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As valuable accessories, I would include the daily wash and bath; a certain amount of work
coaxed, not exacted, from each patient; innocent amusements, as the nautch, tom-tom, and
occasional wrestling matches; the distribution of little luxuries, as sweetmeats, fruits and cigars;
and frequent conversations with individual insanes, in which you hear the same story, or listen
to the same grievance, real or imaginary, perhaps, for the hundredth time. Nor must I omit
to allude to two, by no means trifling, adjuvants: last year I pickled several thousand limes
and issued them as a relish to the food, and during the sickly months each insane had a daily
drachm of fresh powdered charcoal mixed with a little water.
V. In my last report I alluded to my intention of preventing the adulteration of flour
by grinding it on the premises; this is now done, and four mills are busily at work in the
female asylum, providing pure flour and soojee, not only for home consumption, but for outside
sale. The females also manufacture all the charcoal tickeeas which are used in the Asylum.
VI. The manufactures carried on by the insanes have progressed very favorably during the
past year, and have included brick and tile making and soorkee pounding, carpentering, the oil
mills, weaving dosootee, blankets, jharuns and tat, making tape and woollen rugs, and working
in the garden. These items have yielded a clear profit of Rs. 1,038-3-6 against Rs. 917-6-4 of
last year, and the estimated value of our labor has been Rs. 2,708-13-4 against Rs. 1,057 for 1867.
During the year we constructed with our labor and material a large and roomy dining or
sleeping shed, which will serve as a model for those to be erected under the sanctioned extension.
VII. Though our daily average strength has been 162 against 130, our annual expendi-
ture has diminished instead of increased, the average cost of each insane being Rs. 63-11-4
against Rs. 89-9-1 last year.
VIII. As usual, I find that the majority of admissions is due to indulgence in gunjah
or bhang, and of these a great number should never be sent to an asylum at all; the mere fact
of a man being found reeling about under the influence of cannabism affords no more ground
for his being sent to a Lunatic Asylum, than if the same man were simply under the influence
of spirituous liquors. If existing laws were properly attended to, such mistakes would not
so frequently occur. Act XXXVI affords full protection, but then the Police do not
wait to find out whether the person be a lunatic, and thereby dangerous, and the personal
examination by a Magistrate is, I fear, more honoured in the breach than in the observance.
Were it otherwise, descriptive rolls would not be sent in either altogether blank, or filled up
with contradictory nonsense. The medical certificate, the most important of all the docu-
ments, is too often carelessly filled in, and fails to afford any information. Thus, in two
cases out of many—in one, the Medical Officer adduces as facts indicating insanity, ' is idiotic,
talks incoherently occasionally '; in the other, and this a criminal case, the Medical Officer
adduces as facts indicative of insanity, ' thick utterance like a drunken man, wavy motion of
the tongue when protruded, peculiar gait &c.,' which symptoms, moreover, were due to general
paralysis of the insane. To prove that it is possible to . send in documents carefully drawn
up, I may add that the descriptive rolls and medical certificates sent in from Bhaugulpore
are invariably most minutely filled in, and always furnish full and valuable information.
IX. In this station, as the jail is no longer under the Civil Surgeon, suspected insanes are
at once sent to the asylum, and therefore in these local cases no medical certificate accompanies.
I do not feel at liberty to reject such cases, although I know that they are mostly mere gunjah
smokers, and always give them a fair trial, yet I do not think that they should be inmates of
an asylum while under observation, nor is it fair to send them to a jail. I would therefore
propose an outside ward, in which cases under observation might be located, and from whence,
if necessary, they might be transferred to the Asylum. Such a ward might be constructed