Resolution on the Report of the Tezpur Lunatic Asylum for the year
1898.
Extract from the Proceedings of the Chief Commissioner of Assam in the General
Department, No. 1498^., dated Shillong, the 21st April 1899.
Read-
Letter No. 527C, dated the 6th March 1899, from the Principal Medical Officer and Sanitary
Commissioner, Assam, to the Secretary to the Chief Commissioner of Assam, forwarding
the Annual Report of the Tezpur Lunatic Asylum for the year 1898.
RESOLUTION.
ONLY lunatics from the Brahmaputra Valley and Hill districts are confined in the
Tezpur Lunatic Asylum : those from the Surma Valley are sent to the Dacca Asylum,
in Bengal.
2. At the beginning of the year there were 118 patients in the Tezpur Asylum,
94 males and 24 females, and at the close of the year there were 125 patients, 99 males
and 26 females, of whom 60 were natives of Assam, 62 were coolie immigrants, while
the nationality of 3 patients was unknown. There were 36 criminal lunatics at the close
of the year, against 30 at its commencement. It is stated that committing Magistrates,
with few exceptions, still fail to let the Asylum authorities know the sections under
which criminal lunatics are sent to the Asylum. The recurrence of this complaint is
unsatisfactory, and the Chief Commissioner must impress upon Magistrates the neces-
sity of stating, when forwarding criminal lunatics to the Asylum, the offences with which
they are charged and the section of the Criminal Procedure Code under which committal
is made. Of the 21 non-criminal lunatics admitted during the year, no fewer than 11
came from the Darrang district, of which Tezpur is the headquarters. In the previous
year also a disproportionate number of the non-criminal lunatics admitted were natives
of Darrang, and it is evident that in this district proper discretion has not been exercised
in sending lunatics to the Asylum.
3. Four buildings in the female compartment of the Asylum were destroyed on the
night of the 10th March 1898 by a fire which is believed to have been maliciously
caused. To replace them, the erection of an iron-roofed building at an estimated cost
of Rs. 8,ooo was sanctioned, and it is now approaching completion. The Chief Com-
missioner was compelled, owing to financial considerations, to reject a proposal for the
construction of a new hospital at a cost of Rs. 4,048, but the want of hospital accommo-
dation will be less felt when the new female ward is completed.
4. The percentages of admissions to hospital and of deaths to daily average popula-
tion were 70*17 and 4*03, respectively, as against 75*07 and 815 per cent, in the
preceding year. The average percentage of mortality for the ten years 1887-96 was
11 "24. The great decrease in the death-rate of the Asylum is a gratifying result of
increased care for the health and comfort of the inmates, and especially of the liberal
use of iron and quinine as prophylactics.
5. The expenditure for the year amounted to Rs. 13,273, as compared with
R s « I 3>°S7'* l m the preceding year ; the cost per head of the average population was
Rs. 104-12-11, as against Rs. 103-15-2 in 1897 and Rs. 87-4-8 in 1896. The average
cost per head in lunatic asylums throughout India in 1897 was Rs. 113-12-8. One
additional sweeper was entertained during the year. The net profit from the manu-
facturing department was Rs. 1,592-14-3, against Rs. 1,090-6-7 in the preceding year.
The total earnings of the lunatics amounted to Rs. 2,225-0-6, viz. } Rs. 825-2 value of
garden and daily produce and of clothes manufactured by the patients, which were used
l n the Asylum, and Rs. 1,399-14-6 cash receipts.