17
Employment.
14. The want of employment has been a fruitful theme of complaint in
almost every annual report on the asylum, and
now, at the end of fifty years, we seem to have
fallen off rather than advanced in this respect; for, in my report in November
1870, No. 126, on this point, I find it stated in paragraph 2 : ''Of the male
patients a nominal roll shows that 25, or 50 per cent. of the whole, do
light or occasional work in the garden of the asylum or of the Sassoon Hos-
pital, which is close by." This state of things continued till I left for England
a few months after. But on resuming charge of the asylum, after a lapse of
three years from the date of the report quoted, I find the number who go out
reduced to 6, which, allowing the number of male inmates to stand at 48 as
before, would only give 12.5 per cent. employed instead of 50. The only
reasons assigned for the falling off are either that the warders neglected their
work, or were taken for other work; and in the way of remedying this, some
little improvement may be now effected. But until we have properly enclosed
exercise and garden grounds, any attempt to employ the inmates of an asy-
lum regularly, and so as to benefit both their bodily and mental health, must
be very imperfect, if not open to practical objection, when we consider the
extremely exposed and public situation of the asylum and Sassoon Hospital
compounds.
Description of labour best suited
to classes from which patients are
received.
15. That garden or field labour is about the only occupation generally
suited for native lunatics is admitted ; and this
can be better understood if we examine the
register roll of patients, showing the classes
from which our inmates are drawn. For of the
47 males remaining on 31st March, 19 were cultivators or farm labourers, 15
were beggars, many of whom are coolies, 7 were sepoys, sowars, peons,
lascars, &c., 1 barber, 1 tailor, 1 weaver, 1 shopkeeper, 1 house-servant, 1
unknown ; of the females, 4 were labourers, 3 beggars, and 3 unknown ;
showing what a very small proportion of skilled labour is ordinarily available
among patients received from these districts.
Increase or decrease of lunacy.
16. There remain now but a few more of the points on which informa-
tion was directed to be given, to be touched
upon. First, as to the increase or decrease of
lunacy, we have no sufficient data to guide us in pronouncing an opinion,
for the accommodation afforded having generally been inadequate to receive
the number of patients seeking to be admitted, the fullness of the asylum,
whether complete or approximate, is an insufficient test of the increase or
diminution of mental disease in these districts.
General hygiene.
17. The points indicated in paragraphs 2, 3, and 4, have been already
commented on, or are explained by the tables
sent. On the fifth or general hygiene of the
asylum, the special report, already referred to, will afford information and give
a description of the kind of accommodation afforded. The amount calculated,
as allowed for each patient, is in the male ward 1,200 cubic feet, female
ward 1,100 cubic feet.
Means of restraint.
18. The only means of restraint used are padded cells; but with native
patien ts it is not often necessary to have re-
course to restraint. Refusing food is more
common with them ; but in the last year there does not seem to have been
any instances of this in the asylum.