Massachusetts. Dept. of Indoor Poor.

State responsibility for those instate almshouses and lunatic (from 1898 insane) hospitals was held successively by the Board of State Charities (1863), the State Board of Health, Lunacy, and Charity (1879) and the State Board of Lunacy and Charity (1886), while under the latter two of these boards the Dept. of Indoor Poor was responsible for adults in these state institutions and for juvenile wards of the state over three years of age. (The Dept. of Outdoor Poor was responsible for adults in need of state medical or general assistance not committed to state institutions under the board's jurisdiction and of juvenile wards of the state under three years of age.) In 1898, just prior to state agency reorganization, responsibility was redivided between a Division of State Adult Poor (with Indoor and Outdoor units) and a Division of State Minor Wards, which were carried over into the State Board of Charity.

Founding legislation for these various boards gave them the authority to transfer inmates from one almshouse or lunatic hospital to another. Pursuant to Resolves 1866, c 40; 1871 c 11 and c 77, a hospital and asylum for the harmless and incurable insane had been built at the Tewksbury almshouse, and St 1876, c 179 provided for the appointment of a resident physician to direct them. (St 1880, c 250, s 4 required that the Board of Health, Lunacy and Charity could transfer insane almshouse inmates only when certified insane after examination by two physicians, one with no connection to the hospital.) Eventually the almshouse's function was specialized to the extent that St 1900, c 333 renamed it the State Hospital.

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