2
The average number of this class during the past three years has been 155. Such
an enclosure would meet all the requirements of the criminal insanes of the
province for many years to come and it would secure the longfelt want of
having these men separated from the non-criminal class, which in the interests
of the latter is highly desirable, and would facilitate better disciplinary control
now hardly attainable owing to the mixing up of the two classes. Such a
building, if agreed to, should certainly take the form of separate cubicular
accommodation. This, it must be remembered, does not simply refer to the
dangerous insane, but to the man who by his filthy habits or his tendency
to annoy or bully others and is always noisy, it is impossible to
allow to remain in a barrack, and still more does it include the one
addicted to sodomy. The building of an enclosure such as this would take
up a large area of garden land ; but as it is intended by Government in the
very near future to increase the asylum acreage by the acquisition
of some 50 acres in the immediate vicinity, no difficulty, on this account is
likely to arise. With a new criminal enclosure accommodation would be left in
the present asylum for 150 non-criminal lunatics.
The accommodation for Europeans, both males and females, is sorely over-
taxed, an addition of 4 sets of quarters for the European females has received
sanction and the work will probably soon be in hand. The opening of the
asylum at Ranchi in a short while will remove all congestion in this section, as
it is proposed transferring a large number of the present inmates to that
institution. The buildings were entirely fitted with electric lighting in the
summer of 1915, and the European quarters and those of the superior officials
with both lights and fans. Needless to say it is a great boon and greatly
appreciated. Arrangements have also been made to replace the present steam
engine which works the drinking water wells by an electric motor, but owing
to the war there has been a delay in obtaining the necessary plant from
England.
Females.
3. The female asylum continues in its good fortune to be under the im-
mediate control of the Franciscan Sisters of whose
care and unfailing solicitude for the unfortunate
beings in their charge one cannot speak too highly. Its popularity is steadily
on the increase amongst all classes and markedly so amongst the superior class
of Indian ladies whose friends realise the value of asylum treatment. This
popularity, apart from the better knowledge of the benefits of asylum treatment
which is gradually pervading the Indian public, I may say, is due in no
small measure to the gentleness and assiduity of the Franciscan Sisterhood in
the treatment of their patients. Excepting for the European section there has
been no overcrowding and this, as has been said, will, it is hoped, soon be remedi-
ed by an extension of the present quarters, and the transfer of some of the
inmates to Ranchi Four annexes were provided early in 1915, each of which
forms a distinct enclosure, having sleeping accommodation. One of these
enclosures has been set apart for cases of tubercle and though not ideally suit-
able has so far answered the purpose for which it has been allotted.
Type of cases.
4. Admissions from mania still maintain pre-eminence in numbers and
this is not to be wondered at considering the lingering
prejudice that still obtains among the people of send-
ing their insanes into an asylum unless they become so troublesome and
dangerous by their disease as to make it impossible to retain them in their own
houses. Mania in its various forms accounts for the largest number, 35 per cent. of
admissions. Melancholia comes next with 20 per cent. Insanity caused by can-
nabis Indica and its various preparations accounts for 14 per cent. of the admis-
sions. Next in order of frequency are the various varieties of dementia and ex-
haustion psychosis or confusional insanity. Exhaustion psychosis and an acute
dementia is the form frequently exhibited by the military insanes due directly
to shell shook or from the stress, privation and hardships naturally associated
with a campaign.