LUNATIC ASYLUM. 83 



completed, the institution was announced ready for the recep- 

 tion of patients, and on the 15th December of that year the 

 first patient was received ; since which period, the number has 

 slowly but steadily increased. The Legislature of 1843 amended 

 the act of organization, so as to relieve the individual counties 

 from the support of their paupers in the asylum and impose the 

 burden upon the State at large, by authorizing the Board of 

 Trustees to draw, from time to time, upon the Governor for their 

 support, at the rate of fifty dollars per annum. This course 

 was pursued up to the session of 1845, when the plan of special 

 appropriation of such amount as was deemed necessary for the 

 ensuing two years was substituted. The medical services de- 

 manded were rendered by the trustees, Drs. Fort, B. A. 

 White, and Geo. D. Case, all medical gentlemen of the vicinity, 

 until January, 1843, when, in the judgment of the Board, the 

 number of patients rendered it necessary that the station of 

 resident physician and superintendent should be filled. Dr. 

 David Cooper was then elected to that office, and continued to 

 discharge its duties up to January, 1846, when he was suc- 

 ceeded by the present officer, Dr. Thomas F. Green. The law 

 organizing the institution authorizes the commitment to the 

 asylum of all idiots, lunatics, and epileptics, and requires that 

 all such persons, who are residents of this State, and whose 

 pauperism is certified by the court committing them, shall be 

 supported in the institution by the State ; all others are required 

 to pay board at such rate as may be determined by the trus- 

 tees. The present charge is one hundred dollars per annum, 

 the friends of the patient supplying all clothing necessary. 

 In the fall of 1847, the second building was completed upon 

 the same plan as that first erected, and furnished a separate 

 department for the use of the female patients. Until within 

 the past two years a very large proportion of the patients were 

 of the worst possible descriptions. From the general want of 

 proper information among the mass of the people in relation to 

 such institutions, the incomplete condition of the establishment, 

 and the influence of other causes, such only were sent to the 

 asylum generally as had become burdens at home, too intoler- 

 able to be longer borne, certainly, in very many instances, from 

 the influence of no hope of benefit to them, as their state was 



