Report of the Committee of Visitors of the County Lunatic Asylum, at the Epiphany Sessions, 1865 / [Hants County Lunatic Asylum].

  • Hampshire County Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
[1865?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Committee of Visitors of the County Lunatic Asylum, at the Epiphany Sessions, 1865 / [Hants County Lunatic Asylum]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/42 (page 6)
    High rate of Mortality. Alterations and additions. Your Committee are unable to offer any decided opinion as to the immediate causes of this high rate of mortality, but undoubtedly a considerable number of Patients have been admitted in a very feeble condition, and it is reported by the Superintendent that of the 163 Patients received during the year, no fewer than 73 were in a bad state of health, irrespective of mental disease. The Visitors are inclined to believe that the operation of the 21th and 25th Viet. c. 55, (to which reference was made in a former Report), by which the cost of maintenance of Pauper Lunatics is now charged on the common fund, has in a degree tended to produce the high per centage of mortality, as many feeble Patients are now sent to the Asylum who, before the passing of the Act, were either in Workhouses or in the custody of their friends. Although during the past year the Asylum has occasionally been much crowded, it has not been found necessary to call upon the Portsmouth Authorities to diminish the number of Patients belonging to that Borough, and which, as stated in the last Report, had been fixed at a maximum of 80 Pauper Lunatics. Your Committee beg to state, for the information of the Court, that the important and necessary alterations to the Domestic Offices and Store Rooms, which were sanctioned at the Easter Sessions, have been completed at a cost of £1157 :15 :1. These additions were found to be abso¬ lutely necessary for the proper management of the Esta¬ blishment, as the old Offices were altogether insufficient for the increased number of Patients. During the year your Committee have been obliged to paint the external iron and wood-work of the Asylum at a