STAFFORD ASYLUM.-From 1818 to 1828, admissions 1000; cured 429, or about 45 in 100. LANCASTER COUNTY ASYLUM.-From 1817 to 1825, admissions 812; cured 322, or

about 39 in 100.

WAKEFIELD COUNTY ASYLUM.-From 1819 to 1826, admissions 917; cured 384, or about 42 in 100.

Lunatic Asylums have, since 1820, been founded in Cornwall, Lincolnshire, Gloucester. shire, Oxfordshire, Suffolk, and, recently, in Middlesex.

Table of the Ages of the presumed Curable and Incurable Lunatics admitted into the Paris Public Hospitals, and the comparative proportion of cures.

YEAR.

Table of Lunatics admitted, cured, and deceased, in the
Senevra Hospital, Milan.

TOTAL 2799 3207 6006 1619 1897 3516 1124 1456 2580 4704 5378 10082

The proportion of males to females admitted is as 87 to 100.
The proportion of males to females cured is as 57 to 59.
The proportion of males to females dying is as 40 to 45.
The proportion of cures to the admissions is 58 in 100.
The proportion of deaths to the admissions is 42 in 100.

INQUIRIES RELATIVE TO LUNATIC ASYLUMS, AND THE
TREATMENT OF THE INSANE.

It is particularly requested that answers to these inquiries, in respect to any Lunatic Asylum, may be procured, and transmitted to the Secretary of the Prison Discipline Society, 18, Aldermanbury, London.

Situation of the Building.

1. Is the situation sufficiently elevated, dry, airy, and moderately sheltered? Does it combine retirement with cheerfulness? Is it convenient of access?

2. What extent of ground is occupied by the establishment; and how are the premises appropriated as respects garden-ground, &c.?

Plan.

5. What number of patients is the establishment calculated to receive?

4. If a public establishment, what was the cost of the building and furniture?

5. What is the extent of general classification, and of individual separation of the patients -distinguishing sex, character of disease, degree of violence, and state of convalescence? 6. What is the number of day-rooms, and their respective dimensions?

7. What is the number of sleeping-rooms, and their dimensions?

8. What is the number of airing-courts, and their dimensions?

9. Is the separation of the sexes complete?

10. Does the arrangement of the patients' apartments, galleries, and yards, provide for their ready inspection, and afford them easy access to their galleries and courts?

11. Does the plan afford facility of communication from the apartments of the superintendents and assistants to those of the patients?

12. In the construction, fittings up, and furniture, has security against self-injury been carefully provided for, throughout every part to which the patients have access?

13. Is complete ventilation effectually obtained throughout, and cold at the same time excluded?

Of the Apartments, Yards, &c. of the Patients.

14. Are the day-rooms of the patients well lighted, securely and sufficiently warmed and fitted up, and cheerful and neat in their appearance?

15. Are the dormitories properly ventilated? Are the windows furnished with shutters and glazed; are they accessible to the patients? Are the floors of these rooms or cells of hard materials, and such as do not absorb the wet? What means are taken to preserve the rooms as well as the bedding in as clean a state as may be practicable?

16. Are the court-yards airy and dry; is their surface well covered with turf or with small gravel, or paved: do they afford some prospect over the walls?

17. Are the privies well constructed; and are there complete baths for hot and cold water? Physical Treatment.

18. What diet is allowed?

19. Have any and what beneficial effects resulted, or been contemplated, from the adoption of such or any other diet, in any particular character of disease?

20. In cases of attempt at self-starvation, what method of treatment has been adopted with most success?

21. Of what portion of rest or sleep can the patients partake; and what means are found successful in inducing sleep with restlessly-inclined patients?

22. What description of clothing is provided, and at what cost?

23. What steps are taken to ensure the personal cleanliness of the patients, especially of the most uncleanly?

24. How often is bathing insisted upon generally? In what cases has bathing of any kind proved most beneficial, more especially the warm or tepid bath; what is the mode and duration of its application, &c.?

