Proceedings of the Hon'ble the Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab in the Home (Medical and Sanitary)
Department, No. 238 A., dated 10th May 1893.
READ—
The Report of the Lahore and Delhi Lunatic Asylums for the year 1892.
REMARKS.—The statements attached to the Report give separate
statistics for each Asylum in connection with each subject dealt with. But in the
body of the Report the Inspector-General of Civil Hospitals has in many cases
been at the pains of totalling the figures for the two Asylums for comparison
with former years and other purposes. Where, as is the case with Jails
and Dispensaries, there are many institutions of the same class to be dealt
with, it is useful to have aggregate figures and averages given for them ; but
where as here there are only two institutions to be dealt with, this serves no useful
purpose. It is enough to give the figures for each institution separately, and
compare them with one another, unless there is some special object in view in
totalling the figures for the two, such for instance as the illustration of the
prevalence or increase of some particular type of insanity or of insanity in some
particular class.
2. The Lieutenant-Governor does not understand how the very low per-
centage of patients " discharged cured" shown for Lahore as compared with
Delhi can, as the Inspector-General supposes, be " entirely due to the large
mortality which occurred in the Lahore Asylum." No doubt a certain proportion
of the number of deaths in Lahore over and above the normal figure of mortality
are deaths of persons who would have been discharged cured, and accordingly the
excessive mortality at Lahore during the year under report reduced to some
extent the percentage of persons discharged cured, but it is obvious on
an examination of Statement I attached to the Report that the largest
allowance that could be made for this would not bring up the percentage of
persons discharged cured at Lahore to anything like the similar percentage for
Delhi. The difference is probably due in a large measure to differences of
practice as to discharging patients and pronouncing them cured and to the various
accidental circumstances which must always largely affect figures so small as
those with which we are here dealing.
3. If, as is stated in paragraph 9 of the Report, the three escapes at
Lahore are attributable to the low sub-division walls which abut on the main wall,
the danger should be provided against in some one of the ways commonly adopted
in jails under similar circumstances.
4. The number of deaths from anæmia and debility in the Lahore Asylum
was 13. This seems very high even in so bad a year, but on referring to State-
ment VIII it will be found that in two of the cases debility was coupled with old
age, and in three with specific diseases, viz., diarrhœa, hypertrophy of the spleen
and abscess.
5. His Honor presumes that the " bad condition of the barracks " at
Lahore referred to in paragraph 18 as exercising a deteriorating effect on the
health of the patients means the want of ventilation complained of in the Report
of the previous year. If this is so, it might be possible to improve the ventilation
at a small cost. The Superintendent should consult the Executive Engineer.
6. It is satisfactory to find that considerable reductions of expenditure
have been effected in the Lahore Asylum, and that the reductions in the Delhi
Asylum would also have been considerable if it had not been for an extraordinary