Lunatic Asylum 1904 - 1919

Eventually an extension was built including, also in the old buildings, a new heating system, electric lighting, a new sewage system and a new water supply. The building work incorporated a new dining hall opened in 1904.

The visiting commissioners, each year, monitored the food being served to the patients and regularly found it to be of good quality with liberal servings. Certainly it was a far better diet than many received at home.

Since the asylum opened the pauper patients were provided with an allowance of beer, but by 1879 the allowance stopped except during harvest and some seasonal occasions.

Patients, despite the label ‘pauper lunatic’, were drawn from a cross-section of occupational backgrounds as can be seen by the close correspondence of the backgrounds of the inmates to the occupational census for that year. Ill health very quickly reduces the victim to the status of ‘pauper’, and anyone with a mental illness receiving partial financial support from the state was labelled ‘pauper lunatic’ under the terms of the 1890 Lunacy Act.

Time and again, over the years, many patients were admitted following dramatic and obsessive expressions of religious beliefs, but during 1904-5 a remarkable wave of religious enthusiasm swept across Wales, with revivalist hymn singers touring the country, filling the chapels with worshipers and new converts. The movement reached a peak, but collapsed as quickly as it had burst forth, leaving in its wake many disturbed casualties. In 1905 Dr, Cox reported that ‘early in the year an exceptional number of patients were admitted suffering from religious mania attributed to religious fervour due to the Revivalist movements’.

Exctacts from the 'North Wales Guardian' December 1908
North Wales Counties Lunatic Asylum, Denbigh

  

‘The care and possible cure of the mentally afflicted is a problem that has occupied the most serious attention of medical experts, scientists, and public authorities, for many years. There seems an idea that insanity is greatly on the increase, probably because there are now more inmates in asylums than was formerly the case. But this may be accounted for by the natural increase in population, and even more so by the fact that mild forms of idiocy and insanity were formerly treated at home - or probably were not treated at all - whereas they are now very properly drafted into our asylums. In a word, the standard of lunacy has been greatly lowered during recent years.

It was recently my privilege to visit the North Wales Counties Lunatic Asylum at Denbigh, which provides accommodation for lunatic patients from the counties of Denbigh, Flint, Anglesey, Carnarvon, and Merioneth. It is a large institution, containing nearly 900 patients, to attend upon whom there is a staff of over 100 persons, including three qualified resident doctors.

Dr. Llewelyn F. Cox.M.R.C.S., is the Superintendant; Dr. W.W.Herbert, M.D., C.M., first assistant; and Dr. Frank G. Jones, M.D., C.M., second assistant. The inmates are mostly drawn from the pauper classes, but private patients are also received, and they have accommodation apart from the ordinary inmates. At present there are about sixty of these private patients.

It is interesting to note that the asylum has grown to its present large dimensions out of a small beginning; intended for 200 patients. The institution is self-contained - almost everything required is done within its environment. Thus it manufactures its own electric light, it has its own pure and wholesome water supply, drawn from Llyn Bran, eight miles away; and its farm of over one hundred acres supplies much of the food required, both vegetable and animal.

I was taken round the institution by Dr. Herbert, who proved a most efficient and entertaining guide. He is evidently on the best of terms with the inmates, and one or two quaint little episodes occurred which showed that tact and kindness are distinguishing features on the part of the staff in their care of the unfortunate people under their charge. Those who have friends or relatives in the institution may rest assured that they are kindly and humanely treated, their individual cases receiving the best of attention, and every means taken to affect a cure where there is the slightest ground for hope. I was so struck with everything I saw that I feel I can write nothing but praise with regard thereto. Over sixty per cent. of the male patients are usefully employed in various ways, and thus have an object in life, which is found of the greatest service in the efforts towards cure. This is particularly the case of those male patients who are able to labour outdoors; many of them evidently take great pride in their work. Of the women, the percentage employed is slightly less than in the case of the men, but a great number perform housework and laundry work, and many of them agreeably pass a portion of their time in needlework. Exercise is regularly taken in a spacious (enclosed) airing courts whilst about one-third are allowed to walk out weekly beyond the Asylum estate. Physical recreation is also encouraged, and provision is made for football, cricket, tennis, bowling, etc.

Weekly entertainment is much looked forward to by both patients and attendants, and proves a most welcome break in the routine. The dances in particular are very popular functions, and a stranger looking on would probably have no conception of the real character of the gathering. For these dances and entertainments a large dining hall is utilised, with a capital platform and handsome proscenium and drop curtain.

The social side of life is regarded as important, and everything possible is done to interest the patients. Occasionally an entertainment is thrown open to the public, and several pounds taken at the doors.'

When a pauper patient is discharged, he or she receives a grant from a fund founded in memory of the late Mr. Ablett, sufficient for maintenance until employment is obtained.

Dr. Cox concluded, after careful investigation, that in the majority of cases there was obvious evidence of heredity predisposition to insanity.

This belief remained paramount during this period. In 1914 Dr. Jones reported that an hereditary taint has been traced to 30 per cent. of admissions.

  

Visitors' Book 1914

A good dinner of boiled beef and potatoes was served in the hall during our visit to the evident satisfaction of those who sat down to it. The plates were warm, the table cloths clean, and the knives and forks had received proper attention.

We had the opportunity of speaking to the engineer as to the instruction of the nurses in the use of the fire appliances. In one of the wards we found a nurse quite ignorant of the proper method of using them.

No use of mechanical restraint has been recorded during the period under review; 5 patients have been secluded , on 41 occasions.

The old workshops have been converted into a temporary day room for workers pending the buildings operations. We hope when these are finished the room will be restored to its old use; for the present workshops are dark and unsuitable for their purpose. In the laundry the bands for driving the collar ironing machine are insufficiently protected, and there is no proper guard for the hands of those working the machine.

We were glad to see that the medicine cupboards are provided with locked inner compartments to hold poisons. The day rooms are well supplied with books and bound illustrated periodicals, and some addition has been made to the number of pianos; but there is still some deficiency of objects of interests to attract the patient's attention, which we hope will in time be supplied.

Postmortem examinations were made in the very inadequate proportion of 60 per cent. It is satisfactory to report that in no instance was a bedsore present and that none of the 29 patients (or 3 percent of the whole) whom we saw in bed in the wards was so suffering. This affords a good indication of the care and attention which are bestowed upon the nursing of the sick, and is very credible to the staff. It is, however, still impossible to avoid treating many patients for tuberculosis in the open wards, although an effort has, as we have said, been made to segregate as many of the men as possible in the isolation section.

In the important question of the open air treatment of such and other suitable cases, we trust that verandas will be provided for in the plans of the proposed new buildings already referred to. Provision is we understand to be made for an open air balcony, which we hope will not only be made safe for all classes of patients, but be redeemed from any objectionable appearance by some appropriate decorative treatment.

We entirely endorse our colleagues' views as to the urgent need for an acute hospital or wards for the treatment of fresh admissions.

Excepting influenza, one case each of erysipelas and dysentery represent all the zymotic disease which has appeared in the Asylum.

Dr. Jones is evidently sparing no pains to cooperate judiciously with the committee in endeavouring to bring this Asylum throughout up to a high modern standard. He is assisted by two medical colleagues, by whom the medical records are carefully kept, and who have a good knowledge of their cases. We think that a third is needed for the work of this large Asylum, and that a laboratory and the necessary appliances should be provided to enable research to be made by the medical staff.

L.L.Shadwell....F. Needham

Commissioners in Lunacy

There was little change in the practices at the asylum during, and as a result of, the First World War, and any that did occur were more to do with public health measures than psychiatric advances.

Notice of Death 1919

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