Twenty-sixth report of the Derbyshire County Pauper Lunatic Asylum : for the year 1877.

  • Derbyshire County Pauper Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
[1878?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Twenty-sixth report of the Derbyshire County Pauper Lunatic Asylum : for the year 1877. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the advisability of avoiding delay in transmitting Patients to the Asylum. With reference to the principal causes of insanity in those admitted, Table X will show that hereditary predisposition was ascertained in 16 per cent., the same proportion as in 1876 ; and intemperance was assigned as the cause in 14 per cent., a much smaller proportion than the previous year, in which it was 24 per cent. Discharges.—106 patients have been discharged, of whom 64 were discharged recovered ; and 42 were discharged to the care of their friends, to other Asylums, and to Workhouses, which shows a considerable increase in the number thus discharged compared with 1876, when the number was only 13. During the past year the Committee have readily facilitated the discharge of suitable cases, although not recovered, to the care of their friends ; and in order to relieve the pressure for room many Chronic and Imbecile Patients have been removed to Workhouses and to other Asjdums. The Recoveries (exclusive of those discharged relieved) are at the rate of 36’5 per cent, on the Admissions (32 per cent, for Men, and 43-4 per cent, for Women), which is 5 per cent, lower than in 1876, but still slightly above the average rate of County and Borough Asylums. The diminished recovery-rate is due, as already explained, to the very unfavourable class of cases admitted. The average recovery-rate in this Asylum for a period of 26 years, from its opening in 1851 to 1877 inclusive, is 39-84 per cent, on the Admissions. The average recovery-rate in County and Borough Asylums for 18 years, from 1859 to 1876, is 35’67 per cent, on the Admissions, as given in the last published Report of the Commissioners in Lunacy for 1876. Amongst the discharges of the year there are two cases, char¬ acteristic examples of the class termed dipsomaniacs, for whom an ordinary asylum is not the best place, and whose case the law at pre*