MUNICIPAL DEPARTMENT.
MEDICAL.
DARJEELING, THE 8TH MAY 1895.
RESOLUTION—No. 47T.—M.
READ—
The report on the lunatic asylums in Bengal for the year 1894.
Read also—
The report for the year 1893 and the Resolution recorded upon it.
The report has been submitted with the same punctuality as in the previ-
ous year. It was due to Government on the 1st May, and was received on the
22nd March, i.e., more than a month earlier.
Remaining on the 1st January
...
...
Admitted and re-admitted
...
...
Total ...
Discharged cured ... ... ... ... ...
Ditto improved
...
...
...
...
Ditto not improved
...
...
...
...
Ditto otherwise
...
...
...
...
Died
...
...
...
...
...
...
Total ...
Remaining on 31st December
...
...
Daily average strength
...
...
...
1893.
Rs.
951
205
1,156
92
52
6
13
77
240
916
932
1894.
Rs.
916
200
1,116
80
29
3
6
75
193
923
915
2. The statement in the margin,
which compares the number of patients
in the five native asylums in Bengal
during the last two years, and sum-
marises the main facts regarding them,
shows that the number of admissions
fell off by five.
The number of deaths and dis-
charges dropped from 240 to 193, and
the daily average strength from 932 to
915. The number of criminal lunatics
in confinement on the last day of the
year was 463, against 445 at the end of 1893, while that of the non-criminal
lunatics fell from 471 to 460.
3. Of the 200 persons admitted and readmitted, 108 were criminal lunatics
and 92 non-criminal; the figures for the previous year being 103 and 102
respectively. The re-admissions during the year fell from 24 to 20, the
decrease occurring in all the asylums except Dullunda, where 14 patients
were re-admitted in 1893 against 5 in 1894. Seven of these were criminal
lunatics remanded to the asylum after trial; four were cases of insanity,
recurring after various intervals of temporary recovery; and three were
patients who had been made over to their friends, but were found too trouble-
some to be kept at home.
4. The number of lunatics discharged fell from 163 to 118, the fall affect-
ing all asylums except Dacca. It was most marked in Dullunda (35) and Patna
(19), and in both these institutions the decrease is said to be due to the success
attained in the previous year in inducing the friends of harmless lunatics to
take charge of them. In this way Dullunda got rid of 78 patients and Patna
of 34, as compared with 43 and 15 respectively in 1894, and it is stated that
the harmless patients still remaining have no friends or relations willing to take
charge of them. The increase in discharges at Dacca from 26 to 42 is put
down to the larger number of recoveries.
5. At the close of the year there were 463 criminal lunatics in confinement.
Of this number, 185 had been actually tried, acquitted on the ground of insanity,
and ordered to be kept in safe custody; 252 had been detained as incapable of
making a defence, and 26 were persons who being already in jail for an offence
had become insane there, and been transferred to an asylum. The numbers of
each class in the previous year were 176, 242, and 27. The daily average
strength rose from 441.42 to 448.19, and was higher than in any of the last ten
years except 1891. The Inspector-General of Civil Hospitals (Surgeon-Colonel
Harvey) remarks that these figures tend to confirm the opinion expressed by
him in last year's report, that the operations of the rules framed in 1888 for
dealing with criminal lunatics increase the number of such lunatics under deten-
tion. It seems, however, doubtful whether these rules have been in force long
enough to make it possible to judge of their effect on the number of criminal
lunatics, and in any case the question is of no practical importance, as no one