MEDICAL.
CALCUTTA, THE 13TH JANUARY 1877.
RESOLUTION.
READ—
The Annual Report on the Insane Asylums of Bengal for the year 1875.
Read again—
The Report for the previous year, with the orders of Government passed thereon.
The rapid increase in the number of insanes under treatment in the
asylums of these provinces is a matter which has had the continued and earnest
attention of the Government during the past year. Measures have accordingly-
been again taken to provide additional accommodation for the increasing
numbers, as well as to secure that the State is not unduly burdened with the
maintenance of persons who have relatives in a position to provide for their
wants, or whose cases are not such as call for their detention in a public asylum.
2. In connection with the report for 1874, the Government of India
took occasion to say that probably many of the insanes in confinement
would be better with their friends, and that asylums should be reserved only
for criminal lunatics, lunatics who are absolutely dangerous, and for those who,
having no friends or belongings, may be in the acute stage, in which there may
be the greatest hope of recovery. Instructions to this effect have been fre-
quently issued to district officers. Their attention, however, has been again
drawn to the matter, and with a view of checking indiscriminate admissions,
the Superintendents of the lunatic asylums have been directed to submit lists
of all lunatics under their charge who do not appear to be proper subjects for
maintenance in public asylums at the public expense, and also of those in res-
pect to whose means of support by their families sufficient enquiries have not
been made. In carrying out these orders, care must be taken to ascertain that
harmless insanes left in the charge of their friends are not maltreated or subject
to any objectionable restraint, and every facility will be given to the reception
of such persons in asylums, provided the relatives are willing to pay for them
such rates as will entirely cover all charges incurred on their behalf.
3. The full result of these enquiries is not yet known, and the action
taken can have had no effect on the figures contained in the report now under
review. Similarly, this report does not shew the result of the measures which
have been recently taken to obviate the overcrowding which has been a constant
subject of complaint of late years. Chief among these was the establishment
of a new asylum capable of accommodating 300 insanes at Hazareebagh, where,
owing to the completion of the central jail, the district jail buildings became
available for the purpose. At Dacca also an extension of the asylum buildings
has been lately sanctioned. It is to be hoped that the recent establishment
of an insane asylum at Tezpore in Assam will afford some further relief by dimi-
nishing the number of insanes to be provided for in the Bengal institutions.
4. Under an arrangement with the Government of Assam, insanes from
the districts of Cachar and Sylhet will continue to be received at Dacca on
payment of the cost of their maintenance. On the other hand, a contribution
will be made from the funds at the disposal of the Bengal Government towards
the cost of the asylum at Tezpore.
5. In the year under review, the total number of insanes treated in the
Bengal asylums (excluding the European asylum at Bhowanipore) was 1,492