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Lyttelton Times, Volume LI, Issue 5604, 10 February 1879, Page 4

It is a singular thiilg that the doings of those who are temporarily insane should be drawing so much attention just now to the hospitals of the Canterbury district. The discussion the other day before Mr Hellish is a case in point. That discussion has drawn attention to a Serious want at the Christchurch Hospital. There is no lunatic ward at that institution. The object of such a ward Is to isolate cases of insanity for separate treatment, until it can he decided whether the insanity is temporary or permanent. In the one case core rapidly supervenes, and the patient returns to the ward from whence he came. In the other the lapse of a few days determines whether he is afit subject for the Lunatic Asylum, and he can be despatched there accordingly. The addition of a lunatic ward to a hospital is very evidently a great convenience in hospital management. The want of this convenience is severely felt at the Christchurch Hospital. Whenever a patient goes out of Ids mind, the staff is unable to decide what to do with him. .. It is quite certain that whether his insanity he temporary or permanent, he is not fit to be left with the other patients. When, as in the case which came before Mr Hellish the other day, a man who is tied to his bed by the hands and feet, contrives—as the attendant described it—to “ buck ” his bed across the room, his fellow-patients will be considerably startled. When deprived of the sleep they need so much, and disturbed in a manner most detrimental and annoying, it will not soothe their feelings to be told that the howling and the raving, the contortions and the noises of violent struggling come all from a man who will get better in a few days. It is not right that hospital patients should be disturbed by such things. People are sent to a hospital not only to enjoy the benefits of medical skill and drugs, and the constant comfort of skilled attendance, but for the quiet and freedom from annoyance without which recovery is delayed, and often made hopeless. Patients who develop tendencies to .violent insanity should, in the interest of their fellowpatients -be removed as quickly as possible. The difficulty here is that there is no place, to remove them to. There is only the Lunatic Asylum, but there are strong reasons why a patient should not be sent there in a hurry. If his insanity be but temporary, as is usually the case with these hospital cases, he will not be long in the Asylum, if sent before he recovers. His feelings at finding himself looked up with the insane may be better imagined thaw described. These acting on his weak state of health—the case, it must be borne in mind, is of hospital patients—may be depended upon for, leading to a behaviour whichwould justify the superintendent in oonsidering him more insane even than when he was received into the Hospital, It is the most unpleasant position in which a human being can be placed. Many authorities even go so far as to assert that it is difficult for a sane man, once placed in an Asylum for the insane, to give, especially if in a Weak state of health, satisfactory evidence of his sanity. : Appearances are against him to such an Oxfent. The order for his admission, with the necessary certificate from two medical men, establishes 4 the fact of his insanity to the satisfaction of his* keeper's end their chief. The horror of beipg oohfined with madmen, the excitement) that accompanies the natural resentment against . injustice, the fierce protests, all these, become signs of madness tothe; preconceived ; idea -qf the observers. They know by experience thatthe line is very -fine between safiity and madness, and they have in the same way that madness ia vety cunning. Moreover, the; demand -to be set free as without the least taint of insanity is Common enough In Lunatic Asylums to Vq-echd daily in all the corridors! A Lunatic ie clearly a fearful place to send a men to, simply because he: cannot be allowed by his vagaries to annoy, other. - ~. : This .wasixactiy what was felt in the recent case. There was no doubt the

man was mad. He was an fellow patients, and the Wt&> yawned for him. Dr that he should be kept hT apart till it could be determi^ tber his madness was permanent. As there wm* place, the Bench and the the lunatic, and the and the police, and the W® all in a hopeless quandary right moment, that is, before ,7 could be decided of a character v ? oua to somebody, Mr March ap^T l the scene and offered a r the Addington barracks for th° m porary sequestration offer was gratefully accepted, no was done to anybody, and the ZS* was very happily decided. Th«C, tunate man, whoso narrowly incarceration, is, we are getting on famously and the doctor hopes to see h£S reasonable very shortly, wu have happened had he come tT? senses in the Lunatic Asylum Zi* rowing to contemplate. It will Z that if our reasoning is Asylum until he shall hare > observed and attended to for a aW time in a pkce of preliminary sequel tion. Such a conclusion ia mno wT detrimental to the argument On contrary, it strengthens it very n Jf It would undoubtedly beagood thii to enforce a pause before sending to the prison-house of the insanT Tk a lunatic ward could he devoted to S mshing the necessary facilities for thi pause, as well as for the proper sepa* tion of lunatic patients, is not means a weak argument in favour of immediately adding such a ward to & Christchurch Hospital.