No. 1013½
FROM
SIR J. CAMPBELL BROWN, K. C. B.,
Surgeon- General,
INDIAN MEDICAL SERVICE,
(On leare,)
To
COLONEL H. K. BURNE, C. B.,
Secretary to the Government of India,
MILITARY DEPARTMENT.
Dated Fort William, the 24th November 1875.
SIR,
I HAVE the honor to submit the General Report on the Lunatic
Asylums, Vaccination, Hospitals and Dispensaries in the Bengal Presidency for
the year 1873. The Report, which is the sixth of the series, has been compiled
by Surgeon E. A. Birch, F. R. C. S., Civil Surgeon of Hazareebagh, and exhibits
evidences of great care and judgment in the selection, from the voluminous
materials placed at his disposal for that purpose, of really interesting and valu-
able information, which he has moulded into a compact and systematic shape.
2. The general arrangement of the report is the same as that of its pre-
decessors. Part I concerns Lunatic Asylums. No increase in the number of
these institutions took place during the year. The number of admissions into,
and residents in, asylums tends, however, year by year, to increase, and it is
apparent that additional accommodation must ere long be provided for the in-
creasing number of insane patients placed under detention and treatment in
them. The overcrowding of asylums has caused more concern in the province
of Bengal than in any other. It appears that, taking all the asylums of that
province into account, the population was 52 per cent. in excess of accommo-
dation. The pressure for space was most felt in the Dullunda and Dacca
Asylums, where an excess of deaths from chest complaints was, I think with
reason, attributed to over-population. A new asylum, constructed to hold 220
patients, was under construction at Berhampore, and has been opened since the
close of the year. A small asylum for lunatics belonging to the province of
Assam was also being constructed at Tezpore, and has recently been completed.
These measures afford some, but not sufficient, relief, and the question of in-
creased asylum accommodation for Bengal is now under the consideration of
His Honor the Lieutenant-Governor. The proposed asylum at Cuttack has not
yet been commenced, it is believed from want of funds. A trial has been
made at Dacca on a small scale, as detailed at pages 11 and 17, of the Gheel
system of boarding out harmless lunatics, but the results are not as yet suffi-
ciently promising to warrant an extension of the system. The large and in-
creasing number of criminal lunatics confined in asylums is remarkable. It
has been proposed to build asylums specially for this class, as is the practice in
Europe. The project has much to recommend it, and would relieve the over-
crowded state of existing institutions. It is satisfactory to note the diminished
death-rate of 1873. The Lucknow asylum has improved in this respect. This
is attributed to the river Goomptee not having overflowed its banks during the
year. The death-rates of the Lahore, Dacca and Delhi asylums are very high.
In the smaller asylums the rates, as might be expected, vary very much. The
miserable condition in which most lunatics are received into asylums, added to
the danger to life inherent in their maladies, must always maintain a high mor-
tality in hospitals for the insane. This part of the report contains much