First Annual Report of the State Board of Health, Survey, and Charity, of Massachusetts, January 1880
The Board, of which this is the first report, has been in exist- ence only since July 1879. The Act creating it abolished the previously existing Boards of Health and Charity, and gave to the present one powers its predecessors never had. It is also charged with the administration of the lunacy laws. The mode of placing a patient in an asylum is much the same as with us, save that the person who signs the ” order for commitment” is a State official, and that only one certificate of insanity is re- quired ; but it must be signed by two physicians. We note that in the Eeport it is stated that private asylums are not regarded with disfavour.
The Board having been organised only a few months has not yet had time to give that full investigation and mature conside- ration to this department of its duties which is likely to charac- terise its future reports.
Disclaimer
The historical material in this project falls into one of three categories for clearances and permissions:
Material currently under copyright, made available with a Creative Commons license chosen by the publisher.
Material that is in the public domain
Material identified by the Welcome Trust as an Orphan Work, made available with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
While we are in the process of adding metadata to the articles, please check the article at its original source for specific copyrights.