DULLUNDA ASYLUM.
7
meat, and to record my opinion in the visitors' book to that effect. The general health of the
insanes at Dullunda is a subject which has occupied my attention for some time, and in my
opinion it is the object of greatest interest at the present moment of any connected with this
institution. I again very recently made a careful examination of all the men and women
under confinement in this asylum, to ascertain if any improvement had taken place in their
general health since August 1869. In the first place there is less scurvy, and those who are
in fair health are (as Dr. Payne says) I think in better condition than they were last year;
but more than a fourth, I should think, of the whole body have now clear indication of
scurvy, not what Dr. Payne alludes to in his report as a blueness of the gums, but a swollen,
suppurating state of the gums, with recession from the teeth; the latter in many instances
having fallen out.
I noticed also that very many of the insanes are exceedingly anæmic and cachectic, and
there is no doubt in my mind that the conditions noted above are closely related to the large
and still exceptionally heavy death-rate at Dullunda. My own belief has been placed on
record over and over again, that the system of dieting carried on for a long time in this
asylum was a thoroughly inadequate one in relation to the amount of actual labor performed.
Taking fully into consideration the opinion recorded by the superintendent of the
asylum regarding the necessity for greater space, and fully agreeing with him as to the
deleterious effect of overcrowding in jails, barracks, or asylums, I say that no amount of
space at this institution will efface the marks of the disease without an improved dietary, and
perhaps also a more careful system of labor. The subject is so momentous a one, that I offer
no apology for again referring as I have done to this vital question, the due and proper
amount of nourishment required for these poor creatures in relation to the work done by
them. I have elsewhere, when inspecting other asylums, alluded to the labor question, and
recorded my belief that in the majority of cases light work, such as cloth manufacture, is
much more suited for lunatic employment than pounding soorky or manufacturing oil. In
one case the labor is light and the exposure to climate is small, and consequently the
expenditure of vital force is inconsiderable; in the other, all the circumstances of his daily
life are against the insane. At Dullunda the ill effects of overcrowding are practically
reduced to a minimum by the doors at night being thrown open and the verandahs being
occupied; and again if anæmia and scurvy exist (as they do) how are these produced by over-
crowding ? Overcrowding will most certainly originate disease, but disease of a different type ;
whilst scurvy is everywhere known and recognised as a dietetic disease. I am convinced that
exceptional mortality can only be checked at Dullunda by a careful re-consideration of the
subject of diet in connection with labor. It is a significant fact that the simplest sores at
Dullunda heal with difficulty, and here again I say is an evidence of low vitality, resulting
from what ?—overcrowding, or the causes I have enumerated ? A death-rate of 16 per centum
on actual strength is too high. On the question of diet, the only safe guide is the effect
produced; and this, irrespective of cost, or the question of maintaining the hospital par-
tially by lunatic labor.
After all, considering the scale of establishment maintained in this asylum, and the cost
of all articles of food at the capital, the cost per annum would scarcely appear to be
excessive, Rs. 86-12-8; dieting only Rs. 45-10-9.
I have a few words to say regarding criminal lunatics. There has been an increase of late
in the number of this class of insanes, and it has appeared to me, judging from their demeanour
here (many of them), that it would be as well for those whose duty it is to pronounce on the
sanity of these individuals to recollect (medical officers, juries, and judicial officers) that cerebral
excitement resulting from the abuse of intoxicating liquors and drugs is not insanity. If
an Englishman gets drunk, and in that state commits a criminal act, he is held responsible for
it; and if he has committed murder in his state of excitement, he is hung. But a native of