( 3 )
instances during the past year, as in former years, been necessary for an attendant
to remain by the side of the patient and to direct his every movement for days,
and even weeks, and the results have fully recompensed the time, attention, and
perseverance bestowed. Fourteen were thus aroused from their state of abstract-
edness, and have become cheerful and good useful labourers; and several of them
were ultimately restored to their families.
In common maniacal cases, instead of the nervous excitement expending
itself in the indulgence of mischievous propensities, in quarrelling and vociferation,
it is carried out in useful labour. In the case of the melancholic the relief afforded
renders him quite a different being, and instead of brooding over his imaginary
crimes or real miseries he is comparatively cheerful and happy; and besides it
keeps them in strong bodily health and thus better able to resist disease, as
evidenced during the late epidemic of cholera, when almost every man of the
regular working gang escaped both the cholera and diarrhœa. Let the system
of employment in asylums be discontinued, and they would speedily become mere
prisons for the custody of the insanes,—scenes of dulness and listlessness on the
one hand, and of numerous accidents and constant confusion on the other, entail-
ing an increase in the expenses and an additional number of attendants, or a return
of the worst form of coercion and bodily restraint.
I am firmly convinced that no medicine or system of treatment equals the
free and systematic exercise of the muscles of the body in the open air in over-
coming that nervous irritability which is constantly met with in the insane, and
in breaking up a train of morbid thoughts, or in preventing the indulgence of
vicious habits, all of which are often to be traced directly to sedentary pursuits,
in impure air, and an exercise of the mind totally disproportioned to that of the
body.
By these a state of the system is often engendered that no course of medica-
tion without a total change of habits can remove.
6. Clothing and bedding.—The clothes of both sexes are in good order and
of suitable quality.
The bedding is also ample, in good condition, and kept clean.
7. Diet.—The following is the scale of diet in use in the asylum:—
Natives.
Rice
...
...
Beef
...
...
Fish ... ...
Vegetables ... ...
Oil ... ...
Salt
...
...
Condiments ...
Fuel ... ...
lbs.
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
oz.
8
4
4
8
½
½
½
0
drs.
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Europeans and Eurasians.
Bread
...
...
Meat ... ...
Butter ... ...
Milk ... ...
Sugar ... ...
Tea
...
...
Salt
...
...
Rice
...
...
Onions
...
...
Pepper ... ...
Ginger ... ...
Nutmegs ... ...
Barley ... ...
Flour ... ...
Fuel ... ...
lbs.
1
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
oz.
0
0
1
12
1½
½
½
4
1
0
0
0
½
½
0
drs.
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
½
½
0
0
0
The contractor of the Rangoon Jail supplies the articles of food. The prices
of 1881 were slightly lower than in 1880, that of beef especially. The raw provi-
sions supplied were of good quality.
The rations are well cooked. No change has been made in the scale of diet
during the year. Every attention has been paid to the diet; the rations are
inspected and passed by the Overseer, both in their raw and cooked state. The
meals have been issued at regular hours twice a day, and the same order and
decency of conduct during meals have been enforced. Further on, in considering
the influence of the season on the health of the inmates and in causing mortality,
and in pointing out that the largest number of deaths occur during October,
November, and December of each year, I have suggested that all in feeble health,
if not the entire population, should have an abundant supply of animal diet, i.e.,
the allowance of meat should be increased from 4 ozs. to 8 ozs. daily.