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necessary to repeat the observations with which the figures required for the satisfaction of an
office form are now presented for the year 1867.
They call for little comment. The year has passed without prominent events in the
affairs of the lunatics. The admissions show little, numerical difference from those of last
year. Of 26 cases among the males, in which the cause was more or less ascertained,
intemperance is assigned in 9. For the reason stated in my last, this attribution must be
accepted with extreme caution. There is the same ground for regarding the self-indulgence in
those cases as more often the early manifestation of insanity than its real cause. In
4 instances injury to the head had preceded the derangement. In 3 it was ascertained to
have been hereditary. Climatic influences, venereal excesses, and distressing circumstances com-
plete the list; but the number of examples of each is so small as to deprive the statement
of all interest and value. Among the women grief and hereditary transmission are the only
antecedents on record.
The cures and transfers were 31 in number, and the deaths were 7. In an institution
where a total number of less than 100 persons pass through in the year, it is of little use
to convert aggregates into ratios per cent., and where the inmates remain for the greater
portion of the year at a very low number, and rise only during the cold months when
insane soldiers are passing to Europe, a reckoning based on the mean daily population would
not rightly represent any effect or feature of the asylum system as it is.
In regarding 7 deaths as a ratio of 10 per cent., the fallacy is even more apparent.
In dealing with large numbers, accidents and extraordinary occurrences of various sorts are
few in proportion, and, transpiring with a certain degree of uniformity, balance one another in
comparative reckonings. In the present list, however, no less than 4 out of the 7 deaths
would be rightly considered extraordinary, and as illustrative of nothing connected with
the asylum. The mortuary figures, therefore, do no more than fill' the allotted column of the
table, while a separate return of the cases with some particulars of each is appended.
The removal of harmless lunatics to Europe as ordinary invalids has, as before, been attended
with advantage to them and economy to the State ;—with the latter in a very high degree,
as the rate of passage money in the cases where the old method of despatch was compulsory,
was Rs. 650 per man.
It is satisfactory to state that the information which has been received as to the remedial
effect of removal has been all that could be hoped for. This information, however, has been
very incomplete and fragmentary, consisting only of what could be gathered from the com-
manders of ships which had carried the people and again returned to Calcutta.
Some time ago I made an official representation on this subject, and requested that means
might be taken to procure regular returns of the condition in which the insane passengers
reached Europe and showing their ultimate disposal. The result was not encouraging. Some
papers once or twice reached me, containing a few particulars, but they were very soon disconti-
nued, and I have now nothing further to depend upon than the casual narratives of returning
ships' officers. I have not again brought the subject forward, for much as I have often felt the