Third annual report of the Cumberland & Westmorland Lunatic Asylum : 1864.

  • Cumberland and Westmorland Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Third annual report of the Cumberland & Westmorland Lunatic Asylum : 1864. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    10/48 (page 10)
    show how the actual business of life would affect him, for he had not been long permanently discharged before he again became insane. Pecuniary difficulties following his wife’s death had been the cause of his first attack of insanity, pecuniary difficulties alone sufficed to bring on a second attack. In several of the other cases the patients were discharged by the Committee for a fortnight on trial before they finally ceased to be patients here. If the Medical Officers of the Unions and Relieving Officers would see such cases and send them back, or send me word on any tendency to relapse when such cases are out on trial, it would be a very valuable means of testing the reality of a patient’s perfect recovery. The risks of a relapse to insanity are so great in almost all cases that I cannot too strongly urge on Relieving Officers and Guardians of the poor the necessity of placing patients in comfortable circumstances after they leave asylums. It is the most humane, and in the end will be found the most economical method of treating them. It is often a very difficult matter to say when a patient is fit for discharge. Insanity has very frequently a blunting and weakening effect on the mind after all the active symptoms have passed off, which makes it necessary to take into account the previous character and disposition of the patient before he can be pro¬ nounced sane. Among an agricultural population, many of whom are without education, and of primitive manners, the tests of sanity require to be of a different kind from what would be needed in a more intelligent and educated class. If a Cumberland ploughman looks heavy and stupid, never likes to wash himself or comb his hair, except on Sundays, wears his cap pulled over his eyes, and his vest unbuttoned, tells you that Carlisle is the chief town in England, talks incoherently about things in general, and knocks a very insane patient down because he thinks he is making faces at him and insulting him, it does not follow that there is anything in his appearance, conversation, or conduct, which indicates insanity, while in a first-class city mechanic those symptoms would undoubtedly indicate maniacal incoherence and excitement. I have often to make allowances of this kind in recommending patients for discharge. One-half the cases recovered had been in the Asylum under 4 months, and seven-eighths of them were under 50 years of age. DEATHS. The number of deaths this year has been greater than in the