The noble chairman of the Lunacy Commission, in the course of his able evidence before the "Committee on Lunatics" (1859), has given some admirable suggestions for the amendment of the law in order to bring the so-called "nervous patients" under the cognizance of the Commission, and to obtain a more complete knowledge of the number and position of the many lunatics detained in private houses.
According to the existing law (Evid. Comm. p. 33), it is only, says Lord Shaftesbury, "where a patient is put out to board with some person who is benefited by the circumstance that the Commissioners can, upon application to the Chancellor, obtain access to a house where they have reasonable ground to believe there is a patient restrained, and who ought to be under certificate. But not only, in the first place, is it difficult to ascertain where such patients are, but it is also difficult afterwards, as we must have good testimony to induce the Chancellor to give us a right to enter a private house, and make an examination accordingly." In reply to queries 303, 304, 315, 318, 320 and 325, his Lordship insists on the necessity of the law interposing to compel persons who receive any patients whatever for profit, whether styled nervous or epileptic patients, to give notice of their reception to the Commissioners in Lunacy, who should have the power to visit and ascertain their state of mind, and determine whether they should or should not be put under certificate as lunatic. If they were found to be only 'nervous' persons, the Commissioners would have nothing to do with them.
To give these suggestions a legal force, his Lordship produced the following clauses as additions to the Lunacy Act (Evid. Comm. query 432, p. 43):--
"Whereas many persons suffer from nervous disorders and other mental affections of a nature and to an extent to incapacitate them from the due management of themselves and their affairs, but not to render them proper persons to be taken charge of, and detained under care and treatment as insane; and whereas such persons are frequently conscious of their mental infirmity, and desirous of submitting themselves to medical care and supervision, and it is expedient to legalize and facilitate voluntary arrangements for that object, so far as may be compatible with the free agency of the persons so affected, be it enacted, as follows:--