DULLUNDA ASYLUM.
5
create the habits that are required in the asylum. There cases of illness are brought to the
hospital or to the notice of the subordinate, whose business it is to attend only where his
attention is called for. Here he is mainly useful in spontaneously searching for illness
among the inhabitants of the place, without which search it often progresses unknown. To
keep up an unremitting search for illness throughout the day is a practice which does not
commend itself to the understanding or the inclination of a man who is accustomed to
consider his day's work done, or nearly so, when the surgeon's visit is over; and I do not wish
to detract from the high character which Sheikh Bahadoor earned as a regimental native
doctor when I say that he has disappointed me in his manner of discharging the peculiar
duties of the asylums.
The conduct of the native establishment has been excellent. Slowly progressive change
has taken place under the present scale of wages in the class of men who take the service.
Some of the new men had served in various capacities under the overseer in the horse
artillery in former years. A few are Punjabees who have taken their discharge from
regiments quartered in the neighbourhood, and being contented with the service, have
summoned others from long distances. The general result is that a staff of servants very
different from, and in every respect greatly superior to that of former days is in course of
formation, and there is every prospect of its easy recruitment, as there are now always a few
probationers about the place waiting to be employed.
It is perhaps beyond the scope of a report on the asylum, but I am unwilling to
conclude without expressing the obligation under which I lie to Captain Eckford, of the
Telegraph Department, for the great assistance he has rendered me during the year. The
arrangements of the cook-room required improvement, but to make them thoroughly good
was beyond the manufacturing means at my command. Heavy iron castings were required,
as well as some skilled advice, all of which were most readily furnished under Captain
Eckford's orders. By the contrivances adopted, a very perfect method of cooking has been
introduced with a saving of fuel which brings the consumption of coal below the quantity
per man which the most approved appliances in use in England require. For much similar
assistance in smaller matters, as well as for the profitable employment of lunatics in the
telegraph yard, the institution is indebted to the same establishment.
I have the honor to be,
SIR,
Your most obedient servant,
ARTHUR PAYNE, M.D.,
Surgeon-Major,
Superintendent of Lunatic Asylums at Presidency.
MEMORANDUM by the Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals, Presidency Circle, in forward-
ing the report to the Inspector-General of Hospitals,—(No. 3385, dated the 19th
February 1870.)
I SHALL submit my views on the general working of this asylum when I make my annual
inspection report, but as Dr. Payne has referred to the opinions which I hold, and the action
which I took in August last regarding the dieting of the insanes, I desire to add a few words
in forwarding this report. My attention had been for some time past called to the great
mortality at this asylum, as noticed by Government in their resolutions; and with a view to
ascertain if possible the cause or causes, I made a careful personal inspection of the insanes in
August, and I found that many of them exhibited signs of mal-nutrition in the form of scorbutic
gums. Having before me recent experiences with other large bodies of men, I believed that
B