Coll. - Rapport général sur le service des al... Lot n° 1023

General report to the Minister of the Interior on the alienation service  The State did not take a close interest in the insane of the Ancien Régime and their care until the end of the 18th century, but it was not until the first half of the 19th century that the basic framework for assistance to the insane was established. However, this framework was departmental. Indeed, the law of 30 June 1838 provided that "each département is required to have a public establishment, specially designed to receive and care for the insane, or to deal for this purpose with a private or public establishment either in that département or in another" so that the prefect could place there those insane people who committed offences or compromised public order and security.  Our volume contains the discussion preceding this law of 30 June 1838, known as the Esquirol law or "Loi des aliénés". It was on March 27th that the bill took its final form (although an article will be added to make the final text 41). The text does include a division into three parts: a first part on "establishments for the insane" (including regulations on asylums managed by prefects and possibly by private individuals), a second part on "investments made in establishments for the insane" (it seems that this part of the law has provoked the most debate, Indeed, a balance had to be found between the diagnosis or the sentence passed on the insane person, the power of the doctor, the power of the prefect and the will of the families), and finally the third part concerning "general provisions" (dealing with contraventions of the provisions of the present law).  First part, History of the Legislation on the Insane: the service of the insane before 1792; from 1792 to 1838; Voting of the law of 1838; from 1838 to 1852; from 1852 to 1866, second period; from 1866 to 1874, third period; Population of the asylums, successive increase; Colony of young idiots; quarter of the convicted