RESOLUTION.
MEDICAL.
Dated Calcutta, the 23rd May 1879.
READ—
The Report on the Lunatic Asylums in Bengal for the year 1878.
Read again—
The Reports for the years 1876 and 1877, and the orders of Government passed upon
them.
THE report for the year has been submitted with great punctuality, and
the administration of the asylums has been carefully analysed by the Surgeon-
General. For the first time since the year 1872, the number of lunatics in
confinement in the Bengal asylums has fallen below a thousand. The number
on the 31st December 1878 was 991, against 1,077, 1,131 and 1,147, respec-
tively, on the corresponding day in the previous three years, 1877, 1876
and 1875. The reasons for the decrease in the asylum population during the
past three years were given at length in the resolution on the last two annual
reports, and the principle is, the Lieutenant-Governor believes, now thoroughly
understood and acted upon, that only those lunatics should be detained
at the public cost whose release would be dangerous, or who are in the acute
stage of lunacy in which there is most hope of successful treatment. Several
recovered criminal lunatics who could not, on account of their previous history,
be safely released have recently been transferred to jail for employment as
work overseers, servants, or on light labour; and it is now improbable that
Government will again have to provide accommodation in asylums for even
so many as a thousand lunatics. In the six asylums of Dullunda, Dacca, Patna,
Cuttack, Berhampore and Hazareebagh, there was during the past year accom-
modation available for 1,475 patients, and as this is much in excess of the
requirements of the lunatic population, the Lieutenant-Governor has directed
the closing of the Hazareebagh asylum as soon as the inmates can be transferred
to other asylums. A Committee was appointed last year to consider the
question of the distribution of lunatics among the various institutions, and
it was in accordance with their recommendation that the Hazareebagh
asylum was selected for abolition. The local wants of Chota Nagpore are very
small, only nine lunatics having been admitted last year, and its inaccessibility
renders it very unsuitable as a place of confinement for lunatics collected
from all parts of Bengal. After the abolition of the Hazareebagh asylum,
and having regard to the recommendation of the Committee, that no more than
250 lunatics should ordinarily be confined in any one asylum, there will still
remain accommodation for 1,027 patients, allowing each patient a capacity of
50 superficial feet.
2. The number of first admissions during the past year was only 196,
against 247 in 1877 and 329 in 1876. There were two more admissions to the
Cuttack asylum than in the previous year, but in each of the other asylums there
was a diminution in the number admitted. In Dullunda, 65 were received against
78; in Dacca, 32 against 50; in Patna, 56 against 74; in Berhampore, 18 against
21; and in Hazareebagh, 9 against 10. The average daily number of inmates
in all the asylums was 831 men and 220 women, against 889 men and 228
women in 1877.
3. The total number of lunatics discharged was 213, against 266 in 1877
and 263 in 1876, the decrease being entirely due to the care now taken not
to admit harmless lunatics who can safely be entrusted to their friends, and
to the large number of persons of this class discharged in 1876 and 1877.
The percentage of recoveries to admissions was last year 65.2, against
51.57 in 1877 and 42.03 in the ten years 1868-77, although the ratios
of recoveries to the total number of persons treated and to the average
number of inmates were only 11.34 and 14.07, respectively, as compared
with averages of 14.23 and 20.12 for the ten preceding years. In Dullunda,
the percentage of cures on the total population was 16.4; in Dacca, 14.2; in
Patna, 14.9. In Cuttack, Berhampore and Hazareebagh, where the number