Some observations respecting the management of the Pauper Lunatic Asylum, at Wakefield / by C. Crowther.

Date:
1830
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Some observations respecting the management of the Pauper Lunatic Asylum, at Wakefield / by C. Crowther. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    after a patient has become sane, generally produces a relapse of derangement. 1 have seen an instance where toothache has produced this effect. Few practitioners in this country have been more successful in curing the deranged than Dr. Willis and his family. From a perusal of the account of his medical practice published by his nephew, and a personal examination of patients who have been under his care, I am convinced that no physician has given larger quantities of medicine in insane cases than he has. Supposing, however, that all argument and reasoning on this subjectshould be put aside; there is one glaring fact, which unquestionably proves the point in question, namely the immense disparity in the number of cures effected in Madhouses, conducted by medical men, compared with the cures effected in those, which have not the advantage of medi- cal superintendence. This disparity in favor of medical treat- ment is equally as great on the continent as it is in this country. On my appointment as one of the Physicians to the Asylum, I was presented with a set of rules, intended, as I supposed, for the government of the institution,—these have been altered at the suggestion of the Director, and notwith- standing that alteration, have frequently been departed from by liim, more especially in the giving of articles of diet not allowed in the diet table. In the management of a public hospital, it is better to have no rules than to suffer them unhesitatingly to be transgressed. The yeast dumplings added to the diet table in the altera- tions made some years ago, were a real improvement to it, but no physician who has attended to the influence of diet or disease, would order an hospital of invalids to be fed on meat pies, or what is still worse, on pork or bacon, which, however, form no part of the diet table. It has been asserted, that these indigestible articles have only been given to such male patients as were well, that is, to such as were not taking medicine : but a great number of these patients who are called well, labour under chronic diseases of the brain and other organs, and are, therefore, unfit to be fed on food that is difficult of digestion. When improper food is given by pounds, and medicine to counteract disease by grains, it is veiy easy to predict which will preponderate. If any Magistrate interested in the welfare of the Asylum will, either alone, or accompanied by, a scientific hospital *