| Description Of Item | From the collection of the Society for Improving the Conditions of the Insane. At the front of the volume are newspaper cuttings from The Times on the visit to the Hanwell Lunatic Asylum by the visiting justices and letters on the same, January and February 1840. After the cuttings, on pages 1-35, is a handwritten account titled 'Account by short hand writer employed by Reverend Mr Trimmer' of the February 1840 meeting of the Middlesex magistrates on Hanwell Asylum which differs from the newspaper article. This account is followed by details of the medical cases referred to with headings 'eating flesh-sloughs - poultices'; 'excrement cases'; 'case of inanition'; 'case of inanition and of suicide'; 'suicide'; 'patients who strip themselves and stand about on the cold stones'; 'shower baths' with details of the patients given showers and the results; 'injuries inflicted by patients on nurses'; 'epileptic patients'; 'articles destroyed by patients'; and notes by Mr Trimmer on the female wards. Inscription on flyleaf 'The manuscript portions of this note book are in the hand-writing of Sir Alexander Morison and are a good example of his calligraphy - ABM [Alexander Blackhall Morison' March 9th 1921'. |