9
bazar about a mile from the asylum. On the 11th of May the first case in the
asylum took place, the subject of it had been twenty-three years a resident, he
never went outside its limits and was employed in the cook-house. The nights
being extremely hot he was excused from sleeping in a ward, and was attacked
during the night as he slept near some keepers. He was taken at once to a
temporary hospital, a thatched shed, but he soon became collapsed and died in
forty-eight hours. His bedding, clothes, &c., were all destroyed. No further
cases occurred during the eleven weeks following or until the 2nd of August when
two cases occurred in the same barrack, and on the 10th another : the wards in
which the cases had taken place were vacated at once. Again, on the night
of the 13th, two cases occurred in the hospital ward, when I at once determined
to move the men into camp, and by the evening sixty were as comfortable as
circumstances admitted in thatched chuppers. There was little choice as to
ground, a good deal of rain had fallen, and all but the high ground on the
asylum farm was saturated, this however was fairly dry, in a good position
near a good well, and at a suitable distance from the asylum buildings. On
that evening two fatal cases occurred in camp, on the 20th and 24th two
additional cases, also one who with other lunatics occupied one of the small
wards in the asylum. The occurrence of each case necessitated abandoning
the shed in which it took place, the camp was bodily moved twice, whilst the
four buildings in which cases occurred were vacated one after another, the berths
dismantled and the walls whitewashed; cooking for the camp was carried on
there, and it may almost be said that communication between the camp and
asylum ceased. Seven cases occurred in the wards and four in camp; the
sick were treated in a hut at another part of the asylum grounds : every thing
that was possible was done for them, yet eight died of eleven attacked. Later
on, 13th September, one of the female keepers was attacked and recovered.
I know of nothing in the sanitary condition of the asylum or its water-
supply that might be pointed to as likely to favour cholera; latrine matter is
trenched three quarters of a mile distant, and the water-supply is as pure as
well water can be; the situation of the asylum is all that can be desired ; the
official visitors have recorded monthly their approval of its cleanliness, and
it has had the advantage of a visit from the Surgeon-General with the Govern-
ment of India late in the year, whose Minute on its condition does not contain
any remark indicative of sanitary defects. The men were not brought back
to the asylum from camp till the 26th September, as there seemed to be some
delay or difficulty in regard to the necessary whitewashing : to what extent
this protracted stay in camp during the rainy season resulted in increasing the
sick list or swelling the mortality roll it is difficult now to determine; it is
reasonable, however, to assume that the men would have been more comfort-
able on dry berths in dry wards than on straw on the ground in grass chuppers
more or less exposed to rain and dampness. Mortality occurred in the follow-
ing months :—April one death from general debility ; May two, one of these
from cholera and one from acute mania; June three, one from fever, one from
acute mania and one from general debility : thus six died during the first half
of the year. Six also died in the following month July, thus :—fever one;
disease of the heart one, and four from general debility: thus then the
first of the wet or trying months claimed more deaths from anœmia than
the previous six, and resulted in equal mortality, all told. Fourteen died