Library Collections: Document: Item Description

Excerpt from:
Report Of Commissioners Appointed To Superintend Erection Of A Lunatic Hospital At Worcester
The slightest reflection will render it obvious, that an edifice designed for the residence of the insane, must be materially different, both in form and in interior arrangement, from ordinary habitations. The insane require equable warmth, but they cannot be entrusted with fire. They require light and pure air, but the doors and windows which give light and ventilation to common dwellings, would furnish them with facilities for escape, and with opportunities for inflicting personal injury, or even self-destruction. The insane often possess more than the ordinary strength of men, but they are far less capable than children of rendering it subservient to their own welfare, and no human agency can always be present with them to direct or control it....