LUNATIC ASYLUMS IN BENGAL.
17
REMARKS ON THE SEVERAL ASYLUMS.
I shall embody in these remarks the inspection reports of the Deputy Inspectors-General
of Hospitals, which are not so much descriptive of the circumstances of the institution and
medical history of the year—this it is the place and duty of the Superintendent to furnish—as
confidential comments on general management for purposes of departmental administration,
and are therefore neither intended, nor always suited, for publication.
Dullunda.—The year 1870 shows an increased population and lower death-rate as compared
with previous years. These facts are to a great extent, as Dr. Payne remarks, intimately
dependent on each other. The demand for more space and accommodation is a necessary
consequence of a greater number of residents and relatively smaller number of deaths and
discharges, and it is satisfactory to record that the additions to the asylum are being rapidly
pushed to completion. Dr. Payne's remarks on the subject of criminal lunatics have been very
properly selected by Dr. Saunders as a subject of special reference; and under the orders of
Government the question is being specially considered by the Inspector-General of Jails, in
communication with this office, with a view to the early adoption of measures calculated
to meet the difficulties which Dr. Payne experiences in the management of lunatics of
this class.
The question of diet occupied a prominent place in the report of 1869, and during the
past year the utmost attention has been paid to this important subject both by the Deputy
Inspector-General and the Superintendent. I am satisfied that every care is exercised that
the best quality of food shall be supplied to the lunatics in sufficient quantities, and in adapt-
ation to the circumstances of their several cases. The system of treating cachectic lunatics
by the free use of milk, which was favorably reported on in 1867, is still in practice, and
special diets are liberally and unsparingly ordered. In order to place the matter on the
best possible footing, Dr. Payne is about to obtain his supplies by public, instead of private,
contract. Dr. Saunders notes in his inspection report that he observed an improvement in
the condition of the lunatics as compared with the results of last year's inspection. This is
highly satisfactory; but the bodily condition of lunatics depends so greatly upon their mental
state, and both these and the issue of cases admitted are so essentially the product of events
which have occurred before the individual enters the asylum—events which render him
what he is, a being whose continued existence is precarious, and modify his whole organism,
for the time in all cases, and for life in a very large proportion—that I doubt if the main
causes of the large mortality of asylums, as compared with other institutions and communities,
are to be found within the asylum boundaries except in the persons of the inmates themselves,
who are, thus, in their mental and physical state singularly conditioned.
With the ordinary run of lunatics there is no difficulty in dieting, and the Dullunda
diet scale is ample, and system appropriate.
It is, as Dr. Payne points out, the lunatics who have " lost all muscle for work and all
stomach for digestion" whose dieting is difficult—the wasted maniacs or melancholiacs, who have
to be artificially fed or coaxed into feeding for days, or even weeks, and whose life trembles in
the balance. It is with these that care in dieting and medical treatment tells on a death-rate;
and that such care is devoted at Dullunda, is very manifest from the tone of the report, and
attested by the Deputy Inspector-General, who devotes to this, as to every other institution in
his circle, that minute and practical attention which has always characterized his supervision.
I observe that it is proposed to introduce dhan-husking as an asylum industry, and extend
cloth-weaving until the wants of the institution are fully provided for. Both these industries
will contribute to economy, and the first provides simple and suitable exercise; but I should
doubt the advantage to the insane of sedentary employments, such as loom work. All forms
of work making more general and severe demands on the muscular system, and involving
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