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    8 INSANITY; ITS CAUSE AND CURE.

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    • __ -«©> . , .. ,^ Y V'. • I "We Are Al...

    workhouses in England and Wales , somewhat more than a tenth are provided with separate lunatic and idiot wardsand these are

    , ill utterl -suited comfortless to the purpose in , som -generall e inst y ances . gloomy ther , ill e -ventilated being" no , t small ables , and the

    patients y are compelled ; to take their meals upon their knees . , The supervision is altogether defective . In most cases , indeed , a pauper

    inmate is the person entrusted with the sole charge of the lunatics . These defects carry with them an almost necessary large adherence

    to mechanical coercion : in itself a sure and certain test of utter lector of inadequate means of treatment . < How sad is the

    conneg dition , of the poor creatures , often incapable of giving correct statements or preferring any complaint however just , or of making

    any want known . " Those who suffer most , " says this blue book , " are often the least laining . In a recent case of semi-starvation

    at the Bath Union comp when the frauds very and thefts of some of the attendants hadfor a , considerable timesystematically deprived the

    patients laint of made , a full was half b of the their wan ordinary and wasted , allowance looks of of the food inm , the ates onl . y " y

    The comp melancholic and taciturn especially , when ( as is often the case ) tlieir hysical condition is enfeebled blong privationremain quietly

    suffering p until their malady becomes y confirmed , and incurable . Placed in loomy and comfortless roomsdeprived of free exercise in

    the restoration open air g , they , and pass wanting their substantial lives in a mood nutriment , y , listless sufficient , unhealth to promote y ,

    inactive state , fatal to their chance of ultimate recovery . The insane require both warmer clothing and more nourishing food than are

    supplied in workhouses , not only for promoting the recovery of those who are curable , but also for checking the tendency to waste and

    deterioration of the body which _frequently attends the disorder in its chronic form " Hence it is" the report " that when the

    necessity has presented . itself , , which says unhappily , of late has very frequently occurred from the over-crowded state of the public asylums ,

    to remove chronic cases of insanity from the latter in order to make room for cases more recent and curablethe immediate change in

    diet to which patients so removed have been , subjected , has proved to "be the chief cause of the marked deterioration in their condition

    which has been found to occur . This deterioration is not confined to Restraint quite bodil tractable y health and solitary and alone harmless ; confinement but p , h atients ave soon is who als become o whilst extensivel irritable in the y asy practised and lum violent were in .

    workhouses for want _, of sufficient superintendence . Especial injury and injustice is done to patients recently afflicted . The want of

    early and proper treatment mainly tends to fill our county asylums with How hopeless great is chronic the debt cases which . " humanity owes to those who have

    vindicated , and are still vindicating * , the character of the divine Author of our being , and the majesty and universality of those laws

    by which he governs his moral offspring : to those who have

    8 Insanity; Its Cause And Cure.

    8 INSANITY ; ITS CAUSE AND CURE .

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Sept. 1, 1859, page 8, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01091859/page/8/