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enervated mind acquires strength, his broken spirits are recruited, and he cherish-
es the feeling that he will be again restored to his friends.
The waverings and instabilities of disordered minds and the sudden impul-
ses to which they are liable are alone to be comprehended by experience in their
management.
When understood I do not believe that the danger to this very pitiable class
is so great under active employment as when they are merely detained or engaged
within the cells or wards. The chief number of suicides in the asylum have been
committed in-doors when it was supposed very little, if any, opportunity could
be given for the perpetration of such acts.
I would here explain an entry in the table, where two imbeciles are noted as
discharged recovered. These cases illustrated the difficulty of arranging the com-
plicated facts under the cut-and-dry headings of a table. These cases were of
imbecility complicated by a temporary attack of mania; the imbecility was the
chief fact in the cases, yet the mania was the cause of their being sent to the
asylum, and having recovered from the mania they were discharged recovered as
regards the mania, not so, of course, as regards the imbecility. The entry chro-
nic insanity might also be objected to as lumping together all sorts of cases.
This is pretty unavoidable, as it is difficult in chronic cases to obtain accurate
information as to what the original nature of the case was ; but, further, I think
the entry is a proper one, as the chief feature of each case is now its chronic, and
probably incurable, character.
In the other classes admitted there has not been any material difference
from former periods, and nothing remarkable or requiring comment has hap-
pened to these admissions.
13. Statement No. VII shows the causes of insanity in those admitted. It is
necessary to repeat in every report that the causes of insanity assigned in a very
considerable proportion of the admissions are fallacious. When relatives, acquaint-
ances, or those interested in the patients can be got at, personal enquiries are
invariably made to ascertain the facts, not only as to the causes, but also to
everything else likely to throw light on the various cases.
The chief causes amongst the physical were ganja 17 and opium eight, loss of
property 17, grief 17, and domestic trouble 16; among the moral causes, in 56
the cause of the insanity is not known.
14. Statement No. VIII shows the hospital statistics during the year. There
were 87 admissions into hospital and two remained from last year, so the total
under treatment was 89. Of these, 55 were discharged cured and nine remained
in hospital at the close of the year. The number of deaths was 25, or 28.74 per
cent. of admission. Of the deaths, 16, or more than one-half, were due to cholera
(12) and diarrhœa (4); the latter disease was somewhat prevalent in the neighbour-
hood of the asylum and town during the latter half of last year, but not to any
unusual extent.
The number of inmates was 196 males and 28 females, or a total of 224.
The percentage of deaths among males alone was 10.97, and among females
alone was 2.74, or in all 13.71. It has been therefore an unhealthy year for the
asylum. Compared with other years, we find that in 1878 the mortality was 23
and in 1879 twenty-five without cholera.
This year the mortality without cholera was 13, or at the rate of 5.8 per cent
of the total strength.
The principal cause of mortality was cholera, which made its appearance on
the 18th November.
Throughout the previous ten months of the year the general condition of the
patients had been as healthy as usual, and the mortality only 12 up to the
18th November, the date on which the first case of cholera occurred. Diarrhœa had
prevailed somewhat beyond the average amount at the commencement of the
rains; and cases of dysentery had been frequent in July and August, as many as