(RESOLUTION.)
JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT.
MEDICAL.
Calcutta, the 4th October 1872.
READ—
A letter No. 346, dated the 27th June 1872, submitting the reports and returns of the
lunatic asylums in the Lower Provinces for the year 1871.
1. This report is the first in which the revised forms of statistical tables,
drawn up with much care by the Inspector-General of Hospitals, have been
utilized. The facts thus brought into prominence have suggested much valuable
commentary both to the Inspector-General and the Superintendents of asylums,
and the Lieutenant-Governor is glad to acknowledge that the annual reports of
the Medical Department have this year, under Dr. Brown's supervision, been as
complete and interesting as any presented to Government in any department.
2. The general statements omit the statistics of the European asylum at
Bhowanipore, which are separately dealt with. In the five native asylums of
the province there were, on the 31st December 1870, 783 lunatics of both sexes;
the admissions and re-admissions during the year were 400, giving a total of
1,183 persons under treatment. Of these, 200 were discharged cured, 55
transferred to friends, &c., 101 died, leaving 827 in confinement at the close
of the year.
3. The statistics of criminal lunatics in the asylums show that 164 were
in confinement at the beginning of the year, 65 were subsequently admitted,
making a total of 229, of whom 38 were discharged and 17 died, leaving 174 in
confinement. The Lieutenant-Governor has had before him very recently the
question of providing a separate asylum for this dangerous and increasing class.
He has, however, become aware that there is considerable difference of opinions
on the subject. It hardly seems necessary that all criminal lunatics should be
treated exceptionally, and if dangerous men are massed together the difficulty of
managing them is much increased. It has also been suggested that as these
lunatics are constantly liable to be sent up for trial or released, their removal to
a great distance from their own districts is inconvenient. In view of the
general increase of lunatics, the Lieutenant-Governor has given orders for the
adaptation for an asylum of a building at Berhampore. But it is so much in
that station that he doubts whether it is fitted for a criminal asylum. With
reference to the remarks above, the Lieutenant-Governor would be glad to be
favored in greater detail with the Inspector-General's view regarding a criminal
asylum. The old jail at Midnapore might possibly be made available.
4. The most important feature in the returns of asylums is the progressive
increase of the residual population. This is but the natural result to be expected
from the chronic nature of the great majority of the cases in such institutions.
The admissions are not increasing in the same ratio. On the contrary, they
were this year 1 less than in 1870, and only 14 above the average of five
preceding years, but the daily average strength is 154.6 above the average
of the same five years. This increase in the standing population necessarily
places all the statistical events of the year in a diminishing ratio to strength so
long as exceptional causes do not come into operation. Of the number admitted,
12.7 per cent. were re-admissions, being .9 less than the average percentage
borne by re-admissions to admissions in English pauper asylums. Dr. Payne
attributes the smaller number of admissions at Dullunda to the operation of the
rule forbidding the despatch of lunatics to asylums when unfit to travel, and the
practice of demanding payment from persons in easy circumstances who bring
their relatives for treatment. As regards re-admissions, he remarks that in