Fortieth report of the resident physician of the Belfast District Hospital for the Insane of the county of Antrim, and the county of the town of Carrickfergus : from 1st April to 31st December, 1869.

Belfast District Hospital for the Insane.

Date:: 1869

Credit: Fortieth report of the resident physician of the Belfast District Hospital for the Insane of the county of Antrim, and the county of the town of Carrickfergus : from 1st April to 31st December, 1869. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$anxiously desired deliverance from this state of things at last came, but not until the month of October, when fifty pa¬ tients—the first contingent of those who were natives of the County Down—were enabled to be transferred to the new and well-planned establishment at Downpatrick, thus giving all in charge here a measure of relief which was most acceptable, and afforded no small satisfaction, as may be well conceived. A second contingent, to the same amount, was similarly dis¬ posed of—and a third also, after the lapse of two or three weeks; and, lastly, a fourth, of nine only, making altogether one hundred and fifty-nine (ninety-four males, sixty-five females) thus finally domiciled in their new quarters, and there located, without a single accident or misadventure of any kind occurring in their transit by railway and ’bus,—a circumstance which is deserving of special note, considering that there were not a few of a very turbuleut and refractory character, and who required the exercise of the greatest vigi¬ lance and tact in effecting their removal safely, and without recourse to even apparent coercive measures. It was trying to the last degree, when the hour of separation came, with a large portion of those transferred to Downpatrick, many of whom had been inmates here thirty-five, thirty, and twenty- five years and upwards, respectively, and who considered this to be their natural home; and that it was a great hardship, after spending a lifetime under the same roof, and where all were known to each other, to be thus turned out against their own will, or any fault of their own, as they earnestly pleaded. Some, in order to escape, as they fondly hoped, the contem¬ plated change of quarters, endeavoured to make it appear that they had been entered on the books in a wrong name, and from a wrong locality; others bid themselves, when the day of removal came, in secluded portions of the grounds; in fact, the expedients were innumerable which were had recourse to, in order to continue under “ the old yew-tree but, alas ! the decree had gone forth, and in the compulsory obeying of which “ lamentations, and mourning, and woe,” were written upon many a countenance. It should here be observed, that much credit is due$