The thirty-ninth annual report of the visitors of the County Lunatic Asylum, Stafford : for the year ending December 31, 1857.

  • Staffordshire County Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
[1858]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The thirty-ninth annual report of the visitors of the County Lunatic Asylum, Stafford : for the year ending December 31, 1857. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    but the undoubted fact of lunatics being sometimes sent who had never previously been in the receipt of parish relief, readily explains the crowded state of the beds. Of the cases admitted, many have been far advanced in years, several being more than 70 years of age, and three or four even past 80. The derangement or loss of intellect, in several cases, has been found to result from the natural decay of the faculties in old age, and it is a question whether such harmless persons might not, with greater propriety, be retained in workhouses. The average of deaths has been 1 IT per cent, on the numbers under treatment, rather less than that of last year. In explanation of this apparent high rate of mortality, it must be remembered that in very many of the admissions, the patients had been declared incu¬ rable previous to being sent to the Asylum; whilst others have with difficulty been conveyed there, from the progress that bodily disease had already made. Acting upon the recommendation of the Commis¬ sioners of Lunacy, and well aware of the exhausting nature of insanity, we have increased the dietary scale ; and the amount of animal food now supplied weekly, namely, thirty ounces of meat cooked and free from bone, has proved of service in maintaining the health of the patients. Notwithstanding the increased charges necessarily incurred in provisions, we have been enabled, by careful attention to the general expenditure, and by the observance of due economy, to reduce the charge to the different unions, from 8s. 2d. to 7s 9d. per week, at which rate it now stands. To obviate the necessity for the enlargement of the present building—a question which must shortly be brought before this Court, should the fresh admissions