| Description Of Item | Press cutting from the collection of Thomas Laycock. Details how within the last generation there has been a positive development when lunatics are treated more humanely. Mr [William] Tuke of York is mentioned as a pioneer in this cultural shift, and Dr [John] Conolly as his ‘most efficient successor’ – his life chronicled by Sir James Clark. Three recent deaths of asylum patients are mentioned (from Hanwell in Middlesex, Lancaster County Asylum and Joint Counties Asylum in Carmarthen in Wales respectively). The latter two patients had pleurisy and all three died and upon post-mortem examination - had fractured ribs, bruises, and inflammation. The cutting suggests ‘barbarous’ treatment in these asylums despite such actions universally believed to be ‘long banished. It details how in French convict prisons, patients would be held down to the floor and a ‘powerfully-built’ keeper would walk down their abdomen and chest with his knees resulting in the patients ribs snapping, breast-bone being driven leaving the patient thoroughly disabled though all external marks of violence were absent. |