From Colonel D. SINCLAIR, M.B., C.M., I.M.S., C.S.I., Inspector-General of Jails with Civil Medical
Administration, Burma, to the Secretary to the Government of Burma,—No. 1246-2R.—9, dated the
2nd March 1899.
I HAVE the honour to submit, with the prescribed statements, the Report on
the Rangoon Lunatic Asylum for the year 1898. The delay in its submission is
mainly due to the difficulty in getting the figures in the body of the report and
in the appended statements correct. This difficulty is due, the Superintendent
explains, to the inexperience of the Deputy Superintendent and the clerk.
2. The report has been circulated to the members of the Asylum Com-
mittee and has been approved of by them.
3. The report is full and complete in itself and calls for little comment, but
I am able to throw some additional light on the following points :—
(a) Changes in the superior members of the staff are of course undesir-
able ; but such changes have been unavoidable and there is no
reserve from which trained substitutes can be obtained. The
charge of the Rangoon Central Jail and of the Asylum is vested
in the same officer, and a change in the one necessitates a change
in the other. Because of the insufficiency of the emoluments, it
has been found impossible to retain for any time the services of
an Assistant Surgeon as Deputy Superintendent, and the ex-
perience of the employment of such in this capacity has not come
up to expectation. But it cannot be doubted that if sufficient
inducement could be offered to a smart young officer of this class
to take up the appointment more or less as a permanency the
arrangement would prove satisfactory.
(b) Administrative sanction to the construction of an additional cottage
for female insanes has recently been applied for.
(c) It is to be regretted that extra-mural work has fallen off. Cutting
grass and clearing compounds of rank vegetation are excellent
forms of labour and recreation and should be encouraged. The
rates charged for such service are probably too high and may
need re-adjustment.
(d) In the treatment of insanes the fewer restraints the better. So
long as he is not likely to injure himself or others, no harm is done
by the escape of a civil lunatic. It is otherwise, however, in the
case of criminal lunatics, and greater vigilance to prevent escape,
at any rate till late in their probationary periods, is required.
The escape of three criminal lunatics, especially that of Nga Ni,
is to be regretted.
(e) Failure to give information regarding the cause of insanity is still
observed in the papers which accompany new admissions. In the
case of civil insanes, many of whom are unknown wandering
lunatics, unable to give any account of themselves, this is unavoid-
able; but the same does not apply to criminal lunatics, whose
antecedents are ascertainable. Of the 58 admissions in 1898
where the cause of insanity was not given, no less than 20 were
criminal lunatics.
(f) The admissions to hospital, the deaths and the death-rates are
somewhat higher than usual. The death-rate per cent, on the
criminal side, 6.12, is under the average ; that on the civil side,
12.39, is considerably over the average. The mean annual death-
rate for the past 21 years is in the case of criminal insanes 6.65,
whilst in the case of civil insanes it is 8.99. A remarkable
feature in these statistics is the fluctuations from year to year in
the death-rates, which when not caused by epidemic disease is
chiefly due to the condition in which civil insanes are admitted
into the Asylum. During the year under review no less than 20
of the fatal cases among the civil insanes occurred among such
as came to the Asylum in bad or indifferent health ; of these some