ABSTRACT
the reports which the Metropolitan Commissioners in Lunacy issued between 1829 and 1842 make impressive reading. They show a constant attention to detail, and an increasingly stringent view of their duties. The Commissioners began to inquire as to the character and conduct of the attendants and nurses; they broke with tradition in listening to the patients’ grievances and investigating them; they experimented with a system of liberating recovered patients on trial, so that the transition from the sheltered world of the asylum to the world outside could be carefully supervised. The work which the Commissioners did at this time did much to impress the importance of the whole subject on the minds of thinking people. ‘The subject of insanity has lately excited much attention,’ wrote Ashley in his report of 1839–40; but the whole position of divided authority and divided responsibility was manifestly unsatisfactory. It was clearly necessary to deal with this problem before attempting to further internal reforms.
