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The Charity Hospital (New Orleans, La.) Lunatic Asylum admission book contains admittance records compiled from July 1841-December 1848. The patients, who included men, women, and children from multiple states and countries, were admitted for mental health issues and contagious diseases.

The Charity Hospital (New Orleans, La.) "Admission Book" contains around 208 pages of admittance records for the New Orleans Charity Hospital's lunatic asylum, compiled from July 31, 1841-December 16, 1848. Each entry spans 2 pages and contains the patient's name, place of nativity and most recent residence, length of residence in New Orleans, age, and marital status, as well as information about their illness and the date of their death, discharge, or abscondence; some patients were transferred from the Lunatic Asylum to the Charity Hospital. Many patients originated from other countries, often in Europe, and some are identified as slaves. Frequent ailments included delirium tremens, general insanity, and epilepsy. Some records contain a proposed cause of the patient's disease, such as "liquor." In 1847, the hospital admitted a large number of children with infectious diseases; some of the children's mothers occupied the hospital's numbered wards. Clerks recorded monthly and yearly reports regarding the numbers of patients the hospital had admitted, the number who had been discharged, and the number who had died.