( 12 )
Dr. Payne is convinced that it is in every way sufficient, and the general appear-
ance of the patients seems to prove it to be so. The Committee can testify
from personal knowledge that the lunatics at Dullunda are amply fed with
excellent well-cooked food.
A
Dullunda
...
...
...
Dacca
...
...
...
Patna
...
...
...
Cattack
...
...
...
Berhampore
...
...
...
Hazaribagh
...
...
...
1877.
A
1
1
4
2
0
6
P.
8
11
4
8
5
2
1878.
A.
0
1
2
0
0
5
P.
11
5
4
11
11
1
Bazar Medicines.—This item is so small that it is unnecessary to consider it
in detail. The variations may depend on
the more or less free use of indigenous
drugs by different Superintendents, partly
also on extravagance or peculation on the
part of native doctors. A few years ago
irregularities in this and other respects
were detected at Dacca, and the native
doctor was prosecuted and imprisoned. The Committee have been unable to
obtain from the Examiner of Medical Accounts a statement of the value of
English medicines.
Dullunda ... ...
Dacca ... ...
Patna
...
...
Cuttack
...
...
Berhampore
...
...
Hazaribagh
...
...
1877.
Rs.
14
2
6
3
2
3
A.
5
15
1
8
4
4
P.
11
7
1
5
6
11
1878.
Rs.
20
3
8
3
1
2
. A.
12
10
0
2
12
10
P.
7
1
11
1
9
3
Contingencies.—Here, again, there are great variations, and here again the
bare figures convey an entirely erroneous
impression. The accounts are not com-
parable, although the differences call for
explanation. At Dullunda the sums
shown under this head have always been
much higher than in the other asylums,
and this has been specially marked in
the last two years. Detailed accounts for 1877-78 have been received from all
the asylums, and will now be analysed.
Lighting.
Dullunda
...
...
Patna
...
...
Dacca
...
...
Cuttack
...
...
Berhampore
...
...
Hazaribagh
...
...
1877.
Rs.
6
0
1
2
0
0
A.
0
5
3
1
14
8
P.
2
6
8
11
0
1
1878.
Rs.
4
A.
15
P.
9
......
1
2
0
0
3
4
14
11
7
8
9
0
The statement furnished by the Superintendent at Dullunda puts the con-
tingent expenses for the two years at Rs. 12-3-1 and Rs. 18-9-11, instead of those
quoted in the table from the Surgeon-General's report, and the difference is made
up by expenditure on account of paying patients, which is not charged at all in
the other asylums. It is a purely paper entry, being balanced by equivalent
receipts; so that there is neither loss nor gain in the transaction. The next
great difference is in the cost of lighting. The Dullunda asylum is lighted
with gas; oil is used in the others. The
figures in the margin show the cost for
lighting as given in the bills, and are on
the face of them fallacious. Nothing is
charged for oil in the Patna accounts
after May 1877, the oil being prepared
in the asylum. Some similar fallacy may
lie in the figures for Dacca, Berhampore, and Hazaribagh, or there may be
some radical difference in the plan of the asylums or the mode of lighting;
for it is certain that lighting with gas does not cost twelve times as much as
lighting with oil, as would be the case if the Hazaribagh figures for 1877 were
accepted as correct. The Dullunda figures are absolutely correct, and they
reduce the contingent expenses to Rs. 6-2-11 and Rs. 13-10-3 in 1877 and 1878
respectively. The reduction in the cost of lighting during 1878 may point to
a larger expenditure than was absolutely necessary in 1877; but that no great
extravagance was indulged in is shown by the fact that in the General
Hospital lighting cost Rs. 22 a head in 1877, and nearly Rs. 43 in 1874, the
number of patients being 226 and 164, against 213 and 204 in the asylum.
The hospital of course requires more light than the asylum, but its expenditure
in 1878 was about Rs. 18 per head instead of Rs. 5.
Another large item which goes to swell the Dullunda contingent bills is
the charge for public works. The main wards are on the books of the Public
Works Department; but many of the subsidiary buildings having been
originally built by the lunatics, have to be maintained and repaired at the
expense of the asylum. In other asylums such items do not appear at all, or
are mere petty charges. The work is done by the Public Works Department,
and does not appear in the asylum accounts. Dullunda, too, is far in
advance of the other asylums as regards the perfection of its work-rooms,
dining-room, dead-house, bathing arrangements, &c., almost all of which
have been built out of manufacture profit and debited to the asylum accounts.
In 1877 and 1878 Rs. 2-6-7 and Rs. 9-15-6 per patient were due to such ex-
penditure, the balances of Rs. 3-12-4 and Rs. 3-10-9 remaining debitable to