In 1866 another Act was passed (29 and 30 Vict., c. 51) to amend the Acts relating to lunacy in Scotland, and to make further provision for the care and treatment of lunatics. One or two of the provisions made merit notice. Any person keeping a lunatic in a private house, although not for gain, longer than one year, was obliged, if the malady required compulsory confinement or restraint or coercion, to report to the Board, that it might make inspection and obtain an order for the removal of such lunatic to an asylum. Regulations were made as to persons entering voluntarily as boarders, whose mental condition is not such as to render it legal to grant certificates of insanity. Letters from patients to the Board, and from the Board to patients, were to be delivered unopened. Power was given to apply to the Court of Sessions to obtain improved treatment and care of any lunatic. Patients committed as dangerous lunatics might be liberated on the certificates of two medical men, approved by the Procurator Fiscal, that such lunatic may be discharged without risk of injury to the public or the lunatic. This is a valuable provision. Power was given to the directors of asylums to grant superannuations to officers, etc.
The above Statute, passed in 1866 to amend the Acts relating to lunacy, was succeeded, in a few years, by another statute having reference to a special class of the insane. Of this later Act in 1871 (34 and 35 Vict., c. 55) to amend the laws relating to criminal and dangerous lunatics in Scotland, it may be well to record the most important provisions. These were to apply to persons detained by judgment prior to the Act 20 and 21 Vict., c. 71. The lunatic department in the general prison at Perth was to be relieved from overcrowding by removing the insane prisoners to district, chartered, or private licensed asylums, with consent of managers of chartered and private asylums. As to the disposal of persons becoming insane in local prisons, these were to be removed to a lunatic asylum by a warrant of the sheriff; all asylums in which pauper lunatics were maintained by contract being bound to provide for the reception of such prisoner. The Act was to apply to any lunatic charged with assault or any offence, although not coming within the definition of a pauper.
There was in 1874 an interesting Parliamentary return, showing the total number of pauper lunatics in each of the three divisions of the United Kingdom, and the estimated annual amount of the proposed grant of four shillings per head per week towards the maintenance of pauper lunatics in asylums. The figures are as follows:—
A. In county, borough, royal, district, parochial, and private licensed
asylums— |
| England | 31,799 |
| Ireland | 7,140 |
| Scotland | 4,428 |
| Total | 43,367 |
| B. In work houses and elsewhere— |
| England | 21,413 |
| Ireland | 3,125 |
| Scotland | 2,077 |
| Total | 26,615 |
| Total of A and B in | England | 53,212 |
| „ | Ireland | 10,265 |
| „ | Scotland | 6,505 |
| Total | 69,982 |
| Annual amount of four shillings weekly capitation grant towardsmaintenance of those in A: |
| England | £330,710[245] |
| Ireland | 74,256 |
| Scotland | 46,051 |
| £451,071 |
| The proportion per cent. of patients in A on the total number of pauperlunatics is, for— |
| England | 60 per cent. |
| Ireland | 70 „ |
| Scotland | 68 „ |
| Of the 6505 Scotch pauper lunatics, there were— |
| In public asylums | 1930 |
| In district asylums | 1763 |
| In private asylums | 77 |
| In parochial asylums | 746 |
| In lunatic wards of poor-houses | 557 |
| 5073 |
| In private dwellings under sanction of the Board, viz.— |
| With relatives | 875 | 1432 |
| With strangers | 529 |
| Alone | 28 |
| | 6505 |