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In 1847 Fisherton House Asylum had 100 licenced places of which about 60 were paupers paid for by local government and rest, presumably, were private patients. In 1848 the proprietors agreed to build special wards to take the less dangerous criminal lunatics that were scattered in asylums around the country. By 1853 it is recorded that Fisherton House had 214 patients cared for by 26 attendants but I don’t know whether or not all this increase was due to the new wards. (I have seen other articles that say that there were 700 patients in the early 1850s and that it was the largest private mental hospital in England[3]. Dr. Finch ran at least one other ‘lunacy’ hospital so perhaps the 700 refers to the patients at all his institutions in the area but this is just a guess).
In 1850 the Commissioners' Report noted that Fisherton House was one of three provincial licensed houses that were “defective”. From 1850 to 1853 they reported poor conditions of dirt and overcrowding caused by the transfer of “harmless criminal lunatics” from other hospitals. The poor conditions were tolerated because of the expectation of paupers being transferred to the newly commissioned county asylums (following the Lunacy Act 1845 which promoted the construction of county asylums) though Wiltshire County Asylum was not established until the 1860s. The conditions seem to have improved from 1854 when seclusion was abandoned as a method of treatment, made possible by an increase in staff[2] and generally the reports seem to be good.
From a Commissioners Report in 1847 it is recorded that treatments were varied, including a generous diet, malt liquor, wine, fresh air, local bleeding, cold to the bare head and warmth to the lower extremities, opium, croton oil (to cause diarrhea or skin exfoliation), hop pillows, prolonged warm baths with wooden planks across the bath (to permit the taking of meals) and setons to the neck (insertion of absorbent stitches to drain ‘noxious substances’ from the brain). Each ward had a walled exercise garden around which was a high wall to prevent escape and this served to provide an area where patients could exercise and enjoy the planted borders.
(As an aside, the uncle of the writer Lewis Carroll, whose name was Skeffington Lutwidge(!), drafted the 1845 Lunacy Bill and he later was a Commissioner who inspected Fisherton House in 1873. One of the patients there had repeatedly asked the Lunacy Commission inspectors for his liberty or to be transferred to Broadmoor but was not regarded as dangerous enough for transfer. During the visit he attacked Lutwidge with a nail he had been concealing. Mr Lutwidge died a few days later from the injuries)[4].
(Fisherton House continued as a private psychiatric hospital and then in the NHS, as the Old Manor Hospital, up to the beginning of the 21st century by which time most patients had been resettled in the community and the more serious patients moved elsewhere)[1].
Sources:
1 = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Manor_Hospital,_Salisbury Most of information on the hospital is from Wikipedia
2 = http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/wilts/vol5/pp318-347 British History Online “Public health and medical services”
3 = http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/rd/88839cf5-1c03-4ef2-9222-718055ddb1b6 National Archives “Old Manor Mental Hospital Salisbury”
4 = http://www.sarahwise.co.uk/inconvenient.html Story from former worker at Fisherton House.
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