The two Bills, having passed the Houses of Parliament, received the Royal assent on the 4th and 8th of August, 1845.[171] They have been well called the Magna Charta of the liberties of the insane.
After these Acts had been in operation for eight years, it was found that various amendments were needed, and in February, 1853, Lord St. Leonards introduced, along with another Bill lessening the expense arising out of lunacy inquisitions, one consolidating the laws respecting asylums, and one amending Lord Shaftesbury's Act (c. 100). They constitute the 16 and 17 Vict., c. 96 and c. 97.
The former, entitled "An Act to amend an Act passed in the ninth year of Her Majesty 'for the Regulation of the Care and Treatment of Lunatics,'" has reference mainly to private asylums and hospitals. The same order and certificates which were required for admission into an asylum were now necessary for single patients. It was enacted that medical men should specify the facts upon which their opinion of a patient's insanity was based, distinguishing those observed by themselves from those communicated by others. Bethlem Hospital was by the thirty-fifth section of this Act made subject to the provisions of the Lunacy Acts.
The latter statute, entitled "An Act to Consolidate and Amend the Laws for the Provision and Regulation of Lunatic Asylums for Counties and Boroughs, and for the Maintenance and Care of Pauper Lunatics in England and Wales," repealed the 8 and 9 Vict., c. 126; 9 and 10 Vict., c. 84; and 10 and 11 Vict., c. 43. Many sections refer to the particular mode of determining the manner in which an asylum shall be provided for the paupers of a county and borough, whether for the county alone, or with some other county or borough, or with the subscribers to any hospital, or with the visiting committee of a county asylum for the joint use of an existing asylum. The parish medical officer was directed to visit all the paupers in it every quarter, whether in the workhouse or not, and report to the guardians or overseer those who, in his judgment, might be properly confined in an asylum. Thus the tendency of the Act was, in this and other ways, calculated to add to the numbers under care, and, therefore, to make the apparent increase of insanity greater. Three classes of lunatics were contemplated by this Act, viz. pauper lunatics; wandering lunatics, whether paupers or not; lunatics not paupers and not wandering, who are cruelly treated or neglected. The Commissioners might order the removal of a lunatic from an asylum, unless the medical officer certified such patient to be dangerous; and the latter might be overruled by the consent of two visiting justices to his discharge. A large number of the sections of this Act provide in detail for the settlement, etc., of pauper lunatics. Penalties were enacted in the event of any superintendent or other officer of an asylum ill-treating or neglecting a patient.[172]
One of those waves of suspicion and excitement which occasionally pass over the public mind in regard to the custody of the insane, occurred in 1858. Sensational articles appeared in the papers, and novels were written to hold up those connected with the care and treatment of the insane to public obloquy. The author himself did not escape animadversion, and was represented in a newspaper as a brutal mad-doctor using a whip upon an unfortunate patient "in an institution of which better things might have been expected." That the charge was the offspring of a bewildered editor, who confused person and place in an incredible manner, and was obliged to acknowledge that he had been the victim of his own imagination, only shows how the paroxysms of sudden passion and indignation to which John Bull is liable, may lead to the most ridiculous mistakes. However, there must be some fire where there is smoke, and one or two unfortunate events gave colour to the assertion, persistently made, that asylums were the abodes of injustice and cruelty. A Select Committee of the House of Commons was appointed in February, 1859, to inquire into the operation of the Acts of Parliament and Regulations for the Care and Treatment of Lunatics and their Property, including Sir George Grey, Mr. Walpole, Mr. Whitbread, Mr. Drummond, Mr. Kekewich, and others; and evidence was given by the Earl of Shaftesbury, Mr. Barlow, Mr. Gaskell, Dr. Southey, Dr. Conolly, Dr. Hood, Dr. Bright, Dr. Bucknill, Mr. Lutwidge, etc.
The Committee commence their Report with presenting the following comparison of the number of lunatics in 1844, 1858, and 1859:—
| Location. | 1844. | 1858. | 1859. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Private patients in asylums, hospitals, and licensed houses | 3,790 | 4,612 | 4,762 |
| Pauper lunatics and idiots in asylums, hospitals, and licensed houses | 7,482 | 17,572 | 18,022 |
| Pauper lunatics and idiots in workhouses (655) and with friends, etc. | 9,339 | 13,163 | 13,208 |
| 20,611 | 35,347 | 35,992 |
the last figure showing an increase of 15,000 over the number in 1844, and being one in six hundred in the population. The Committee point out that from 1808 to 1845 the justices had the power to provide, in every county, proper houses for pauper lunatics, but were not obliged to do so. There were in 1859 forty county asylums. Of seventy-one boroughs bound to provide asylums, about forty had done so.
As to public asylums, the evidence brought forward convinced the Committee that little alteration was required in the law, they being "well looked after and carefully attended to." It was suggested that they might be in some instances too large, and the staff of attendants too small and not sufficiently paid. Also that it might be desirable to erect, in connection with them, detached buildings of a simple and inexpensive character for the reception of imbecile and chronic patients.