It was the first institution in the country for "colored persons of unsound mind".

'On the Need for Family Care of Persons of Unsound Mind in Ireland'.

It was reassigned in 1870 to the treatment of "colored persons of unsound mind" and was the first to offer treatment exclusively to the black population of Virginia.

The Lunacy Act 1845 and the County Asylums Act 1845 together gave mental hospitals or "asylums" the authority to detain "lunatics, idiots and persons of unsound mind".

The fact that a limited partner is a 'person of unsound mind' is not a ground for dissolution of the partnership by a court, unless the person's share in the partnership cannot be otherwise ascertained and realised.

Furthermore, only plantations under the control of a minor, a single woman, a person of unsound mind, or a person who was serving in the Confederate military could qualify, and a $500 fee was required to process the application.

"Person of unsound mind" was the term used in 1950 in the English version of the European Convention on Human Rights as one of the types of person who could be deprived of liberty by a judicial process.

(c) Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, imported into English law by the Human Rights Act 1998, provides that a person of unsound mind may be detained only where proper account of objective medical expertise has been taken.

Before the Act, learning institutions for idiots and imbeciles were seen as either "licensed houses" or "registered hospitals" for lunatics, for which the parents of children hoping to enter would have to complete a form stating that they were "a lunatic, an idiot, or a person of unsound mind".

The act, which intended to, "Make Provision for the Support and Maintenance of Ideots, Lunaticks, and other Persons of unsound Minds," authorized the House of Burgesses to appoint a fifteen-man Court Of Directors to oversee the future hospital's operations and admissions.