6
LUNATIC ASYLUMS IN BENGAL.
18. Causes of insanity.—Even in England it is difficult to obtain reliable
information as to the cause of insanity in cases which are sent to asylums. In
this country the information from which the cause is attempted to be discovered
is utterly untrustworthy in most cases, as an example of which assertion I may
point to the fact that in Table No. VII of the appendix one case is put down
as owing his insanity to witchcraft, whatever that may mean. In the same
way it does not seem very evident how colic, cholera, or hydrophobia should be
causes of insanity, unless from the patient brooding over and dreading the
occurrence of those diseases. In the table it will be seen that the principal cause
returned has been the abuse of gunja, of which there were altogether 345 cases,
including 16 criminal new admissions and 73 non-criminals. There were also 6
cases attributed to bhang and charus, 46 to spirits, 8 to opium, 20 to epilepsy, and
in 32 the cause assigned was hereditary predisposition. Among moral causes
there are 60 cases attributed to grief, 3 to jealousy, 5 to anger, 5 to love
(all men), and 9 to religion and fear. Physical causes are assigned in 510 cases,
moral causes in 91, and in 663 the cause is entered as not known, being a
simple method of getting over the trouble of enquiring into the matter.
19. Sickness in the Asylums.—In the appendix will be found ample details
as to the sickness in each of the asylums, and the subjoined Statement No. 9
gives some facts regarding it. Last year the number of cases of sickness in
Hazaribagh was again very high, and so it was also in Dacca and Berhampore.
In Dullunda the sickness has again been exceedingly low, the admission rate
having been 16.64 of mean strength. In 1877 it was 20.18.
STATEMENT No. 9.
Admissions into hospital
...
...
...
Ditto
per cent. of mean strength ...
Daily average sick
...
...
...
...
Ditto
in 1877
...
...
...
...
Ditto
ditto per cent. of mean strength
Ditto
ditto in 1877
...
...
...
Dullunda.
34
16.64
3.15
5.21
1.54
2.41
Dacca.
189
96.14
16.07
18.66
8.17
9.10
Patna.
81
40.04
11.81
15.1
5.83
6.98
Cuttack.
28
58.5
1.84
2.14
3.84
4.29
Berhampore.
189
97.83
5.74
6.11
2.97
2.89
Hazari-
bagh.
218
105.26
21.39
21.77
10.32
9.8
Total.
739
70.29
60.
68.99
5.7
6.17
20. Underneath is an abstract of some of the principal diseases which
have prevailed in the asylums during the year. It is very remarkable that there
should have been only one case of fever during a whole year in Dullunda, and
that in 1877 there were only two. This is the more noticeable, when we compare
the prevalence of this disease in the other asylums and among the general
population of Calcutta during the same period. Thus in Cuttack, with an
average strength of 47.86, there were 9, and in Berhampore, out of an average
strength of 193.19, there were 110 cases. In Dullunda the strength was 204,
and there was only a single case of diarrhœa and not one of dysentery. These
happy results Dr. Payne attributes to the success of the measures he has
adopted for preventing his patients having access to any but pure water. It
was not that 1877 was a healthy year, for in the town and close to the asylum
there was much sickness.
Fevers, dysentery, and diarrhœa are to be considered as preventible diseases,
and according as they prevail in any given situation, say in an asylum or jail,
may it be concluded as to its drainage—as to the food, drinking water, and the
housing of the inmates, especially as to overcrowding, being all that could be
desired, or the reverse. In Berhampore and Moydapore in 1877 there were 100
cases of fever; last year there were 110. Of dysentery there were 33 cases in
1877 and 55 in 1878, with 24 cases of diarrhœa against 8 in 1878. In Dacca
these diseases have been becoming less frequent year by year. There were
in all eight cases of pulmonary consumption, out of which five occurred in