A medical examination for the new inmate

Previous posts in this series about David Ritchie's admission to the London County Asylum have shown why he had to be admitted and how he got there. Here, I share the notes taken by the Medical Superintendent as to the state of his physical health. Once again, a big thanks to Judy Lester of Kerrywood Research for tracking down the records and sending them to me so I could include them in my blog. First, some background to set the scene. David Ritchie was a 35-year-old man, married, and a butler. He had a 7-year-old son, my grandfather, who was living with relatives in St John's Wood, presumably so that David and his wife Maude could both continue working.

David had suffered a previous attack of insanity when he was 18. That episode had lasted just a few days and was not treated. At that time, he was probably living with his widowed mother Emma Eliza Ritchie and 9-year-old sister Susan Elizabeth. This assumption is based on the fact that he was living with them in the 1891 census, taken a year earlier. Interestingly, David switched occupations from junior clerk to footman soon after that census was taken, suggesting that his health forced him to make the change. Nevertheless, he managed to rise to the position of butler and stay employed at Cleveland House in St James Square, so his condition certainly did not impair his normal functioning.

At least, not until June 1909, when he began displaying bizarre behaviour and had to be taken to the Marylebone Workhouse. After that, Dr Duncan Menzies pronounced him to be "of unsound mind and a proper person to be taken charge of and detained under care and treatment". He was then conveyed by the police to the asylum at Hanwell, where the Medical Superintendent examined him in preparation for formal admission.

Here is what the Superintendent noted:

1. As to cleanliness: Clean. 2. Bodily condition: Fair. 3. Positions and descriptions of any bruises, wounds, marks of injury, skin eruptions, sores, pain, tenderness, and any evidence of disease or disorder: Old vaccination marks, right arm. Faint bruise, left leg. Abrasion, left leg. Old scars, both knees. Sebacious cyst, forehead.

This is clearly not a sick or broken man. On the contrary, he has marks on his body which are consistent with work in a busy household full of dark corridors, narrow steps, heavy furniture and horses. If he looked anything like his son, my grandfather, he was also tall, big-boned, and strong. indeed he must have been because he survived the institution for an astonishing 57 years, until his death at the age of 92. Photo credit: "Some of Mike's wounds" by Ryan McFarland.