Seventeenth report of the Derbyshire County Pauper Lunatic Asylum.

  • Derbyshire County Pauper Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
[1869?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

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

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    stages of Insanity. In five of the admitted cases the mental imbecility was cotemporaneous with a failure of the bodily powers through age, an epoch varying in Individuals according to constitu¬ tional peculiarities, but occurring, as an average in the above five cases in the seventy-third year of the Individual Life. Thirteen of the cases admitted were in various stages of General Paresis, and Softening of the Brain, and exhibited unequi¬ vocal symptoms of approaching death ; two Patients were brought Buffering from acute and advanced inflammation of the Brain, and died in a few days after admission. Two were suffering from (traumatic) Erysipelas and Injuries, the consequence of falls—one from jumping from a window, the other from being thrown from a gig, while in a state of intoxication ; the latter Patient was brought from Chesterfield in the railway train, and from Derby in a cab. It was a cold day, the inflamed scalp and face had been protected partially by a dusting of flour, but such a journey was necessarily mischievous. This Patient died in sixteen days. In the above cases, a Coroner’s Inquest was held, and the Coroner felt it to be his duty in one instance, to bring some of the statements elicited from the friends of the Patient, before the notice of the Guardians of the Union, from which the Patient had been sent. Very few recent cases have been received. Investigation usually proves that the Patients have been ill for much longer periods, than are stated in the Certificates; the Relieving Officers dating the origin of the malady from the time their attention has been drawn to the case or, from the outburst of some violent act. In every Annual Report the importance of early treatment has been strongly urged. The probability of cure diminishes with each day’s delay. Changes take place rapidly in the highly-organised brain, and are effected by the moral and intellectual excitements to which the Patient is exposed when under unskilled management. Every principle of charity, as well as the dictates of common prudence urge the immediate removal of the sufferer to an appropriate Hospital. There has been during the past three or four years an increase in the numbers of admissions of Imbeciles and Idiots from Union