( 10 )
The following table shows the component parts of the full diet which has
been in use at different times since 1856. Various minor changes have been
made from time to time :—
ARTICLES.
Wheat floor ... ...
Rice
...
...
...
Pulses ... ... ...
Meat ... ... ...
Fish ... ... ...
Oil ... ... ...
Ghee ... ... ...
Salt ... ... ...
Onions ... ... ...
Spices ... ... ...
Vegetables ... ... ...
Firewood ... ... ...
Coal or coke ... ...
Butter ... ... ...
Tobacco ... ... ...
Betel and pân ... ...
In 1856.
1 chittack
9 chittacks
2 „
4 „
2 „
Nil.
Nil.
½ chittack
Nil.
½ chittack
4 chittacks
Not stated.
......
¼ ounce
¼
From 1866 to
31st August
1869.
Nil.
10 chittacks
2
„
2 „
0
2
¼ chittack
Nil.
½ kutcha
Nil.
¼ kutcha
2 chittacks
1 seer
Nil.
„
„
From August
1869 to August
1872.
Nil.
10 chittacks
1 „
2 „
Nil
0
¼ chittack
½
½ kutcha
Nil.
½ kutcha
2 chittack
1 seer per
patient
Nil.
„
„
From 1st Sept
1872 to 14th
March 1879.
5 chittacks
4 „
1 cbittack
2 cbittacks
Nil.
½ chittack
½ „ †
½ „
½ „
½
2 chittacks
1 md & 5 srs.
1 md & 15 srs.
Nil.
¼ ounce
Present scale.
5 chittacks
4 „
2
Nil.
Nil.
½ chittack
Nil.
½ kutcha
½ chittack
½ kutcha
2 chittacks
1 md & 5 srs.
1 md & 15 srs.
Nil.
¼ ounce
* On alternate days.
† Discontinued in 1875.
The quality of the articles has invariably been excellent, the principle
laid down by Government in the Asylum Rules being that all articles
must be equal " to the best kind in use among the corresponding classes of
persons in the neighbourhood." In 1857, Dr. Cantor writes: '' They are
far superior to those which the patients are accustomed to in health."
Successive Deputy Surgeons-General testify to this, and to the excellence of the
cooking and arrangements for feeding. The present dining-room and kitchens
are perfect. Pilfering is all but impossible, and every patient gets abundance
of good, well-cooked food, free from flies or dirt. In the long search for the
causes of ill-health, the dietaries were altered and re-cast in every possible way.
Extras have been freely given when required, and in 1869 the diet scale was
re-modelled, and a daily issue of ghee and meat sanctioned, because the then
Deputy Surgeon-General declared the lunatics to be scorbutic—a conclusion
which was not admitted by the Superintendent, and was subsequently shown
to be erroneous. The great importance of feeding insane persons liberally
has long been recognized, but the experience of Dullunda shows that, since
1856, there has been no connection between the diet and the death-rates,
and the annual reports amply show that the latter were chiefly affected by
other factors. The most liberal and varied diet ever given was that in force in
1856, and Dr. Cantor's evidence as to its quality has already been quoted.
Yet the death-rate was higher than it has ever been since, and the low death-
rate of the last three years has been coincident with a diet scale smaller in
quantity and less varied in character than had ever before been tried. On
assuming charge in 1860, Dr. Payne could " at all times find a man with a pile
of untouched food by his side. The waste was enormous." He abolished the
meat ration, substituted an allowance of oil for the butter, and reduced the
vegetable ration by half. The diet scale thus altered remained in force till
1866, the death-rate varying from 16 per cent. in 1863 to 33 per cent. in 1866.
In 1866 meat was substituted for fish twice a week, but the diet otherwise
remained the same. In the next seven years the death-rate steadily declined,
coincident with various improvements in conservancy and other general
arrangements, but mainly in consequence of a change in the class of
patients admitted. In 1869 a controversy arose as to the sufficiency of
the diet, which is of great interest, not only with regard to the health
of the lunatics, but with reference also to the question of the cost of
diet in the Calcutta Hospitals. Dr. Saunders declared the diet scale to be
" thoroughly inadequate," and found that "more than a fourth (of the patients)
have clear indications of scurvy, not what Dr. Payne alludes to as blueness of