No. 348.
FROM J. CAMPBELL BROWN, ESQ., C.B.,
Inspector-General of Hospitals,
Indian Medical Department,
To THE SECRETARY TO THE GOVERNMENT OF BENGAL.
Dated Fort William, the 20th June 1873.
SIR,
I HAVE the honor to submit the reports and returns of the lunatic asylums
of Bengal for the year 1872.
Plan on which
the report has been
prepared.
2. The returns have been drawn up in accordance with the scheme of forms which
was appended to the report of 1871. These have been received in a more complete and
accurate condition than the returns for the preceding year ; and superintendents have, for the
most part, employed them as a basis for their reports, following the arrangement of the statis-
tical statements, and discussing them in succession. This is a natural and useful course. It
facilitates the comparison of the statistics of the several institutions; and, however carefully
statistical statements are devised and prepared, it is, nevertheless, frequently necessary to
explain and supplement them by written comment—nay, it happens occasionally that the errone-
ous inferences which figures are apt sometimes to suggest have to be corrected. In preparing
this report, I have followed the same plan which I pursued in compiling the report for 1871.
Similar general statements have been framed, bearing the same number and order ; and these
are made the subject of comment. They refer only to the asylums for natives,—the statistics
of the European asylum being, for obvious reasons, excluded. The statistics of each asylum
are printed after the several reports of each, except when the figures have been included in
any of the general statements, in which case a reference is made to the statement in which
they have been embodied. Remarks on any general administrative matters relating to asylums,
which have transpired during the year, follow, and the report is brought to a close by a short
commentary on the events and management of each institution. The reports of superin-
tendents are reproduced in detail, and those for the past year will be found replete with
interesting information on the subject of lunacy in Bengal, the treatment of lunatics, and
the condition of the several asylums.
General state-
ment of results.
3. The principal facts regarding the population of each asylum are shown in detail in
Statement No. 1;—the number of inmates remaining under treatment at the beginning of the
year ; the admissions and re-admissions ; the total number treated, the number discharged, and
the circumstances under which they left the asylum ; the number remaining at the close of the
year; the average number resident throughout the year; and the average number requiring
detention and treatment in hospital on account of bodily disease. The statistics of the pre-
vious ten years are shown in Table No. 1, appended to the report of each asylum, in comparison
with those of the year under report; and the relations of the events of the year to the resident
population, are exhibited in the statements accompanying the remarks on each institution, as
compared with the series and average of the preceding five years. The main statistical
facts of each institution are thus recorded in such a manner, that a comparison between
different asylums and different years is rendered very complete and easy.