25. Is the practice of daily and active exercise steadily insisted upon with all patients able to partake of it?

26. Is any and what care taken to provide the patients with sufficient warmth in severely cold weather, and to guard against accident from mortification in the infirm or bed-ridden? 27. To what extent, and with what decided advantage, has medicine of any kind been practised in different species of insanity?

28. What modes of personal coercion are in use, and on what average number of patients is it found necessary to have recourse to it?

29. By whose orders, and under whose superintendence, is such coercion enforced? What number of patients is generally under coercion during the night?

30. Are dark solitary rooms made use of with advantage in cases of violent maniacal paroxysms?

31. How far has manual labour been adopted with advantage, and with what description of patients?

Mental Treatment.

32. Has the active engagement of the mind to the sciences, fine arts, literature, or mechanical arts, been attempted with patients of a superior description; and what has been the result?

$3. Where graver studies would be unsuitable, has it been found beneficial to afford patients such employments as are calculated to engage the attention to external objects without inducing intense abstraction or exercise of mind: such, for example, as drawing, painting designs, models, gardening, &c.?

34. Where the mind is so diseased as to be evidently unfit for the foregoing exercises, has benefit been experienced by furnishing the patients in their court-yards with the means of innocent amusement, from music, domestic animals, poultry, birds, flowers, and objects of a similar nature?

35. Is any and what employment afforded to the mind, in cases of persons of inferior education?

36. Is it the opinion of the superintendent that a state of entire indolence and mental inertness is decidedly prejudicial to the patient?

Moral Treatment.

37. In the moral treatment of the patients, is it considered an object of importance to encourage their own efforts of self-restraint in every possible way, by exciting and cherishing in them feelings of self-respect, by treating them with delicacy, more especially in avoiding any improper exposure of their cases before strangers in their own presence; and generally by maintaining towards them a treatment uniformly judicious and kind, sympathizing with them, and at the same time diverting their minds from painful and injurious associations?

38. Is any religious service performed in the establishment, at which such patients are invited as are in a suitable state to attend? Does the physician select such patients as attend, and in all cases approve of their attendance? Do the classes attend separately, or at one time, and without distinction of mental disorder?

Miscellaneous.

39. Is it a private establishment, a county asylum, or an endowed and subscription institution?

40. In the case of a public asylum, how is the committee of management constituted, and how frequently do they attend?

41. If an endowed or subscription asylum, what is the nature of its foundation and mode of support?

42. What is the payment of the patients?

43. When was the establishment opened?

44. What is the name of the superintendent?

45. Is he a medical man?

46. How often does the medical attendant visit the asylum?

47. How many assistants has the superintendent?

48. What was the number of each sex for which the establishment was originally designed? 49. What is the present number of patients of each sex?

50. What has been the average number of patients in the year, during the last three years; distinguishing the sexes?

51. What has been the average number of cures in the year, during the last three years; distinguishing the sexes?

52. What has been the proportion of relapses within the last three years; and in what description of cases have they prevailed?

53. For what period of time had patients discharged cured been deranged before their admission into this asylum?

54. What has been the average number of deaths in the year, during the last three years; distinguishing the sexes?

55. How were the patients actually classed at the date of this visit? Is there any restriction as to the class of lunatics admitted; viz. are idiots, epileptic patients, or cases of long standing, excluded?

56. How many patients were under coercion at the date of this visit?

57. What number of patients were in bed (in the day time) at the date of this visit?

Copies of the following documents are also requested:

58. The rules for the government of the asylum.

59. A plan of the asylum and its premises, to a scale.

60. Any reports that may have been made on the state of the asylum.

61. Accounts of the number of patients admitted, cured; expense of maintenance, &c. 62. Journals, or registers of cases, explanatory of the causes of insanity, and improved modes of treatment, and other information of a miscellaneous nature.