82 LUNATIC ASYLUM. 



City Council of Augusta, and ten thousand dollars raised upon 

 the responsibility of the Faculty, the College has been able to 

 erect a splendid Grecian Doric structure, furnished with an 

 anatomical museum, chemical apparatus, surgical cabinet, &c., 

 to liquidate every debt, and provide a fund for contingent 

 expense. 



STATE LUNATIC ASYLUM. 



This is, as its name implies, an institution founded by the 

 State. 



In December, 1837, an act was passed by the Legislature, 

 providing for its establishment, and authorizing the appoint- 

 ment, by the Governor, of certain commissioners, charged with 

 the duty of purchasing a suitable site, and vested with the au- 

 thority to contract for and superintend the erection of the 

 necessary buildings, the requisite preliminary appropriation 

 being made towards the accomplishment of these purposes. A 

 site was selected, southeast of, and about one mile distant from, 

 Oglethorpe University. Forty acres of land being purchased, 

 the erection of the buildings was begun, and progressed up to 

 the winter of 1841, when the Legislature directed that the com- 

 missioners should discontinue the operations on one of the 

 buildings, and proceed to the speedy completion of that most 

 advanced. At the same time an act was passed for the orga- 

 nization of the institution. Said act provided that the board, 

 &c., of pauper patients sent to the asylum should be paid by 

 the counties from which they were sent. It further provided, 

 that the superintendence of the institution should remain in 

 the trustees and steward until such time as, in the judgment of 

 the Board, the increased number of patients rendered it neces- 

 sary to elect a resident physician and superintendent (the two 

 offices being combined in the same individual), and that the 

 medical services requisite should be procured from some neigh- 

 bouring physician, who should receive as compensation for his 

 services two hundred dollars per annum. 



In October, 1842, one of the buildings contemplated being 



