The eleventh annual report of the committee of visitors of the County Lunatic Asylum at Colney Hatch : January quarter session, 1862 / [Middlesex County Lunatic Asylum].

  • London (England). County Lunatic Asylum, Colney Hatch.
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The eleventh annual report of the committee of visitors of the County Lunatic Asylum at Colney Hatch : January quarter session, 1862 / [Middlesex County Lunatic Asylum]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    obtainable on the requisition of tbe Medical Superintendents. The practice of washing chamber-pots and offensive articles in the baths has been prohibited, and tubs have already been ordered to be provided for the purpose. Additional furni¬ ture, curtains, blinds, &c., are provided wherever it is made apparent to the Committee that the same are required. Hand-rails were recently put up experimentally, as to the best form for the purpose, and it is intended to provide them for the staircases in each department. Numerous Patients, and occasionally troublesome and violent ones, have been exchanged between the two Asylums during the last three years, and more especially during the past year. 'Ihe Female Attendants, so far as the Medical Superintendent advises, are allowed to take their meals in their Wards; but the Committee have not allowed them to do so as a general rule, in consequence of the confusion, want of due observ¬ ance of regular meal-times, waste, and irregularities which took place. The improved ventilation of the Wards, the colouring of the walls, and many other improvements and alterations, are being effected, with as much speed as the limited sum, specified by law as the extent to which Commit¬ tees of Visitors may incur expenses for such matters in each year, will allow the Visitors of this Asylum to proceed. The further employment of Male Patients in the different trades and handicrafts, and in the grounds, has been con¬ stantly urged upon the late Medical Superintendent of that department, and various indulgences, in the shape of dif¬ ferent clothing, tobacco, snuff, tea, &c., have been held out to induce the Patients so to employ themselves ; and the Com¬ mittee would be glad to find a larger proportion so engaged. They will impress this on the New Medical Superintendent, and they trust that an increase of employments may take place.