Library Collections: Document: Full Text

And I do hereby also give notice, that, from and after the date of this Proclamation, all lunatics, who by virtue of the statutes of 1797, ch. 62, and of 1816, ch. 28, are subject to confinement under process of law, are to be committed to the custody of the Superintendent of said State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester.

Given under my hand and the seal of the Commonwealth, this twelfth day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-three, and of the independence of the United States the fifty-seventh.

BY HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR,
LEVI LINCOLN.

EDWARD D. BANGS, Secretary.

GOD SAVE THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS!

Note by the Superintendent. -- The patients admitted to the Hospital during the first four months after its opening, were almost exclusively from the jails and houses of correction. It was gratifying to find, that, in obedience to the proclamation of the Governor, they were well clad, cleanly, and free from vermin and infectious diseases. With one single exception this was the case; and it may be added, that, during the time the Hospital has been open, no infectious disease has been brought into it from jails, houses of correction, or alms-houses, notwithstanding the great number of patients from these receptacles, from almost every part of the Commonwealth.

The Superintendent bears, with great pleasure, this testimony to the good appearance and condition of the pauper lunatics, as they have been brought under his care. -- May, 1837.