RESOLUTION.
MEDICAL.
Darjeeling, the 6th June 1890.
READ—
Report on the Lunatic Asylums in Bengal for the year 1889.
Read again—
Report for 1888 and the Resolution recorded upon it.
The Lieutenant-Governor is much indebted to the Inspector-General of
Civil Hospitals for the admirable punctuality with which this report has been
submitted. Its bulk has slightly increased, but it has been compiled with much
care, and His Honour would have been sorry to lose any of the suggestions and
criticisms that it contains.
2. The population of the five lunatic asylums in Bengal has increased in the
year under report. There were 957 persons detained in them on the 1st January,
and during the year 225 were admitted and 22 readmitted, giving a total of
1,204 persons treated. This is the largest total that has yet been attained.
The discharges numbered only 130 and the deaths 87, so that on the
31st December 1889 there was a population of 987. The daily average of
patients was 972.63 as compared with 932.8 in 1888, and the percentage of
recovery on the daily average strength rose from 7.18 in 1888 to 9.45 in 1889.
At Dacca and Cuttack further accommodation for the inmates of the asylums
has already been provided, and a proposal is now under consideration for the
enlargement of the institution at Berhampur.
3. In a series of interesting paragraphs which have been illustrated
by full statistics, Dr. Hilson has again entered on the troublesome question
of the large increase in the criminal population of Bengal asylums, and
has pointed out that while admissions have not been excessive in the past
year, there have been very few discharges. The criminal lunatics in asylums
in Bengal at the end of 1889 numbered 440 as against 276 in 1879 and 363
in 1884, an increase of 59.42 per cent. in ten years, or 21.21 in five. The
Inspector-General is of opinion that this is due in part to the insufficient relief
given by the rules framed by the Committee appointed in 1888 to enquire into
this question. Dr. Hilson's remarks in these paragraphs will be submitted to the
Committee for their opinion, but the Lieutenant-Governor thinks it too early
to come to any definite conclusion on the effect of the system which they have
introduced, and would be unwilling to modify it except on very strong reason
being shown. In the meantime, however, the comparison which Dr. Hilson has
instituted between the figures he has obtained of the proportion of criminal
lunatics admitted to the asylums of other provinces shows that the proportion in
Bengal is far higher than in any of those provinces, and His Honour would be
glad if the Inspector-General would follow up the question and ascertain in
what respect the rules of admission and discharge of criminal lunatics in other
parts of India differ from those in force in Bengal.
4. The difficulty of classifying the different forms of insanity has not been
removed by the new nomenclature given by the College of Physicians of
London, and it is clear that uniformity of classification will not be secured until
some arbitrary definition of the various types of insanity is prescribed. The
figures that are dependent on the new nomenclature are consequently useless,
and the inconsistencies noticed by the Governor-General in Council in the
report of 1887 still exist. Dr. Hilson has already dealt with the subject fully
in his report for the year 1888, and has shown how impossible it is, under the
present conditions, to place any reliance on the returns made on this subject.
As far as can be ascertained, the use of intoxicating drugs is as potent a
cause of insanity as ever, no fewer than 89 admissions being traced to this
cause.
5. The figures and paragraphs in which Dr. Hilson has dealt with the
sickness and mortality in these asylums form perhaps the least satisfactory por-
tion of the report. It is impossible to compare the figures of sickness with