CENTRAL PROVINCES ADMINISTRATION.
Education and Medical Department.
No.
716-A/VI-32-4
Nagpur, the 19th May 1909.
READ—
The Triennial Report and Statements of the Lunatic Asylums in the Central Provinces
for the years 1906, 1907 and 1908.
RESOLUTION.
The principal administrative action taken during the triennium was the removal
of all female lunatics from the Jubbulpore Asylum to the Nagpur Asylum in 1907.
This will shortly be followed by the removal of the male lunatics to Nagpur
also. The Asylum at Jubbulpore admits of no expansion, and the site occupied
by it is required for other purposes. The concentration of the insane in the
Asylum at Takli (Nagpur) will permit of more highly paid superintendence and
closer supervision, although for some time to come it is doubtful whether the
institution will be important enough to warrant the employment of a Commissioned
Medical Officer as whole-time Superintendent. The site is well drained, and there
is plenty of scope for expansion. In fact, with the one exception of the greater
heat in April and May, the Asylum should prove to be much more healthy than
that at Jubbulpore, which is situated on the edge of a nala receiving the drainage
of the Jubbulpore City. The transfer will be effected as soon as the necessary
additions to the Asylum at Takli are ready.
2. There has been a distinct tendency to increase in admissions in both
Asylums, and this is partly due to high prices and hard times, when poor families
find it difficult to support the burden of insane relatives, but partly, it may be, to
a weakening distrust of asylums. The figures are in any case too small to justify
any conclusion that insanity among the general population is on the increase.
This will only be ascertained when the next census comes to be taken.
3. The relief of any tendency to overcrowding in the Jubbulpore Asylum
obtained by the transfer of the female lunatics has been accompanied by a
decrease of mortality in Jubbulpore, and an increase in Nagpur, in which Asylum
there were 75 deaths during the triennium as compared with 50 in the preceding
period ; but in this respect also no reliable conclusions can be drawn from the
figures of any particular year or period of two or three years. Very much
depends on the number of lunatics in each age period, and the proportion borne
by epileptics, and the total numbers being dealt with are so small that a few
fortuitous deaths affect the death-rate per mille very greatly. That of the 75 deaths
which occurred in the Takli Asylum during the three years, no less than 20
were due to old-age debility. The ages of these old men ranged from 66 to 94,
and their period of residence in the Asylum from 13 to 39 years. Twenty more
deaths occurred among epileptics. Two deaths resulted from injuries, and the
balance, or 33, occurred from a variety of causes so various in fact that they
do not indicate the existence of any epidemic malady or any general insanitary
conditions. The Chief Commissioner is satisfied that the larger number of deaths
during the triennium, and especially in 1908 that occurred in the Nagpur
Asylum, cannot be ascribed either to want of attention or to any defect of situation.
The Asylum is frequently inspected by the visitors who include two Medical
Officers in their number.