Triennial report on the working of the Punjab Lunatic Asylum,
Lahore, for 1912-14.
Population.
During the three years under report the total population for each year
has been 916, 959 and 991 shewing a
steady and progressive increase and an
advance of 150 in the last year on the largest number reported in any previous
triennial report, viz, 841 in 1911.
This fact alone is evidence of the growing popularity of the institution,
for ever since its inauguration in 1900, this steady growth has been maintain-
ed, and a comparison with the first year of its history will not be out of place.
In 1900 the total population was 608, 487 males and 121 females, and in the
last year of the present triennium under review 991, 775 males and 216
females From this it will be seen that the increase on the side of the females
as compared with the males is proportionately greater, a point that is extremely
satisfactory to note, considering that with the vast majority there is a con-
servative dislike to bringing their women-folk away from their homes for treat-
ment in a public institution such as this, and it may reasonably be presumed
that the benefits of the asylum are more widely known amongst the general
population, who of themselves frequently bring up their relatives and friends
for treatment from the remotest part of the province, and not, infrequently,
from other parts of the country The measure of popularity enjoyed by the
female asylum has no doubt been greatly enhanced by the solicitude and
sympathetic treatment of the Franciscan Sisters who have now been in charge
of this branch for the past 12 years. Increase in the asylum population is by
no means commensurate with the increase of insanity in the province, for
according to the census figures of 1911, the ratio of insanes per 100,000 of the
population has decreased from 35 to 26 as compared with those so afflicted in
the census year 1901.
Accommodation.
At the beginning of the last triennium (1909), the overcrowding which was
most acute on the male side automati-
cally disappeared on the opening of the
new hospital buildings and since then there has been ample room everywhere.
During 1914 a quarantine enclosure containing a block of 20 pucca well
ventilated cubicles has been added and a long felt want for the segregation of
fresh arrivals removed. The foundation of this structure is so arranged as to
permit of the easy addition of an upper storey. A separate infectious diseases
enclosure has also been provided during the past year. The need of such
accommodation was much felt during the cholera epidemics of 1912 and 1913,
there being no proper place for the seclusion of the so affected. Conglomerate
flooring and cemented dadoes have been provided in all cells and barracks.
This much required work has made a great improvement in the patients'
comfort and has already tended to ameliorate diseases such as bowel complaints
and tubercle, which probably to a great extent were due to the infected kutcha
floors on which a large number of the patients were in the habit of sleeping.
The accommodation though adequate as to the total number is not sufficient
to provide separate accommodation ; this, at present, however, is being
remedied, two of the sleeping accommodation barracks are being converted
into 52 cubicles and will for the present amply meet the requirements for
separate accommodation, a point on which and rightly so, much stress was laid
in the last triennial report, for every lunatic, no matter how quiet, must be looked
upon as being, at sometime, potentially dangerous. The conversion of these
barracks into cubicles has de facto reduced the general accommodation for the
barracks which previously had room for 100 inmates, and will now on their
conversion provide for 52 or a decrease in the general total accommodation of
the institution by 48, and it is obvious with the rapid and steady increase of
the populatian that an extension will be required in the very near future, an ex-
tension which should certainly take the form of cubicles.