5
The garden continues to provide occupation for a large number, a most
healthy and useful form of labour for the insanes, and last but not least very
remunerative, as all the vegetables used and the fodder for the cattle are
supplied from the asylum farm. There are now a large and sufficient number of
fruit trees which provide all that is required in the way of antiscorbutics. It is
hoped that with the acquisition of new land the grass farm industry, which
had to be abandoned, some 10 years ago owing to the taking up of large areas
for buildings and garden extensions will be restarted and be again a source
of income. The garden, I may mention, has again been successful in its efforts
at the Lahore Vegetable Show securing the second prize for Government Gardens
in 1915, and finally the first in the Exhibition for 1916.
Cost of maintenance.
12. This has considerably increased in 1917, the amount received from
the treasury in this year being an advance
of about Rs. 9,000 on that in 1916. Of this
extra expenditure diet and clothing practically absorbs nearly Rs. 8,000 and
establishment the remaining Rs. 1,000. The increase is accounted for by the
high prices prevailing for articles of diet and raw materials required in the
manufacture of clothing and blanketting, also to the rise in the population. The
cost of medicines has also appreciably increased, being over 70 per cent. in 1917,
as compared with the previous year. The increase in public works charges
is Rs. 7,000 due to the provision of a top storey to the quarantine block.
The amount deposited in the treasury by the asylum on account of
paying patients, etc, for the year 1917, decreased by about Rs. 2,000 as
compared with 1916. This is a varying amount depending upon the actual
number of paying patients and in no way bearing any relation to the number
of the inmates under treatment; further, for the last year or two moneys paid
by municipalities, etc., instead of being deposited through the asylum are
credited directly through the Accountant-General. The value of total credits
over debits as shown in statement X, column " Results", exhibits an excess of a
sum between seven and nine thousand entirely due to the labour of the
inmates, an average of Rs. 10 per head of the total population and this by no
means includes the profit derived from the multifarious forms of occupation,
apart from the garden and factories.
Sickness and mortality.
13. There have been no epidemics during the three years under
report, the daily number of sick being
very much the same as in previous years, i.e.,
about 10 per cent. of the total population. Diarrhœa and dysentery
claim the largest number of the sick and these complaints, when
once definitely established, invairably lead to a fatal termination. Next
in order of frequency are those afflicted by malaria; but this disease is
singularly less frequent than in the attendant staff who are subject
to the same condition of infection. The heavy monsoons in 1916 and 1917
produced a large crop of malaria cases, and many of those thus debilitated
frequently fall victims to some other inter-current ailment. The amount of
sickness naturally varies with the healthiness of each year. With the difficulty
to control the insane who at his best will not hesitate to eat filth and rubbish,
leaves himself uncovered and exposed at the coldest time of the year, and
refuses any medication, it is surprising that there is not a larger percentage
of sickness and mortality than there is. The death rate during the triennium
has shown a gradual increase being 9.56,10.71 and 12.31. This is due in the
main to an increased death rate from tubercle and pneumonia. The incidence
of tubercle has shown an upward tendency from the autumn of 1916, but
decreased during the second half of 1917, the number so affected between July
and December being just one-half the number admitted in the first six
months of this year. The total number admitted for this disease during
1916, being 30 and in 1917, 32, by no means an alarming figure. The subject
of the spread of tubercle in the asylum has been the matter of special investi-
gation by Major W. H. C. Forster, I.M S., Professor of Pathology, Lahore
Medical College, and definite measures to deal with the disease are now the
subject of recommendation to Government.