( 2 )
where, notwithstanding the four new cells which have been constructed, the
female wards were occasionally slightly overcrowded. Accommodation is
provided on the standard scale for 1,137 patients, and the maximum number
confined on any one night was 945.
6. In statement VII, which shows the alleged causes of insanity, 21 cases
out of the 184 admitted are entered as due to ganja-smoking, 1 to bhang, 5 to
alcohol, 1 to other intoxicants (including dhatura), 8 to heredity, 3 to epilepsy,
and 9 to other physical causes. Twenty-two are ascribed to moral causes,
and 114 are included in the column “ Unknown.” The reduction of 19
in the number of cases attributed to ganja-smoking is said to be the result of
the more careful enquiries and diagnosis suggested by the Hemp Drugs Com-
mission. Only those cases are now put down to ganja in which indulgence
in this drug is found to be the predominant factor, and not merely one among
several possible causes of insanity. The descriptive rolls of lunatics are also,
it is stated, prepared with greater care.
7. The average daily number of sick rose during the year from 55.41
to 58.81, and the number of admissions to hospital increased by 276. The
number of deaths, however, was no higher (75) than in the previous year, the
death-rate being 8.15 against 8.19 in 1894. This proportion, as the Inspector-
General points out, is not only less than in any other province of India, but even
compares favourably with that of the borough and county asylums of England.
Sickness was most prevalent in the Dullunda Asylum, where the number of
admissions to hospital rose from 238 to 540, the chief causes being malarial fever
and influenza. It is satisfactory to note that, with the exception of a single
case in each of the asylums of Dullunda and Patna, cholera, though prevalent in
the surrounding areas, was practically absent from the asylums, and that no case
of small-pox occurred. Reference is made in the report to an opinion expressed by
Surgeon-Colonel Hutcheson, while officiating as Inspector-General, as to “the
unsuitability of certain kinds of labour exacted from the insane in Bengal.”
This opinion does not appear to have been communicated to Government, and the
Lieutenant-Governor desires that the subject may now be dealt with in a special
report. Lunatics should certainly not be called upon to do anything that can
be properly described as penal labour, and the chief, if not the only object of
requiring them to work at all, is to provide them with some sort of occupation
which will keep them from moping. In order to meet the case of lunatics of
filthy habits, the system of spreading a thick layer of dry earth over the entire
floor of all sleeping wards was introduced at Patna and Dullunda. At the
former place, where the climate is dry, it appears to have worked well; at the
latter the visitors raised objections, and the practice has been discontinued,
pending consideration of an alternative proposal for levelling the asphalt of the
floors and pointing the walls so as to enable the wards to be properly cleansed
with water, which was laid on for this purpose some years ago.
8. The number of injuries and accidents rose from 17 to 22, eighteen of
which occurred at Dullunda. At this asylum one lunatic was drowned and
another died from rupture of the spleen caused by ill-treatment by a warder
assisted by two lunatics. The warder was convicted by the Sessions Court, and
sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for four years. One case of suicide occurred
at Dacca and another at Patna; and in each the warders on duty were punished
for carelessness. Towards the end of the year two criminal lunatics escaped,
one from Dacca and the other from Berhampore, and had not been recaptured.
One warder was dismissed and several others fined.
9. The income and expenditure of the asylums for the last two years are
shown below:—
INCOME.
Received from the Treasury
Ditto from paying patients
Total
Value of articles received from manu-
facturing department.
Received from the Public Works
Department, Medical Store
Depot, and Stationery
office.
GRAND TOTAL
1894.
Rs.
66,883
2,042
68,925
14,415
12,447
95,788
A.
14
0
15
4
8
12
P.
5
8
1
3
11
3
1895.
Rs.
75,174
2,030
77,205
4,600
9,573
91,378
A.
13
7
4
2
4
10
P.
3
0
3
8
0
11