Scope and Content: Programs and institutions for the mentally ill and retarded of Massachusetts were among the responsibilities successively of the Board of State Charities (St 1863, c 240), State Board of Health, Lunacy, and Charity (St 1879, c 291), and State Board of Lunacy and Charity (St 1886, c 101).  They were then the sole responsibility successively of the State Board of Insanity (St 1898, c 433), Massachusetts Commission on Mental Diseases (St 1916, c 285), Dept. of Mental Diseases (St 1919, c 350, ss 79-81), and Dept. of Mental Health (St 1938, c 486) –Under the provisions of St 1854, c 95, persons confined in a jail or house of correction who were diagnosed with mental illness could be removed to a lunatic hospital or other suitable location if ordered by the governor, with transport assigned to the county sheriff. St 1880, c 250 authorized the State Board of Health, Lunacy and Charity to designate two persons to examine state prison and reformatory inmates alleged to be insane and report to the governor, who could issue warrants to prison superintendents or wardens for their transfer to state lunatic hospitals (state insane hospitals from 1898). St 1909, c 504, s 105 transferred power to issue warrants to the superior court in the county where the prison was located.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically
Notes: Spine title: Removals from prisons, etc. to lunatic hospitals
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