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
I wish to record here that, so far back as 1838, some of the Scotch
asylums were remarkable for the extent to which labour was introduced.
Being engaged in writing an introduction to Jacobi's work "On the
Construction of Asylums," the editor (Mr. S. Tuke) visited the asylums
of Scotland in that year, accompanied by Mr. Williams, the visiting
medical officer of the York Retreat, and found at Perth, Dundee, and
Aberdeen, the men's wards nearly empty, so large a proportion of their
inmates were in one way or other engaged in labour. "At Perth," he
writes, "more than twenty came in together to dinner from the labours of
the farm; others were employed in the garden and about the premises. At
Dundee at nine o'clock in the morning, out of fifty-seven men patients
of the lower class, twelve were engaged in stone-breaking, eight in
gardening, thirteen in weaving, one in tailoring, two as shoemakers,
whilst a few were engaged in the preparation of tow for spinning, and
several in the various services of the house. In the Aberdeen Asylum, in
which the labour system is extensively introduced, we were particularly
pleased with the state of the lowest class of women patients--chiefly in
an idiotic and demented state. All of these but one, and she was in a
state of temporary active mania, were employed in picking wool or some
other simple occupation. Indeed, in the three asylums which I have just
mentioned, the state of the lowest class of patients offers a striking
contrast to that in which they have been usually found in our asylums.
Those dismal-looking objects, cringing in the corners of the rooms or
squatting on the ground, almost lost to the human form, are here not to
be seen. I must not omit to mention that at Aberdeen the manager had
succeeded in inducing the higher class of patients to engage in
gardening, etc. At Glasgow the governors were contemplating arrangements
for the more extensive introduction of the labour system. In all these
asylums the superintendents expressed their decided conviction of the
benefit which, in a great variety of ways, was derived from the
employment of the patients, more especially in outdoor labour."
In connection with the Dundee and Glasgow asylums, the great services
rendered by Dr. McIntosh ought not to be forgotten, as also those of Dr.
Poole (Montrose), Dr. Malcolm (Perth), and Dr. Hutcheson (Gartnavel).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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