( 4 )
POPULATION, ADMISSIONS, &C.
Statement No. I.—On the 31st December 1880 there were 176 inmates in the
asylum, namely, 156 males and 20 females. During the year under review there
were 46 admissions—38 males and eight females—re-admitted two, the total
treated being 196 males and 28 females, making a total of 224.
During the year the number discharged cured was 19 males and two females
discharged improved one female, discharged not improved one male, and discharged
otherwise one male.
The following table shows the statistics of admissions, discharges, and deaths
during the year 1881 :—
Remaining
on 31st De-
cember 1880.
M.
156
F.
20
Admitted during the year
1881.
M.
40
F.
8
Total.
M.
196
F.
28
Discharged cured.
M.
19
F.
2
Discharged improved.
M.
...
F.
1
Discharged not improved.
M.
1
F.
...
Discharged otherwise.
M.
1
F.
...
Total.
M.
21
F.
3
Died.
M.
20
F.
5
Remaining.
M.
155
F.
20
The daily average number of lunatics during the year was 182.34, or 160.58
males and 21.76 females, or an increase of 2.73 on last year.
The highest number reached on any one day of the year was 188, being 163
males and 25 females on the 18th April.
The lowest number was 173, being 154 males and 19 females on the
9th December. One civil insane, who was selected to be brought before the visitors,
escaped a few days before the Committee sat and has not been heard of since.
From Statement No. I it will be seen that the number admitted was more
by 12 than during 1880, the number cured less by five, and the number of deaths
25, being 20 males and five females, or an increase of six deaths on that recorded
last year.
The percentage of cured to daily average strength was 11.52, as compared
with 14.48 of 1880, or a decrease of 2.96 per cent.; of deaths to average strength,
10.97 males and 2.74 females, or a total of 13.71; of cures, as compared to
admissions, the percentage is 43.75, as compared to 72.22 of 1880, or a decrease
of 28.47 ; and of deaths 52.08, as compared to 52.77 given last year, or an increase
of .69.
This statement can hardly be examined and have its facts compared without
deducing from the past some significant indications as to the future. It is then
seen that since the year 1876 the number remaining have steadily increased;
whilst the proportion of recoveries have very markedly diminished. The effect of
all this has been, and must continue to be, to enlarge the asylum and to make it
in a still greater proportion a house of incurables. I have said that the propor-
tion of recoveries has diminished; such is the case, although the number of cases
discharged as recovered has increased. The falling percentage is due to the
yearly variation in the number (of the admissions) upon which it is calculated.
But it is of little practical value to deduce the rate of recoveries on a number
of patients which may contain an indefinite proportion of incurables.
To show the rate of the annual curability of insanity, the cases should at
least be such as may at some period of their care be deemed curable.
To make a comparison of the above kind, no less than 20 cases must be
excluded from the 46 admissions, their nature having been hopeless throughout
from idiocy, senility, epilepsy, and congenital imbecility or prolonged existence of