The Scottish committal papers

Scotland kept its own lunacy law, the Act of 1857, until 1960. A relative or an inspector of the poor petitioned the Sheriff of the county to order the reception of the patient into a public or private asylum, with a statement of nineteen particulars and two medical certificates, the petition dated within fourteen clear days of them. Each doctor certified, on soul and conscience, that he had that day, separately from any other medical practitioner, visited and personally examined the patient, and that the patient was a lunatic, an insane person, an idiot or a person of unsound mind and a proper person to be detained under care and treatment, with the facts he observed himself and those others told him. The Sheriff, or his Substitute, then authorized the superintendent to receive the patient and the transmission of the patient to the asylum.

Bearer prints the forms as the General Board of Commissioners in Lunacy printed them in its first report of 1859; the Act was amended in 1862 and 1866, and the office says above the papers that those of the twenties and thirties are taken to be the same.

Bearer makes an investigator's papers for Call of Cthulhu and any 1920s or 1930s tabletop campaign: the passport a consul would have filled in, with the visas and frontier stamps a campaign leaves in it, and the permits, certificates and tickets of the period, to print or to share.

An example

Open this example in the office

The paper

The same paper elsewhere

• Committal papers by country

Still to be confirmed

• the forms are read as the Board of Lunacy printed them in 1859; the Act was amended in 1862 and 1866 and governed until 1960, and the forms of the twenties and thirties are taken to be the same. What would settle it: a Scottish petition, certificate or Sheriff's order of 1920 to 1939.
• the dates are written as the day of the Petition; the forms read print “one thousand eight hundred and”. What would settle it: a form printed after 1900.

Sources

• General Board of Commissioners in Lunacy for Scotland, First Annual Report of the General Board of Commissioners in Lunacy for Scotland (1859), Appendix E, Schedule 3: the forms of the Lunacy (Scotland) Act, 1857 (20 & 21 Vict. c. 71, s. 34) for placing a patient in an asylum, Petition to the Sheriff to grant order for the reception of a patient into an asylum (… is at present in a state of Mental Derangement, and a proper person for treatment in an Asylum for the Insane; the petition within fourteen clear days of the medical certificates); Statement of nineteen particulars; Form of Medical Certificate (I, the undersigned …, hereby certify, on soul and conscience, that I have this day, at …, separately from any other Medical Practitioner, visited and personally examined …, and that the said … is (a Lunatic …) and a proper Person to be detained under Care and Treatment …: 1. Facts indicating Insanity observed by myself; 2. Other facts … communicated to me by others); Certificate of Emergency; Order to be granted by the Sheriff for the transmission and reception of the lunatic (read directly)

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