64
REPORT ON THE
Types of insa¬
nity.
* See General statement
No. 9.
28. No. 12* shows the types of insanity of the total treated
during the year.
Two-thirds of the treated are entered under the columns of chronic mania and dementia.
Having obtained the sanction of Government to introduce the system of paying for the keep
of the harmless and friendless of these classes, while resident under surveillance outside the
asylum, I trust during the current year to show a decrease in the number of incurables in
this asylum.
Chronic
cases
more
common
among women.
As might be expected from the reluctance with which natives commit their women to
the care of strangers, the proportion of old incurable cases are more common among them
than among men. The proportion during 1872 was 71.6 per cent. of females to 65.8 of
males.
Religious melan-
cholia.
29. Religious melancholia I stated in my last year's report to be unknown among
Bengalis.
A case narrated.
The following remarkable case, at present under treatment, shows that this assertion
must be modified:—
Sanatun Chongo having inadvertently tied his cow in such a manner that the animal
strangled herself, he, instead of expiating this grave offence by wearing a rope round his
neck, remaining silent for a month, and begging from door to door, followed his usual avo¬
cations. The coldness and abhorrence of such impiety displayed by his fellow villagers worked
upon a mind naturally weak. He became a prey to deep melancholy and despair, deploring
his wretched fate and the hopelessness of being forgiven.
This is the only case within my recollection of a Hindu affected with religious melan-
cholia.
A
remarkable
case of acute de-
mentia.
30. Another very singular case, which is returned as acute dementia, but which properly
should have been classed under melancholia (attonita), was admitted during the year. It is
important, as showing another phase of native superstition. Ghulam Ali, aged 13, lived at
his home with his parents and his grandmother. One day passing through a patch of jungle,
a monkey ran up and embraced him. Its face wore the likeness of his grand mother. He
was so terrified that he does not recollect what he heard the animal say. It quitted him, and
he ran home scared and almost speechless. He went to his grandmother and asked her why
she had assumed the form of a monkey. She tried to pacify him, but failed, and the poor
boy became perfectly mad. Since his admission he has regularly, at intervals of a month,
fallen into a state of lethargy, never speaking, but sitting with vacant looks, staring on
the ground, and paying no attention to the calls of nature. This lasts for ten days, when he
suddenly becomes excited and very talkative. After a few days he improves; but his mind
is feeble and child-like.
Suicide among
natives.
31. Mental depression is very common among natives, and suicidal tendencies are often
the consequence. Among those treated during the past year, one Mahomedan female, three
Hindu males, and one female, had attempted to commit suicide before admission; while two
Mahomedan males and three Hindu males had attempted to make away with themselves since
they came to the asylum.
The number of Mahomedans and Hindus who commit suicide is almost equal. During
the past three years, the bodies of 27 Hindu and 24 Mahomedan males and of 49 Hindu and
45 Mahomedan females, who had committed suicide by hanging while temporarily insane, have
been sent in by the police for examination.
Not insane.
32. Two males are returned as not insane; both are criminals. They had been charged
with the murder of their wives, and in both instances they were committed to the sessions court,
where they were pronounced to be insane. One has been five years and three months, the
other two years and nine months, in the asylum. The visitors have, on several occasions