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
The estimated annual amount expended at this time for maintenance of
lunatics, or administered on their behalf, exceeded £750,000, thus
distributed:
1. Cost of 9652 paupers in asylums, estimated at
8s. per week £200,762
2. Ditto of 8986 paupers in workhouses, etc., and
173 in parishes not in union (9159),
estimated at 3s. per week 71,440
3. Ditto of excess of 3053 paupers over the number
returned by the parish officer 23,813
4. Ditto of 3574 private patients in asylums, etc.,
at an average of 20s. per week 173,628
5. Income of 542 private patients found lunatic by
inquisition 280,000
6. Cost of 606 patients in Bethlem and the naval
and military hospitals, estimated at 10s.
per week 50,756
7. Ditto of 120 other single patients taken charge
of in separate houses at £100 a year 12,000
8. Thirty-two criminals in jails, estimated at 3s.
per week 249
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Total £777,648
Adding the expense of maintaining many families cast upon the parish in
consequence of the patient's insanity, and the expense of supporting
many called imbecile, and the interest of large sums invested in public
establishments, the Commissioners estimated the actual amount as little
less than £1,000,000.
In the same Report the Commissioners observe "that they have found that,
with some exceptions, the patients have apparently been humanely, and
sometimes very judiciously treated. There is no reason to apprehend that
the lunatic patient is now often subjected to cruelty or
ill-treatment.... The massive bars, and rings, and chains of iron
formerly resorted to are no longer seen. Any continued coercion is not
permitted. The name of every patient under restraint and in seclusion,
and the means by which such seclusion is effected, are recorded every
week in a journal. Thus the safeguards against lunatic patients being
subjected to harsh or unnecessary restraint from the cruelty, idleness,
or caprice of their attendants, have been multiplied, and the chances of
abuse reduced to a small amount."
The number of lunatics placed under mechanical restraint in licensed
houses in this year is given in the following table, it being premised
that wherever the number is not specified, "it may be assumed either
that there was no patient then under restraint, or that the number was
so small, and the restraint so trivial, as not to be deemed worthy of
special remark."[185]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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