The Sixty-First Report of the Commissioners in Lunacy for England

Abstract

The report deals with the year ending December 31st, 1906. It begins with the good news that the increase in the number of certified insane is below the average. The total number of insane under certificate in England and Wales on January 1st, 1907, was 123·988, an increase for the year of 2009, and thus below the average increase for the last quinquennium (2655) and the last decennium (2462). Pauper patients constitute 91·2 per cent of the total number certified. Attention is again drawn to the increase of patients classified as “private” in county and borough asylums; this, it is explained, is largely due to the fact that a patient, whose friends pay the full maintenance rate, is not technically a “pauper,” but since county authorities are not bound to provide accommodation for private patients it is customary to make a higher charge for such patients for the capital expended on, and upkeep of, the building. The position is an anomalous one, as many counties have not room for their pauper patients, but have to find room for patients whose friends can pay the full maintenance, and, perhaps, something more. In a word, this increase of “private” patients in county asylums emphasises the necessity of the establishment of asylums where patients can be maintained at a figure slightly higher than the ordinary pauper rate.