Note on the Statistical Tables of the Punjab
Lunatic Asylum for the year 1907.
Statement I.
Admissions, discharges,
etc.
The year opened with 599 inmates and 191 patients were admitted, making
a total of 790 under treatment and giving a daily average
population of 608.13, as compared with 604.75 in the previ-
ous year. Seventy-three were discharged and 107 died; thus
there remained on the 31st December 610 patients under treatment, as compared
with 599 at the close of 1906. Of those discharged, fifty-one were returned
as cured, as against sixty-eight in 1906. Eleven were handed over to their
friends in an improved mental condition. Under discharged otherwise are
included one man sent for judicial trial, a European removed to England, five
handed over to relatives and four found sane on admission. Of the daily average
strength, 8.39 per cent., and of the admissions, 26.70 per cent. were cured,
the corresponding figures for the previous year being 11.24 and 39.08.
There was overcrowding in the portion of the asylum for males, but
p atients in excess of the capacity of the wards were accommodated in tents and
huts. This difficulty is being met by the construction of a new hospital and
additional cubicles, which will be sufficient to meet requirements for some years
to come.
Sickness and mortality.
2. The daily average sick fell from 56.26 in 1906 to 48.25 during the
year under report. The marked unhealthiness which
characterised the latter part of 1906 continued throughout
last year. Diseases of malarial origin, as usual, contributed the largest number
of admissions. Bowel complaints, pneumonia and anæmia gave 112, 37 and 36,
respectively. The death rate rose from 9.43 to 17.59 per cent. of daily average
strength. Although malaria gave the largest number of admissions, it caused
only two deaths. On the other hand, twenty of the thirty-seven cases of pneu-
monia had a fatal issue; but it is well known that insanes succumb very readily
to this disease. The mortality among cases of diarrhœa was also high, seventy-
four admissions gave eighteen deaths. The mortality during the first ten months
of the year was already heavy, when, in November, cholera appeared and caused
twenty-six deaths. The disease occurred in a very virulent form, not a single case
recovering. Only inmates of dirty habits, incapable of exercising discrimination
about the water they drank, were attacked and it was not until steps were taken
to prevent them from obtaining access to water open to contamination that the
disease was checked. Thus we had an epidemic of cholera, notwithstanding the
presence of an excellent supply of drinking water, which points to the great
importance of preventing the consumption of water introduced for garden pur-
poses, for flushing drains, etc. To ensure this, it is essential that non-potable
water should not be accessible to the inmates.
Statement II.
Criminal lunatics.
3. Including 116 criminal lunatics remaining under treatment on the
1st January, a total of 149 patients of this class came
under treatment, as compared with 141 in 1906. Nine
males and two females were discharged and eleven males died, leaving 115 males
and twelve females under treatment on the last day of the year.
Statement III.
Religion, sex and resi-
dence.
4. Hindus contributed seventy-six males and thirteen females to the
total admissions; Muhammadans sixty-seven males and
eighteen females; Europeans and Eurasians nine males
and four females; Native Christians one female, and other
castes two males and one female.
Statement IV.
Occupation.
5. Agriculturists, as usual, furnished the largest number of admissions,
viz., twenty-eight ; while seventeen are shown under the
head of " housewife." The previous occupation of forty
patients could not be ascertained.
Statement V.
Age.
6. With regard to age, twenty-one of the total number admitted were
under 20 years; 139 between 20 and 40; twenty-eight
between 40 and 60 and three above 60.