Eighty-second annual report of the directors of the Dundee Royal Asylum for Lunatics : submitted, in terms of their charter, to a general meeting of the directors, 16th June, 1902 with the reports of the medical superintendent and treasurer of the institution.

  • Dundee Royal Asylum for Lunatics.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Eighty-second annual report of the directors of the Dundee Royal Asylum for Lunatics : submitted, in terms of their charter, to a general meeting of the directors, 16th June, 1902 with the reports of the medical superintendent and treasurer of the institution. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    their friends, more or less improved, and taken home ; and 19 by Minutes of Parish Council to be boarded out in private families. A criminal patient, admitted from prison, was discharged on the expiry of his sentence and re-admitted on the pauper list, and two patients discharged themselves by escape. Three voluntary patients left the Institution after remaining for periods varying from 4 days to 3 months. 54 patients, 27 males and 27 females, have died. There remain therefore at the present date 173 males and 246 females—total 419, being 7 more than the corresponding number for last year. The advanced age of many on admission still continues a prominent feature, thus four were 66, two 68, one 70, one 71, two 72, one 73, two 75, and one 76 years old. Fifteen were brought to the Asylum from the Police Offices, seven from other Asylums, ten from the ordinary wards of Poorhouses, four from the Parochial Hospital, three from the Lunatic Wards of Poorhouses, nine from the Infirmary Wards, five from Prison, two from the Salvation Army Home, and one from Barry Camp. The proportion of recoveries calculated on the number of patients admitted is 27'34 per cent., while that of the deaths calculated on the whole number treated, 9*8 per cent. As is generally the case, the mortality has been chiefly among those recently admitted. In two instances however the patients had been for a long time in the Asylum. One of these was received on 20th December 1850 suffering from violent Epileptic Mania, the result of an injury to the skull and brain, and died on 4th January 1902, aged 81 years. He had thus been continuously resident for fully 52 years. For several years after admission he was subject to frequent paroxysms of dangerous excitement, but as time passed these became less violent and finally gradually subsided, the epileptic seizures also became less frequent and milder in character, and the patient developed into one of the most useful and agreeable members of our community. During the last few years the epileptic attacks appeared to have entirely