LUNATIC ASYLUMS IN BENGAL.
13
Dullunda Luna-
tic Asylum.
Dullunda.—Surgeon-Major A. J. Payne, M.D., was in charge during the year, and
reports as follows:—
Admissions.—From the previous year there remained in the asylum on the 1st January
1878 202 persons, viz. 162 males and 40 females. The new admissions of the year were
less in number even than those of 1877, being 56 males and 9 females against 57 males
and 22 females. The re-admissions have not varied much of late years. They numbered
13 in the year under review. The total number of persons treated again fell, being 280
against 320 in 1877. To these admissions acute mania contributed 43 and chronic mania 14.
Eight persons were received without any discoverable sign of insanity.
Disposal of lunatics. —Forty-six persons were discharged cured during the year, and 18
were transferred in improved condition to the care of friends. There were 15 deaths.
Among the discharged persons there were 29 who had suffered from acute mania and eight
from chronic mania, while four had not shown evidence of insanity. The proportion which
acute mania bears to the other affections, both in the admissions and discharges, explains
the high ratio in which the latter stand to the former.
A return is appended,* in accordance with orders, showing the average period of deten-
tion in cases of recovery and discharges. I submit, however, that an average in such a case
conveys no information. Some criminal lunatics have been discharged years after they
had recovered. The average presented in this return is made up by the delivery of a
lunatic to his friends after detention of 21 years, and of others after 17, 15, and 11 years.
At the close of 1878 there remained in the asylum 201 persons ; practically speaking, the
same number as that with which the year opened.
Sickness and mortality.—The health of the inmates has been remarkably good during the
year, notwithstanding great sickness and mortality in the town environs. I wrote in my last
report concerning the striking results of preventing access to foul water in the apparent removal
of dysentery. During the year under report, as will be seen from Table No. 8, there was
not a single admission to hospital for this disease. There was only one admission from
diarrhoea and one from fever. Slight attacks of ephemeral illness which would bear these
names did occur, but none of sufficient severity to make admission into hospital necessary.
Thus the year passed with a daily average population of 204 persons, among whom zymotic
disease was represented by two admissions into hospital and no death; and the year was
marked by excessive surrounding mortality. Pulmonary diseases were again in large
proportion to the small total of deaths, of which they accounted for five, four of these
being due to phthisis. One death was attributed to round worms, because we found an
accumulation of these, and no other change to account for death. It was the only instance
that has occurred since 1876, and shows that these vermin do not now find their way to the
intestines of neighbours as they formerly did.
There was no admission into hospital on account of ill-usage either by patients or
keepers.
The special register of deaths, furnished with the authorised table, sets forth the cause
of each death, with the duration of previous residence in the asylum. From this it will be
admitted that there has been no preventible sickness.
The arrangements for bathing, without access to water once used, have been completed
by constructing a large shower-bath for the male lunatics at a very small cost. The shower-
bath provided for epileptics and others unable to use the tank has been enlarged so as to
accommodate a number of persons at one time, and the water is at once made to fall away
out of reach. Water is pumped to the necessary height from the old bathing tank, to
which no one now has access, and which remains therefore a reservoir of comparatively pure
supply.
It will be observed that in the female ward there was but one death in the year, though
the rooms were occupied nearly to their full capacity, and are the worst in the asylum in
respect of ventilation.
General management.—There is little to be said, and nothing that is new, of general
management during the year. Out of the mean daily population of 204, there have been
employed 184 on some one or other of the several forms of industry.
Finance.—We drew from the treasury in 1878 a sum of Rs. 28,499-1-6 against
Rs. 28,926-12-1 in 1877. From paying patients we received Rs. 1,828-12-0 against
Rs. 984-8-11 in the previous year, and the value of manufactured articles here
entered as the actual cost of production only was Rs. 6,882-14-10 against Rs. 7,170-10-1.
We expended on establishment Rs. 18,898-4-2 against Rs. 20,061-15-0 in 1877. This
includes one-half of the Superintendent's salary, or Rs. 7,308-0-0, and the Deputy Superin-
tendent's salary of Rs. 3,000-0-0. These items, as I have already pointed out, forbid com-
parison of establishment cost with provincial asylums. If we take the highest rate of charge
on these accounts elsewhere, we shall find them amount to Rs. 3,600 per annum, and the
difference, viz. Rs. 6,708, must be deducted from Rs. 18,898 before a comparable figure can
be obtained. The balance, Rs. 12,190, distributed over the mean daily population, will give
a cost per patient of Rs. 59-12-0 instead of Rs. 92-8-0 shown in Table No. 9.
During the year an experimental endeavour was made to reduce the establishment,
which was reported to you in my letter No. 311, dated 20th December 1878, which letter
I reproduce here, as it sets forth an important part of the management of the year, and the
* The returns of single asylums have not been printed, though alluded to in reports by Superintendents. They will be found
embodied in the general tables at the end.