A return, signed "H. Hobhouse," was made in this year (1818) from the parochial clergy in Scotland, showing the number of lunatics in each county, and other particulars, which now possesses considerable interest historically. The most important figures are as follows:—
From this table it will be seen that the total number was 4628, of whom 2304 were males and 2324 females. With regard to their distribution, there were—
| In public asylums | 258 |
| In private asylums | 158 |
| With friends | 1357 |
| At large | 2855 |
| Total | 4628 |
Two thousand one hundred and forty-nine were maintained wholly or in part by the parish. Fifty parishes failed to send any return. In one parish in the city of Edinburgh, from which we have no return, were situated the "Edinburgh Bedlam" and the Charity Workhouse. In these two places were confined eighty-eight lunatics and idiots. From Glasgow the returns did not include ninety-five lunatics and idiots confined in the Glasgow Asylum and Towns Hospital; 187 patients must therefore be added to the foregoing, making a total of 4815.
Considering the period at which it was made, this is a very remarkable return, and was much more complete than some later ones; for instance, in 1826 the Parliamentary returns were ridiculously below these figures, and Sir Andrew Halliday could only after diligent inquiry bring up the number to 3700.[229]
Two years later (1828), a Bill was brought into the House of Commons to amend the Act 55 Geo. III., c. 69,[230] by the Lord Advocate, Mr. H. Drummond, and Mr. Robert Gordon. It passed the House of Lords, and received the royal assent June 27th.
This constituted the Act 9 Geo. IV., c. 34, and reduced the fees paid for persons confined from £2 2s. to 10s. 6d.; admission and discharge books were ordered to be kept in every asylum, and an entry made of every act of coercion; the books of the asylum were to be submitted to the inspectors; no insane person was to be received into a hospital without a warrant from the sheriff, who was to inspect hospitals; houses were to be visited by medical men—those containing less than one hundred patients, in case such house should not be kept by a physician or surgeon, were to be visited twice in every week by a physician or surgeon—signing in a register the condition of the house and state of health of the patients; a register was also to be kept by the resident physician or surgeon, and such register was to be regularly laid before the inspectors, who were required to sign the same in testimony of its production; ministers were empowered to visit mad-houses in their parishes; regulations were made as to persons with whom lunatics were privately confined; the justices might appoint three of their number to inspect hospitals and private mad-houses; lastly, a weekly register was to be kept in each house, and to be laid before the inspectors, stating the number of curable and incurable cases, and the number under restraint, the necessity thereof being certified by a medical man.
I wish to record here that, so far back as 1838, some of the Scotch asylums were remarkable for the extent to which labour was introduced. Being engaged in writing an introduction to Jacobi's work "On the Construction of Asylums," the editor (Mr. S. Tuke) visited the asylums of Scotland in that year, accompanied by Mr. Williams, the visiting medical officer of the York Retreat, and found at Perth, Dundee, and Aberdeen, the men's wards nearly empty, so large a proportion of their inmates were in one way or other engaged in labour. "At Perth," he writes, "more than twenty came in together to dinner from the labours of the farm; others were employed in the garden and about the premises. At Dundee at nine o'clock in the morning, out of fifty-seven men patients of the lower class, twelve were engaged in stone-breaking, eight in gardening, thirteen in weaving, one in tailoring, two as shoemakers, whilst a few were engaged in the preparation of tow for spinning, and several in the various services of the house. In the Aberdeen Asylum, in which the labour system is extensively introduced, we were particularly pleased with the state of the lowest class of women patients—chiefly in an idiotic and demented state. All of these but one, and she was in a state of temporary active mania, were employed in picking wool or some other simple occupation. Indeed, in the three asylums which I have just mentioned, the state of the lowest class of patients offers a striking contrast to that in which they have been usually found in our asylums. Those dismal-looking objects, cringing in the corners of the rooms or squatting on the ground, almost lost to the human form, are here not to be seen. I must not omit to mention that at Aberdeen the manager had succeeded in inducing the higher class of patients to engage in gardening, etc. At Glasgow the governors were contemplating arrangements for the more extensive introduction of the labour system. In all these asylums the superintendents expressed their decided conviction of the benefit which, in a great variety of ways, was derived from the employment of the patients, more especially in outdoor labour."
In connection with the Dundee and Glasgow asylums, the great services rendered by Dr. McIntosh ought not to be forgotten, as also those of Dr. Poole (Montrose), Dr. Malcolm (Perth), and Dr. Hutcheson (Gartnavel).