68
REPORT ON THE
Dysentery and
diarrhœa.
During 1871 the admissions from dysentery and diarrhœa were 121, or 25 7 per cent. of
the total admissions from disease. During the past year only 60 cases of these two diseases
have been treated, or 19.8 per cent. I attribute this decrease to the warmer clothing dis-
tributed to the lunatics, and to the purer water that is given them to drink.
Cholera.
47. Cholera, as during 1871, added little to mortality. A similar immunity occurred
among the prisoners in the jail.
Fevers.
48. The fevers which prevailed were of the usual type. One case of enteric fever
complicated with pneumonia, was admitted in June.
Confinement and
restraint.
49. The materials for drawing up Table No. 15 are not iavalable. The registers were
inaccurately kept, and no average could be arrived at from them. The only patients who are
confined by themselves are those affected with acute mania, all lunatics for the first few days
after admission, and the dangerous and refractory. With the exception of newly-arrived
lunatics, all the others are taken out morning and evening and induced to work. They
are then bathed and feed before being again locked up in the cells. The deficiency of good
keepers necessitates this system.
No mechanical coersion has been used during the year.
Vaccination.
50. No. 16 is the annual return shows the number of lunatics who had been inoculated,
vaccinated, &c., before admission, and of the results of vaccination as performed in the asylum,
during the year.
Of the 106 males admitted, 50 per cent. had been inoculated; 3.7 per cent. vaccinated;
17.9 per cent. had marks of natural small-pox ; and 28.3 were unprotected.
Of the females none had been vaccinated; 68.4 per cent. had been inoculated; 10.5
had marks of small-pox; and 21 were unprotected.
Employment of
lunatics.
51. No. 17 shows the average number of lunatics usefully employed during the year.
Deducting the average number in hospital, 18, there remained 200 fit for work. Of
these, an average of 189 were employed.
Gardening, soorkey-pounding, and pressing castor-oil seed, occupy a large proportion of
the men; while grinding wheat with the native grindstone, and cotton spinning, engage the
women.
The oil mills are worked by the dangerous and refractory. It is the most laborious
occupation in the asylum. The weakly patients weed the roads and flower beds, and eight
of the most imbecile convey water in carts from the river.
Expenditure.
52. No. 18 shows the expenditure incurred on account of the asylum during the year.
In the charges under the head of establishment the Superintendent's salary is included;
last year it was omitted.
Increase of es-
tablishment.
In letter No. 632 of the 15th February, Government sanctioned an increased scale
of pay for the keepers. The whole increase, however, was only thirty-seven rupees a month,
and the establishment, calculated on a very low average, was declared to be for the future
a fixed one. The consequence has been that the keepers have received a small increase to
their pay, and have each to take charge of nine lunatics instead of eight, which had been
fixed upon, as the proper strength in the revised rules of 1858. With so many criminal
lunatics to guard, a proportion of one keeper to eight lunatics cannot be considered too much.
A proposition made by the visitors, that the strength of keepers on the fixed establish-
ment should be estimated on an average of 240 lunatics instead of, as was done, on 199
inmates, was forwarded in December for the consideration of Government.