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
After these Acts had been in operation for eight years, it was found
that various amendments were needed, and in February, 1853, Lord St.
Leonards introduced, along with another Bill lessening the expense
arising out of lunacy inquisitions, one consolidating the laws
respecting asylums, and one amending Lord Shaftesbury's Act (c. 100).
They constitute the 16 and 17 Vict., c. 96 and c. 97.
The former, entitled "An Act to amend an Act passed in the ninth year
of Her Majesty 'for the Regulation of the Care and Treatment of
Lunatics,'" has reference mainly to private asylums and hospitals. The
same order and certificates which were required for admission into an
asylum were now necessary for single patients. It was enacted that
medical men should specify the facts upon which their opinion of a
patient's insanity was based, distinguishing those observed by
themselves from those communicated by others. Bethlem Hospital was by
the thirty-fifth section of this Act made subject to the provisions of
the Lunacy Acts.
The latter statute, entitled "An Act to Consolidate and Amend the Laws
for the Provision and Regulation of Lunatic Asylums for Counties and
Boroughs, and for the Maintenance and Care of Pauper Lunatics in England
and Wales," repealed the 8 and 9 Vict., c. 126; 9 and 10 Vict., c. 84;
and 10 and 11 Vict., c. 43. Many sections refer to the particular mode
of determining the manner in which an asylum shall be provided for the
paupers of a county and borough, whether for the county alone, or with
some other county or borough, or with the subscribers to any hospital,
or with the visiting committee of a county asylum for the joint use of
an existing asylum. The parish medical officer was directed to visit all
the paupers in it _every quarter_, whether in the workhouse or not, and
report to the guardians or overseer those who, in his judgment, might be
properly confined in an asylum. Thus the tendency of the Act was, in
this and other ways, calculated to add to the numbers under care, and,
therefore, to make the apparent increase of insanity greater. Three
classes of lunatics were contemplated by this Act, viz. pauper lunatics;
wandering lunatics, whether paupers or not; lunatics not paupers and not
wandering, who are cruelly treated or neglected. The Commissioners might
order the removal of a lunatic from an asylum, unless the medical
officer certified such patient to be dangerous; and the latter might be
overruled by the consent of two visiting justices to his discharge. A
large number of the sections of this Act provide in detail for the
settlement, etc., of pauper lunatics. Penalties were enacted in the
event of any superintendent or other officer of an asylum ill-treating
or neglecting a patient.[172]
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Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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