6
STATEMENT No. X.
Receipts and expenditure on account of manufacture.
32. The total credits of the Manufacturing Department amounted to Rs. 12,282-
13-9 and debits to Rs. 4,213-6-4, showing a profit of Rs. 8,069-7-5 in 1917 as compared
with Rs. 8,130-1-7 in 1916 and Rs. 6,928-11-2 in 1915. The mean profit for the
triennium was Rs. 7,709-6-9 against Rs. 5,198-13-3 for 1912—1914.
33. Insanes who are capable of working in the asylum factories are employed on
weaving and cane work and others are employed in gardening, the manufacture of
clothing and in performing domestic duties connected with the asylums. When a
supply of water for gardening is provided at Yeravda Asylum beneficial employment will
be found for many inmates for whom no suitable work is available at present and profits
under this head will be materially increased. The average number of insanes employed
on the manufactures during the triennium was 419.9 against 347.1 for 1912—1914.
Visitors.
34. The official visitors were regular in their attendance at all the asylums.
Management.
35. The general management of the asylums has been satisfactory notwithstand-
ing the changes of personnel caused by the recall of officers to military duty and their
replacement by Superintendents who were new to the work. In the case of Yeravda
and Naupáda asylums the work was rendered especially difficult owing to the number of
military cases which they were called upon to admit. Fortunately, it was possible to
arrange for the early transfer of most of the European insanes to England and of the
Indian soldiers of other provinces of India to the asylums of those provinces. The work
was carried out at a great disadvantage owing to the crowded condition of all the
asylums, on account of half the European overseers joining the army and their places
being taken by untrained hands, and because of the difficulties experienced in obtaining
and keeping suitable asylum warders and sweepers on account of the higher pay offered
for service in Mesopotamia and East Africa. The difficulty in obtaining and keeping
sweepers has become a serious one owing to better paid employment, as fitters and
mechanics for which they have been found specially suited, being open to them. While
it will be impossible to do entirely without sweepers, in future everything will have to
be done to reduce the number required to a minimum by means of a water carriage
system of sewage in all asylums and hospitals and of suitable arrangements to wash out
cells and wards by means of hoses. Yeravda Asylum is at present the only one which
has a water carriage sewage system, but no time should be lost in introducing this in all
the other asylums (and in Civil Hospitals), where hand removal of excreta is at present
employed. During the triennium under review the warder staff at the Naupáda,
Ratnágiri and Hyderabad Asylums was strengthened to cope with the additional work
entailed by the increased admissions, and, with a view to retain trained and experienced
warders, it was endeavoured to give suitable promotion by revising the grades of pay at
these and other asylums. Still, owing to the increase in the cost of living a suitable
class of male and female warders cannot be obtained and kept and a considerable further
increase of pay will be necessary. Sweepers are almost impossible to obtain even at an
increase of 50 per cent. on the present rates.
36. As this is the last report I shall make on the lunatic asylums of this Presidency,
I wish to thank the Superintendents and staffs of all the asylums for the whole-hearted
way in which they have carried out their duties under most trying conditions during
the last three years. The asylums have all been overcrowded during the whole period
and have had a constant stream of insanes from overseas and from India passing through
them. But notwithstanding these adverse conditions no outbreak of infectious disease
has occurred in any asylum and the sickness and mortality rates have been on the whole
low. The heaviest portion of the work fell on Major Shaw, Superintendent of the
Central Lunatic Asylum, Yeravda, and Ráo Bahádur Mody, Superintendent of Naupáda
Asylum, Thána, owing to the large number of military insanes admitted into these
asylums. Both these officers were working short-handed as regards their staffs, and
Major Shaw was all the time doing military or prison duty in addition to his duties as
Superintendent.
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your most obedient servant,
R. W. S. LYONS, M.D.,
Surgeon-General, I. M. S.,
Surgeon-General with the Government of Bombay.