| Guislain wrote about his visit to Manicolo on pages 129-135 of his Lettres Médicales sur l'Italie avec Quelques Renseignements sur la Suisse: Résumé d'un Voyage fait en 1838, Adressé à la Société de Médecine de Gand (F. & E. Gyselynck : Ghent 1840). Guislain reported on what was in 1838 a building under construction for the mentally ill in the Besagno quarter of Genoa. He described a structure of six wards that branched out from a central six-storey rotunda, topped by a red copper dome. Each branch was two-storeyed, with a total of three floors, all with a longitudinal hallway with cells and dormitories on either side. Guislain noted that the ideas of Dr Esquirol were influential in the design of the building. Then an elaborate description of the entire building was given: windows, doors, white marble baths. While obviously impressed with the scale and luxury of the building, Guislain noted that the building seemed not to be fit for its medical purpose. There were no common rooms, for instance. Moreover, the hallways were extremely long and the design of the cell windows faulty. The tiled floors in the cells for agitated patients were so cold as to be injurious to health.
Guislain then compared this building with others he had seen which had comparable radial structures. He believed that a radial structure made it impossible to separate patients adequately according to their condition, and that abandoning it would result in more inner courtyards and therefore more flexibility and less disruption. Guislain also noted with regret the lack of outdoor space for patients. Still, he regarded the building as heralding a general improvement in the lot of the mentally ill in Genoa, and comparing this change to the transformation brought about in England by its county lunatic asylum building spree. It is not clear whether Guislain met either Tagliaferro or Buffa during his visit to Manicolo. It is possible, however, that Guislain knew Buffa through his writings on psychiatry. |
