Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British IslesTuke, Daniel Hack
History
Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles
Tuke, Daniel Hack
Mental health laws -- Great Britain; Mental illness -- Great Britain; Mentally ill -- Care; Psychiatric hospitals -- Great Britain
On the 11th of July, 1815, Mr. Rose brought up the Report of this
Committee. On moving that it be printed, he said that all who read the
Report must feel satisfied of the indispensable necessity of legislative
interference. The way in which lunatics were usually confined was that
of criminals, and their treatment was in general worse than the ordinary
treatment in jails. The number of persons appointed to take care of them
was in most cases utterly insufficient, in consequence of which the
greatest severity was too frequently resorted to.
The conclusions arrived at in this celebrated Report may be thus
summarized: That keepers of houses for the insane received a much
greater number of persons than they were calculated for, thus greatly
retarding their recovery; that the number of attendants being
insufficient, there was unavoidably a larger amount of restraint than
would otherwise be necessary; that outrageous patients were mixed with
the quiet and inoffensive; that there was an absence of medical
attention to the malady for which the patients were confined; that the
certificates on which patients were received into asylums were
insufficient, and that the visitation of private mad-houses was
defective.
The Report concluded that "some new provision of law is indispensably
necessary for ensuring better care being taken of insane persons, both
in England and Ireland, than they have hitherto experienced; the number
of whom appear to be very considerable, as the inquiries of the
Committee have convinced them that there are not in the country a set of
beings more immediately requiring the protection of the legislature than
the persons in this state, a very large proportion of whom are entirely
neglected by their relatives and friends. If the treatment of those in
the middling or in the lower classes of life shut up in hospitals,
private mad-houses, or parish workhouses, is looked at, your Committee
are persuaded that a case cannot be found where the necessity for a
remedy is more urgent."
The evidence taken before the Committee of 1815 was so full and
convincing that it would have seemed wholly unnecessary to have required
a further disclosure of the abuses rampant in the asylums of England,
but in consequence of the demand for further investigation before the
House of Commons committed itself to legislation, a mass of further
particulars was obtained in 1816 in regard to the state of various
institutions, including Bethlem Hospital and the York Asylum.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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