Lunacy Law and Institutional and Home Treatment of the Insane

Abstract

(The Lecturer after having briefly epitomised the provisions of the Lunacy Act of 1890 continued as follows): It will thus be readily seen that the chief aims of this Act are to secure: (1) That no person is received as a patient into a mental hospital or other approved place unless of a certainty he is a lunatic within the meaning of the Lunacy Act., i.e., an idiot or a person of unsound mind, (2) That a person so admitted shall be discharged immediately he is no longer certifiable as a person of unsound mind, and a proper person to be detained under care and treatment. (3) That he is not illtreated or neglected while under detention. (4) That in case of his death in the mental hospital, the cause and circumstances thereof are the subject of special report and possibly searching enquiry. It assumes the possibility of moral turpitude, in carrying out its provisions, on the part, of the judicial authority, the patient's relatives and friends, the doctor, the nurses, the Managers and even the Commissioners. Its attitude is