischeaud et Dunavant, 1857.