8
STATISTICAL RETURNS OF THE LUNATIC ASYLUMS.
asylums. The disinfection and laundering of the clothes is not satisfac-
tory at Madras, and proposals for a disinfecting plant and steam laundry
are being laid before Government.
34. Industries and employments.—The growing of vegetables has been
stopped at Madras until the drainage works are completed, as working
with fresh liquid sewage was believed to lead to the development of
bowel complaints among the patients. It is continued in the other
asylums. Grass-farming, weaving, sewing, knitting and coir-making are
the chief forms of employment; and some patients are selected to help
the asylum mechanics and other servants. No new industries were intro-
duced.
35. Amusements.—The asylum inmates are well looked after in this
respect; and the records of the institutions show that real sympathy is
felt by the educated public for their afflicted brethren. Several persons
gave books and money for monthly treats. Rao Bahadur M. Natesa
Ayyar, District Registrar of Madras, left a legacy of Rs. 580-4-0 to the
Madras Asylum, the interest on which sum is to be used towards the help
of needy inmates. In 1914 the Madras Asylum put a cricket team into
the field.—being apparently the first asylum in India to do so—and played
matches with Newington College, Doveton College, the R.F.A., St. Thomas'
Mount, and the Eastern Telegraphs. The band of the Madras and
Southern Mahratta Railway Rifles, by kind permission of Lieut.-Colonel
Porteous and the officers of the corps played selections of music for the
Madras Asylum patients in the Asylum on many occasions during the
triennium, and books and periodicals for the Asylum library were received
from His Excellency the Governor of Madras, Mrs. Porteous and several
others.
36. Hospital accommodation.—It is proposed to build a new male
hospital at Madras on the recently acquired ground to the north of the
asylum ; the present accommodation for males is insufficient, and conti-
nuous use has been made of the isolation camp for the excess ; female
accommodation is sufficient. In Calicut a male hospital for twelve beds
is under construction on the site of the old building, the patients being
temporarily accommodated in the general ward. In Vizagapatam no
change was necessary.
37. The nursing of the sick was efficiently carried out by trained
attendants in each asylum. The Superintendent, Madras Asylum, desires
an increase both in pay and personnel of the nursing staff, as necessary
for the better care of the patients and their segregation when under treat-
ment for dysentery and similar infective disorders.
38. Hospital dietary.—The sanctioned scale was found sufficient and
suitable. The diets were well cooked. Forcible feeding by the nasal and
œsophageal tubes is frequently required at Madras, and found very
useful; no bad results have been noted even where the measure was
necessary for long periods.
39. Sickness—General.—The average daily sick in the asylums was
7777,115.36 and 89.95 in the three successive years. The high figure for
1913 was explained in my letter submitting the returns for that year.
The conditions of debility and anæmia were the most prominent causes
of admission. Dysentery was the most serious disease ; a report on the
bacillary or asylum variety of this ailment by Captain Heffernan
is herewith submitted; it may, if Government approve, be advantageously
annexed to the present publication. Other common diseases were
diarrhœa, nervous affections, respiratory diseases, and disturbances
produced by intestinal worms.
40. Epidemics.—No epidemics arose in the Asylums at Vizagapatam
and Calicut. But during the cholera epidemic at Madras in 1914, in spite
of precautions, the disease found admission and gave rise to twenty-two
cases, of which fourteen proved fatal. The occurrence led to the removal