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Annual Report on the Jubbulpore Lunatic Asylum for the year 1899.
Additions and Alterations.—The usual annual repairs were done by the
Public Works Department, and no additions or alterations were made.
2. Sanction has just been received to take over the old Thaggi Hospital
with a specified amount of land, which will be converted into an Asylum for
Europeans and Eurasians.
3. The other new works under consideration are :—
(a) Certain additions and alterations to the cook-house.
(b) Remodelling in parts and repairing in places the main drain of the
Asylum.
(c) A work-shed, shower-tap and latrine in the criminal yard.
(d) Eight observation cells for dangerous and violent lunatics.
STATEMENT I.
4. This is a general statement and gives the number remaining at the end
of the year. It also shows the new admissions and results of treatment, &c., both
for the year under review and for the ten preceding years.
Thirty-three (27 males, 6 females) were admitted, against 34 of the last year,
and there were no re-admissions. The total population was 187, the highest during
the last ten years.
Discharged cured 20 (16 males, 4 females) ; improved 2 males, of whom
one was a paying-patient, Dwarka Parshad, a Professor of Persian in the Gov-
ernment College, about whom I wrote at some length in my report of last year.
I then stated that I considered the life in the Asylum was having a deleterious
effect on him and that the uncle was one of the main causes of his present state.
I suggested to the Official Visitors that if any one, except the uncle, could be found
to take care of him, he might, with advantage to himself, be discharged. The
Visitors agreeing with me, discharged him under section 10, Act XXXVI of 1858,
on the 28th February, making him over to his brother-in-law. He has now been
working as a Professor of Persian in the College for over six months and is
apparently sane.
5. The other was a non-criminal, Kandhai Ram, Register No. 390, caste
Sonar, aged 40, a resident of Bilaspur District, who suffered from acute mania
(religious). His fit of insanity came on whilst taking the ashes of his daughter
to the Ganges.
His brothers frequently came to take him away, but it was not until nine
months had elapsed that it was considered advisable to let him go. He had
become quiet and rational five months after admission, but the mania being of a
religious type, another few months' observation was considered necessary. He
was discharged by order of the Official Visitors on the 26th May 1899, on furnish-
ing security under section 10, Act XXXVI of 1858, and handed over to his
brother. Nothing has been heard of him since. It was a most interesting case.
6. Discharged otherwise 1.
This was a non-criminal, Musammat Nunhi, admitted into the Asylum on
the 21st October 1899, suffering from melancholia, due, it is supposed, to the
loss of her brother. Eleven days after admission into the Asylum she was
quite rational, but was much grieved about the death of her brother, which took
place in April before her admission, leaving two children in her charge.
In December, it was intended to place her before the next meeting of the
Official Visitors, recommending her discharge, but she took advantage of the
negligence of her keepers to escape by climbing over the railings, having evaded
the vigilance of the keepers.