( 2 )
would propose to alter the rules because they added slightly to the period for
which criminal patients were detained.
6. The capacity of the different asylums remained unaltered during the
year, but in Dacca four new cells for female patients have since been completed,
and are now in use. This raises the standard of accommodation to 41, which
is only slightly below the average daily strength. On the male side of the
asylum, accommodation for 50 extra patients was added in 1891, and this has
rendered it possible to transfer lunatics from Chittagong to Dacca instead of
Dullunda.
7. In statement VII, showing the causes of insanity, only 40 cases out of
the 200 admitted are put down to ganja-smoking, against 55 in the previous
year, and Dr. Harvey observes in explanation of the reduction that the theory
that hemp drugs cause insanity is less readily accepted than it used to be. In
reviewing the report for 1890, the Lieutenant-Governor referred to the prone¬
ness of some persons to conceive ganja a fertile cause of insanity; and in the
Resolution on the report of 1892 the Inspector-General of Civil Hospitals was
asked to enquire into some of the cases attributed to ganja-smoking, and to
ascertain on what data this diagnosis was based. Mention was also made
of the suggestion that it is as reasonable to suppose that excessive ganja¬
smoking may be due to insanity as that insanity may be due to excessive
use of ganja. In dealing with the report of 1893, the Lieutenant-Governor
observed that whenever a lunatic was reported by the police to be a ganja¬
smoker, it was too easily assumed that that drug was the cause of insanity; and
he agreed with Dr. Harvey in thinking that in past years many cases had been
attributed to ganja on most insufficient grounds. The question of the con-
nexion between insanity and ganja has since been exhaustively examined by the
Hemp Drugs Commission. The Commission found that in the great majority
of cases the asylum statistics as to the supposed cause of insanity were based
wholly on the descriptive rolls or similar papers received with the lunatics.
For this reason they set aside the statistics as quite untrustworthy, and under-
took a special enquiry into all the cases admitted into asylums in India in 1892
and ascribed to hemp drugs. They did in fact on a larger scale and with more
elaborate machinery what the Lieutenant-Governor had asked the Bengal
Inspector-General to do in 1893. The conclusions arrived at by them after a
most exhaustive inquiry entirely bear out the impression which Sir Charles
Elliott had long ago formed from facts which came before him in the course of
ordinary administration. The following statement summarises their results: —
Cases admitted in 1892 ... ...
Cause of insanity shown as known ...
„
„
„
„ unknown ...
Cases attributed to hemp drugs ...
„ accepted by the Commission as due to
hemp drugs ... ... ...
"Mixed" cases (hemp only one of several
possible causes) ... ...
Total cases held by the Commission to be
more or less connected with hemp drugs...
Cases rejected by Commission ... ...
Number.
1,344
775
569
222
61
37
98
124
Percentage on
admissions.
58
42
16.5
4.5
......
7.3, or 12.6 on
"known" cases.
......
It appears from the report that the above figures, if taken by themselves,
tend rather to exaggerate the part played by ganja in causing insanity. Thus
among the 37 mixed cases, in which ganja ranks only as one among several
possible causes, there were 7 into which heredity entered as a predisposing factor,
18 may have been due to alcohol, and three to dhatura; while out of the remain-
ing 61 accepted as due to hemp drugs, there were 22 with regard to which no
satisfactory evidence could be procured; and a great majority of the rest came
from the lower orders of cultivators and labourers, about whom it was not easy
to ascertain more than the fact that they indulged in ganja. Whether that
habit was the cause or one of the causes of the insanity, or even whether it
preceded the insanity was much more difficult to establish. Subject, however,
to these deductions, the Commission accepted it as reasonably proved in the
absence of evidence of other causes that hemp drugs do produce insanity, though