REPORT ON THE DACCA LUNATIC ASYLUM.
35
Escapes.
Escapes are included in the discharges. This year only 4 eluded the attempts made
to recapture them. The wall surrounding the asylum is only 5½ feet high at one part, and
it is at this place that the lunatics escape. In former years a much larger number
absconded ; but when the wall was raised, a considerable reduction in the number of escapes
occurred. When the wall is raised in the only place where it is still low, escapes ought
rarely to happen.
Deaths most nu-
merous in the
cold season.
The deaths were very numerous at the beginning of the cold season. Of 42 deaths
during the year, 22, or 52.5 per cent., happened in the three last months. The cause of this
high rate of mortality will be considered when the causes of death are explained.
Sickness.
Cause of apparent
excess.
The daily average number of sick appears large, but of late years all weakly and demented
lunatics, who require extra food and exceptional care, have been included in a " convalescent
roll." They are placed under the close observation of the Native Doctor, who sees that
they receive the diet especially ordered for them.
Religion
and
residence
of
patients.
Ganjah smoking a
vice of Hindoos.
Table No. 5 is a table of the religion and zillahs of patients admitted during 1871.
Hindoos are admitted in considerable greater number than Mahomedans. Without a correct
census of the proportion in which these two classes stand to one another in the zillahs of
Eastern Bengal, it is impossible to draw any conclusion from this fact. There can be no
doubt, however, that ganjah smoking, which sends so many mad men to the Bengal asylums,
is peculiarly a Hindoo vice. Mahomedans prefer the more stupefying effects which follow
opium-smoking or opium-eating.
Proportion of males
and females.
Rarity of madness
among
Gipsy
tribes.
Of course few Mahomedan females, except criminals, are sent to asylums. A large
proportion of the Hindoo females are " Boistubees." In that comprehensive class Mahomedan
females also enroll themselves when they leave their homes. The proportion of males to
females in the Dacca asylum has been for many years about 4 to 1. It is a curious fact that
no record exists in this asylum of any member of the wandering Gipsy tribes, such as Koonch,
Boideya, &c., being admitted into the asylum. This appears to support the generally
received theory that the nearer we advance to savage life the less insanity do we find.
Trades and occu-
pation.
Causation.
* Vide General Statement No. 6.
Table No. 6* is a return showing the trades or occupations of those admitted in 1871.
Cultivators, as usual, furnish the largest number of lunatics ;
then come persons employed in domestic service and beggars,
which term includes fakirs and Bairagis. Ryots are not much given to ganjah smoking,
or to the use of any intoxicating drugs. The cause of their insanity can often be referred
to domestic troubles,—to the failure of some lawsuit in which they have been engaged,
or to debts which they have incurred or inherited and are unable to get rid of. Servants,
again, are notoriously dissolute in their lives, and indulge in every kind of debauchery.
Prolonged fasting, exposure, and ganjah, are the exciting causes of madness in the case of
wandering beggars and religious mendicants.
Age of lunatics.
† Vide General Statement No. 5.
Table No. 7† gives the age of all lunatics treated during the year. The figures only
approximate to correctness, as no uneducated native has the
least idea of his age. As might be expected, the largest
number of admissions and of recoveries are among persons whose ages range from 20 to 30.
Of the total number treated, 25 per cent. died in the first decade ; 6.3 per cent. in the
second ; 18.4 per cent. in the third ; 14.8 per cent. in the fourth; and 25 per cent. in the fifth.
Duration of insa-
nity prior to
admission.
Table No. 8 shows the duration of mental disease prior to admission. It is not always
possible to acquire this information. A wandering lunatic picked up by the police can
seldom give any account of himself, and relatives are so ignorant and unobservant of dates
that any exactitude is impossible. Of the 80 admissions only 63 have had the duration of
the insanity ascertained ; of the 63, 16 are said to have become mad under three months,
8 between three and six months, and 10 between six and twelve months. Between one
and five years there were 18 cases, and above five, 11.