( 3 )
Statement VI.
6. Mania, as usual, was the form of insanity most frequently met with
accounting for 62.56 per cent of the admissions.
Next in order of frequency is melancholia, which
gave 39 admissions, or 18.48 per cent. The number of recoveries from these
two types of insanity was 69, or 6.54 per cent. of the total treated, and 13 and
1.23 per cent., respectively.
Statement VII.
7. The information presented in this statement is compiled from Medical
History Sheets which are required to be sent with
lunatics. There was slight improvement in filling
in these documents in the year under review, but both the Superintendents of
the Berhampore and Patna Asylums point out that Medical Officers still seem to
think from the heading of the return that they are required to sign these
papers. This is, however, not correct. The committing officers are to prepare
and sign them, and obtain information from the Medical Officer who examined
the lunatics in question. At Berhampore many of these documents had to be
returned for rectification of errors and discrepancies. In this connection the
Superintendent suggests that, as in the Punjab, only Magistrates with first class
powers (chiefly District Magistrates) should be authorised to direct the admission
of lunatics to the asylum. This will ensure, he says, the reception of only the
dangerous and destitute cases of insanity in the asylum and the supply of
correct and full and complete particulars regarding them. The proposal, if
adopted in this province, would act as a greater safeguard against the admission
to the asylum of harmless lunatics who have relatives, but it will require a
modification of the definition of the term "Magistrate" in Act XXXVI of
1858. Physical causes were, as usual, responsible for most of the admissions to
the asylums, viz., 63, or 29.85 per cent., against 79 and 36.07 per cent. in 1905.
Intoxicants are credited with 41 cases against 51 in 1905. It is noticeable that
in 10 cases in 1906 the cause was alleged to be spirit-drinking. Ganja-smoking
is ascribed as the cause of lunacy in 29 cases against 40 in 1905. At Patna
this cause was accepted from the patients' statements and the examination of
their hands and thumb, neither of which are very reliable. Major Robertson-
Milne states that there is too great a tendency on the part of Magistrates and
others to write without due enquiry such words as " used to smoke ganja" He
suggests that the patients' version should be corroborated by the statements of
their relatives and friends, by Police and Magistrates' records and physical
signs of ganja indulgence. Moral causes accounted for 23 cases against 19 in
the previous year. The cause of insanity was 'unknown' in 59.24 per cent. of
the cases against 55.25 in 1905.
8. Injuries and Accidents.—There was a number of these at Berhampore,
three being of a serious nature. A recovered lunatic, who was appointed in
the asylum as a work overseer in September 1904 and since remained
apparently sane, kicked a fellow-lunatic, who succumbed to the injury received.
The warder through whose negligence the assault was committed was
dismissed. The assailant was charged with simple hurt, and was found guilty
and sentenced to three months' imprisonment by the Sessions Judge. Another
lunatic, who had been charged with theft previous to his admission to the
asylum, assaulted in a fit of sudden impulse, another lunatic in the cell in
which both were confined, causing his death. The Superintendent asserted
that no one of the asylum staff was to blame for this occurrence. Another
lunatic, while in a fit of epilepsy, had a severe fall which caused a rupture of
his liver and he died.
9. Escapes.—A criminal lunatic escaped from the Berhampore Asylum,
but was recaptured. The negligent warders were duly punished.
Statement VIII.
10. Finance.—The total amount spent for the up-keep of the three
asylums (2 for Natives and 1 for Europeans) was
Rs. 1,21,671-6 8 against Rs. 1,15,408-15-9 in 1905.
The item of expenditure, which showed the largest increase, was diet, the cost
being Rs. 51,500 against Rs. 39,911 in the previous year, and the cost per head
Rs. 62-4-3 and Rs. 47-10-9, respectively. This is attributable to the abnormal
rise in the price of food-grains and to the improvement in the diet scale at
Patna and Bhawanipur. In the latter there was an increase of Rs. 726 in
1906 under the head of "Superintendence" due to the inclusion in the accounts
of the Deputy Superintendent's and Matron's leave allowances as well as the