14
DULLUNDA LUNATIC ASYLUM.
[Part I.
Requirements essen-
tial
no means easy to concentrate all the requirements of such a building as a lunatic
asylum adapted for India, in a single plan. It must be spacious and cheerful, as
unlike a prison either in its surrounding wall or buildings as possible, and yet
secure. The buildings must be so arranged as to permit the freest ventilation,
and yet so concentrated as to facilitate the labour of supervision and obviate the
necessity for an excessive establishment. Large, separate and cheerful quarters
should be provided for the women, isolated quarters for criminals, and cells for
the noisy and dangerous, besides many minor points. It is satisfactory to know
that the subject is engaging the attention of the Surgeon-General, who is in
consultation with the Public Works Department.
Importance of trees
in an asylum.
The cultivation of trees within an asylum area is a most important matter
as regards the health of the inmates from the facility it gives the patients,
whose habits are usually somewhat dirty, of living in the open air; and the
inmates are never slow to take advantage of the opportunity when it offers of
doing so.
Surronuding wall.
Dr. Payne advocates that the surrounding wall of an asylum should be
low, on other grounds than those of dissimilitude to a prison, and the idea of
non-restraint conveyed. He writes:—
It is not, I think, desirable that a lunatic asylum should be surrounded by impassable
walls. The well-being of the people and all efficiency of management depend on the vigilance
of attendants, and nothing keeps these on the alert so surely as the consciousness that escape
is possible if they are negligent. Escapes must always be promptly detected, and with a single
trustworthy person in the place, almost every other result of negligence is difficult to bring
home to the culprit. Possibility of escape is therefore a most useful aid to administration, and
should be kept within due limits, but never entirely removed. This maxim was laid down
years ago in Europe. I believe, but am not sure, that Dr. Conolly was its author.
Employment.
The ratio percent. of the daily average number of inmates who were constantly
employed was raised to 79.7 from 74.03 in 1872. Cuttack, Jubbulpore, Delhi and
Lahore show a slight falling off in this respect, but it is a proportion which must
in every asylum continually fluctuate, bearing, as it does, a relation rather to the
quality of the insanity, than the numbers of the insane. At Moydapore and
Rangoon the Superintendents were particularly fortunate in obtaining labor
from almost the whole of the asylums' populations. Soorkey pounding is largely
carried out by lunatic labour at Dacca, and is stated to be very remunerative;
but it would seem questionable whether the employment is of such a nature as
to be likely to benefit those who are mentally diseased. Of Moydapore it is
stated that the even still more monotonous employment of wheat-grinding
" rather amuses the lunatics, and is much safer than most of the other occupa-
tions." The profitable occupation of lunatics must ever be a very doubtful
source of addition to the income of an asylum, depending, as it does, upon the
caprice and mental capacity of the insanes, but the manner in which they are
treated is sure largely to affect the out-turn of work, and the out-turn of work
cannot but be regarded as some sort of a rough estimate of the amount of ju-
dicious management expended by the authorities, and of benefit derived by the
patients, seeing that mental occupation must ever be the chief means of treatment,
and the vast majority of the insanes being wholly uneducated (for instance at
Dacca 71 per cent. of the males, and all the females, were without a particle of
the rudiments of any sort of education), the mind can only be employed by
taking an interest in some congenial physical work. It is apparent that Super-
intendents have everywhere given this subject anxious consideration and have
displayed tact and discrimination in inducing patients to forego their naturally idle
habits. Where a patient begins to take a real interest in any particular work or
trade, and to become a profitable member of the community, he is generally
in a fair way to recovery, and does not much longer remain in the asylum.
Finances.
Establishments.
Tables No. VII and VIII give full information concerning the expenditure,
income and establishment employed throughout the year. These tables speak
for themselves. Under the head of each asylum separately will be found
noted any marked divergencies from the averages of previous years, with
the explanations afforded by the Superintendents.
DULLUNDA ASYLUM.
Dullunda asylum.
Surgeon-Major R. Bird, M. D., held charge during the first three months,
and Surgeon-Major A. J. Payne, M. D., during the remainder of the year.