Seventh annual report of the county and city of Worcester Pauper Lunatic Asylum.

  • Worcester Pauper Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Seventh annual report of the county and city of Worcester Pauper Lunatic Asylum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    0 his duties and has performed them to the present time, but is now leaving. Two of the Commissioners in Lunacy visited the Asylum on the 19th March last, and made the following Report:— “ Worcester Asylum, “ 19th March, 1859. “We find that there are now on the hooks of this Institution 171 male, and 180 female Patients; of these, 4 females are at present absent on leave. We have personally examined every Patient in the Asylum, and have inspected the various galleries, day-rooms, dormitories, and the general offices. “ At the time of our visit the Patients were remarkably free from maniacal excitement, and we found no one secluded or restrained. “ The instances of seclusion appear to have been rare, and restraint has not been resorted to, on any occasion. “ In the Infirmaries we observed a considerable number of very feeble cases, but the ordinary inmates were in good bodily health, and no disease of an epidemic character prevails. “ On the women's side, although the difference in the numbers of the Patients of either sex is not great, the wards are over¬ crowded, and the beds in many of the dormitories are too close together. We find that the cause of this crowding is, that several rooms on the women’s side are used for domestic purposes. “ The female Infirmary is on the second story, and many of the invalids have no opportunity of taking exercise in the open air, because they are too feeble to descend the two flights of stairs leading to the airing courts. “ In these circumstances, we think that the time has arrived, when the Committee of Visitors should take into their considera¬ tion the best mode of again enlarging the building. On the women’s side this might be effected by the erection of a new and more suitable Infirmary, and by constructing simple day-rooms