DACCA LUNATIC ASYLUM.
65
reported their being quite sane; but they decline to recommend their release; They are both
most useful residents of the asylum. One keeps all the registers of clothing, and the other
superintends the weeding of the roads and the general tidiness of the grounds.
Causes of insa¬
nity.
* See General Statement
No. 10.
33. Table No. 13* exhibits the supposed causes of insanity
among those treated during the year.
Statement unre¬
liable.
Although a cause has been assigned in all but 20.6 per cent. of the cases, it is impossible
to place much reliance on the correctness of the statements sent in by the police; for it is to
them we have to trust for obtaining the little information we possess.
Even in England there is the same difficulty in arriving at any conclusion regarding the
cause of insanity in a large proportion of the admissions.
Sir Charles Hood, in his "Statistics of Insanity," states that in 33.2 per cent. of the
admissions into Bethlem between 1846—1855, no cause for the madness was ascertained.
There is little wonder, therefore, that in Bengal we find it extremely difficult to indicate the
cause which in each case excites or predisposes to insanity.
Ganjah caused
insanity.
34. An attempt has been made this year to distinguish between those cases of insanity
clearly due to ganjah-smoking and those in which the use of ganjah has only been occasional,
and therefore insufficient to excite insanity. The attempt has not been successful. For
want of any other reason, it has been necessary to enter under the heading ganjah several
who were merely reported to have indulged in its use.
Proportion.
In 1871 there were returned 37.2 per cent. of the total treated under the head of ganjah.
In 1872 the proportion was 31.60, namely, 28.26 males and 3.34 females.
Ganjah-smoking
not so deleterious
as is generally sup-
posed.
35. I believe that ganjah is less deleterious than is generally supposed; and that insanity
is comparatively as rare among the ganjah-smokers as among persons who take a daily allow¬
ance of spirits. Like drunkenness, ganjah produces physical as well as psychical effects. By
causing irritation, and probably changes in the nutrition of the brain, it gradually undermines
the constitution. Its effects on the digestive organs, however, are less perceptibly injurious
than are spirits. By exciting the emotions, it enfeebles the mind ; and by the loss of self
respect, it incapacitates the individual for discharging his usual avocations. Poverty, and all
the anxieties which accompany an irregular life, oblige him to drown care in deeper intoxica-
tion, which sooner or later ends in madness.
Among those classes of natives who spend most of their time in smoking the weed,
madness is exceedingly rare. With them ganjah-smoking is an incentive to religious abstrac¬
tion, and its unlimited use is a sure sign of religious sincerity.
The Ramawats.
The Ramawats, who are the greatest smokers in Eastern Bengal, seldom, if ever, become
mad. They, as well as other natives who exceed in smoking-ganjah, invariably live very
well; and they maintain, that as long as plenty of food is taken, its effects are innocuous.
The diet of a Ramawat usually consists of milk, two seers (4 lbs), ata l½ lbs, ghee four
ounces, and vegetables and fruit ad libitum. During the last six years none of these luxurious
mendicants have been admitted into the asylum, although they are very numerous in the
city of Dacca.
Excessive indul¬
gence causes insa-
nity.
36. An excessive indulgence in ganjah, by those unaccustomed to its use, will generally be
followed by insanity; but like dram drinking, as long as the digestion remains good, it may be
taken daily, in gradually increasing doses, without much injurious effect.
A person who indulges in ganjah, unless he be a religious mendicant, is stigmatized as a
reprobate. The vice grows upon him; he neglects his family and his business; falls into irregu-
lar and disorderly habits, which alternate with periods of self-reproach and mental depression.
Q