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394 INSANITY, PAST AND PRESENT.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
' « In The Last Number Of This Journal W...
that Lord Shaftesbury ( as CIiairnaarL of the Board of Commissioners in Lunacy ) stated , before the Select Committee of the House of
Commons in 1859 , that they ( the Commissioners ) were cognizant of _, and consequently only visited in the course of the year , 124
lunatics , residing as single patients . In reply to the question , " You do not know necessarily how many
houses there are with single patients ? " Lord Shaffcesbury said , " "We have no sufficient knowledge of that , and we have spent years and
years in endeavoring to learn it . I am certain that there are hundreds of persons , called single patients , of whom we have no
knowledge whatever ; and during the early periods of legislation single p atients "were hardly ever mentioned . By Act of Parliament , no one
was compelled to send a record to the secretary unless a patient was under his charge eleven months ; and we found this to be the
consequence , that they kept a patient under their charge for ten months or so , and then shifted him . to another house . "
" Do you think the single system an advantageous one for patients ? " " No ; it is in many instances the very worst and from
, the bottom of » my heart , I would advise anybody , if it should please Providence to afflict any member of his family , to send him or her
to a private asylum ; for if my own wife or daughter were so afflicted , and if I could not keep her in my own houseunder my own eye ,
, I would send her to a private asylum—to a good private asylum , because there are most remarkable examples of excellence and
comfort among them . So long as a patient is kept within the walls of his own houseunder the care of his wife ; or if it be a wife
under the charge of her , husband , I do not think that public _oj ) inion , is ripe for allowing any one to go into it . If relatives choose to
take charge of patients themselves , they are right , if it is necessary for their own happiness and comfort ; but if they put them under
the charge of another , then I think the law has a right to see that there is no undue power exercised over the personal liberty and
comfort of the sufferer . " It would far exceed our present limits were we to enter into the
vexed questions of public or private asylums , home nursing' or legal supervision ; all we want to enforce is , that when near relatives
neglect their suffering kindred , we cannot be surprised if some ' ofthose who make their living by taking care of the insaneneglect
their duty also . When parents , to obtain cheap schooling for , their children , send them to establishments of which we sometimes see
advertisements , where the most-liberal education can be had , with pocket money , no holidays , and all extras included ,, for some
ridiculously small sum , we cannot feel surprise if the model college be after the fashion of that which Dickens has so inimitably described . No
. one doubts that there are good schools , liberally and efficiently conducted . Can we find no parallel between the selection of a _, _school
for the education of our child , and that of a place of residence for
the restoration to health of a near relative ? We equally ask
394 Insanity, Past And Present.
394 INSANITY , PAST AND PRESENT .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Feb. 1, 1861, page 394, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01021861/page/34/
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