Resolution on the Report of the Tezpur Lunatic Asylum
for the year 1896.
Extract from the Proceedings of the Chief Commissioner of Assam, in the Judicial
Branch, No. 879/^., dated the i$th March 1897.
Read-
Letter No. 370C, dated the 4th February 1897, 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 1896.
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. The population of the Tezpur Asylum at the beginning of the year numbered
-„ , .. j ,
, ..
in patients, 8g males and 22 females. Forty-two patients
Population and accommodation.
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1 -? •
1
p
1
o
Ti
were admitted during the year, or whom o were females.
Eighteen inmates were discharged, 14 of whom were cured, two were discharged
improved, one not improved, and one was transferred to the Lucknow Asylum. There
were two escapes and seven deaths. The number of inmates at the close of 1896
was 126, of whom 27 were females. Of the total number, 62 were natives of Assam
and 64 belonged to the immigrant classes. The daily average population of the
Asylum was 116, against 106 during 1895. There were 23 criminal lunatics on the 1st
January 1896, and of the 42 new admissions only nine were criminal lunatics. Three
were discharged and one died, leaving 28 at the close of the year, all of whom were males,
of a total population of 126. The proportion borne by the non-criminal to the criminal
population, 4*5 to 1, is very high as compared with Bengal, where the criminal lunatics
in 1895 formed one-half of the total asylum population. Mr. Cotton was impressed
on his inspection by the apparently harmless character of the great majority of the
inmates of the asylum, and it seemed to him that many persons had been admitted who
in Bengal would not have been sent to an asylum. It is observed that Rule 3 on page
16 of the Manual of Executive Rules and Orders, Volume I, in force in Assam, directs
that ordinarily only such non-criminal lunatics should be committed to asylums as are
dangerous or in the acute stage of insanity. The attention of District Magistrates will
be directed to these orders. The Superintendent should in future show in his report the
districts from which patients have been admitted, separate figures being given for
criminal and non-criminal patients. Mania was the type of insanity from which most
of the patients were suffering, and melancholia came next. From Statement No. VII
of the Report it would appear that of the 42 admissions, the causes of insanity were
ascertained in 15 cases only. Sufficient care is evidently not exercised by medical
officers in diagnosing the causes of insanity when drawing up the medical history
sheets of lunatics to be admitted to the asylum. Excluding the hospital and the
solitary cells, and one female ward which was unoccupied, the accommodation provided
544 cubic feet of air space for each male occupant, and 642 cubic feet for each female,
which is ample. The hospital accommodation is reported in paragraph 6 to be
capable of improvement: the Principal Medical Officer will be requested to enquire
further into the matter.
3. The percentage of admissions to hospital to average strength was 112, as com-
Health
pared with 29 in 1895, and an average of 49 during the
previous ten years. The percentages of deaths to average
length for the same periods were 6*01, 6*59, and 12-00, respectively. The Superin.
indent of the Asylum attributes the large increase of admissions to hospital to the fac^