No. 569.
FROM THE SURGEON-GENERAL,
INDIAN MEDICAL DEPARTMENT,
To THE SECRETARY TO THE GOVERNMENT OF BENGAL,
JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT.
Dated Fort William, the 16th July 1877.
SIR,
1.
2.
3.
4.
Dullunda.
Dacca.
Patna.
Cuttack.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Moydapore.
Berhampore.
Hazareebagh.
Bhowanipore.
I HAVE the honor to forward, for submission to His Honor the Lieutenant-
Governor, my report on the Lunatic Asylums situated in
this Province for the year 1876. These asylums are shown
in the margin, and it will be perceived that they have
remained unchanged with this exception, that an additional
one has been opened at Hazareebagh, by means of which the overcrowded condition of some
of the other institutions has been relieved. The question of overcrowding will be more fully
entered into in paragraph 16.
Superintendence.
2. The superintendence of the asylums, with the exception of the one at Dacca, has
been in the hands of the same medical officers as in 1875; and Surgeon E. A. Birch, Civil
Surgeon of Hazareebagh, is the Superintendent of the new asylum at that station.
Sanction for the
opening of the
Hazareebagh
Asylum.
3. Sanction for the new asylum at Hazareebagh was conveyed in Bengal Government
letter No. 1449, of 12th April, and detailed instructions were also issued to Superintendents
regarding the class of lunatics to be henceforth received and maintained in asylums. The
transfer of 155 lunatics to Hazareebagh was also directed (by Government letter No. 1843,
of 12th May 1876, to the Inspector-General of Jails) under the following restrictions, viz.
that those transferred were not to be violent, dangerous, or sickly; and that.as far as
possible, natives of the Behar or West Bengal districts should be selected. For a full
account of the new asylum at Hazareebagh, I would refer to the summary compiled from
Surgeon Birch's clear and comprehensive report, which will be found further on.
Transfer of lunatics
from Dacca to
Tezpore.
Sum to be paid for
the support of
Assam lunatics.
Orders were conveyed (in Bengal Government letter, No. 1854, of 13th May) relative
to the transfer generally of lunatics belonging to the Province of Assam from the Dacca
to the Tezpore Provincial Asylum; and Bengal Government letter, No. 3182T, of 5th
November 1876, to the Secretary to the Chief Commissioner of Assam, fixed the sum to be
paid yearly for each lunatic from Assam who might still be maintained in the Dacca Asylum
at Rs. 90.
Plan of the report.
4. Similarly as in last year's report, I have had summaries prepared from the reports
received from the several Asylum Superintendents; and on them I shall offer such remarks,
or shall draw attention to any statement contained in them, as may assist in explaining the
working of the institutions during the past year. I have also retained most of the statistical
tables that have been used in former years for the elucidation of the subject of this report,
in connection with the asylums taken separately; but in the Appendix will be found the
statistics of all institutions compiled in those tables that were ordered by the Government
of India in Home Department Resolution, No. 419F, of the 31st August 1874.
I shall take up the subjects to be reported on in the order in which they are given in
the statistical tables of the Appendix.
Admissions,
discharges, &c.,
during 1876 and
ten previous years.
5. Statement No. 1 exhibits the principal statistical events of each asylum during the
year 1876, while Table No. I in the Appendix supplies similar information regarding all
the institutions taken collectively, both for the same year as well as for each one of the
preceding decennial period. The statistics of the Bhowanipore Asylum for Europeans are
not included in any of the statements or tables, because hitherto it has always been customary
to omit them. Owing to the transfer of patients during the year, I must observe (as I did
in the report for 1875) that the totals of columns 6 and 7E, in Statement No. 1, (the former
representing the total population, the latter the total discharged) are not sums of the subsi-
diary figures. The figures denoting the numbers transferred are properly included in the total
population of individual asylums; but if included in the general total, they would vitiate
the return of 1876, when viewed in comparison with those of other years.