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 4642 paupers were thus distributed: In chartered asylums, 1511;
licensed houses, 426; poor-houses, 667; reported houses, 31; school for
idiots, 3; unlicensed houses, 6; with relatives, 1217; with strangers,
640; not under any care, 141; total, 4642.
The receptacles for the insane were thus distributed:--
A. Chartered asylums. The Royal Asylums at Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh,
Glasgow, Montrose; the Crichton Institution, Dumfries, including the
Southern Counties Asylum; James Murray's Royal Asylum, Perth.
B. Public asylums not incorporated. The only institution of the kind,
that of Elgin, was exclusively for paupers.
C. Poor-houses with separate wards for the insane (twelve given in the
table).
D. Prisons. The only one specially adapted for the reception of the
insane was the lunatic department of the general prison at Perth.
E. Poor-houses without separate wards for the insane (fourteen given).
F. Private asylums (twenty-three in number).
G. Private houses reported to the sheriff.
H. Houses of relatives and strangers.
I. Schools for idiots. Baldovan, near Dundee; and Gayfield Square,
Edinburgh.
This Commission did not report until 1857, and unhappily the evidence
more than justified the necessity of the appointment of the Committee,
and of a sweeping measure of reform. The difficulty in selecting
passages from the Report is to know where to stop. We shall restrict
ourselves within moderate bounds; and first let us cite the reference to
the condition of the insane and idiotic not in asylums. "It is obvious,"
says the Report, "that an appalling amount of misery prevails throughout
Scotland in this respect. When estimating the condition of the insane
not in establishments, it should be remembered that the details
furnished by us give only an imperfect representation of the true state
of matters. They form only a part of the picture of misery; and, had we
been able to extend our investigations, it would, we are convinced, have
assumed a much darker shade.
"A practice prevails in some workhouses, as in a few of the licensed
asylums, of fastening the hands behind the back, by which much
unnecessary pain is inflicted on the patient."
Of the methods employed in _asylums_ to repress violence, etc., the
Report thus speaks:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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