( 3 )
8. In STATEMENT No. IX is given the cash account of the asylum for the year.
Discrepancies in the financial statements between the figures in the appendix and
those supplied by the Comptroller were discovered. These are explained by the
Superintendent in footnotes. The amount received from paying patients, Rs. 548,
is more than double what was received in 1883. The expenses for clothing and
bedding are Rs. 685-15-0 against Rs. 337-4-0 for the previous year. The expendi-
ture on English stores and medicines, Rs. 195, represents their cost in 1883 as
the Superintendent, when submitting his report, could not ascertain the value of
those supplied during 1884. In the Comptroller's accounts their cost for 1884 is
put down as Rs. 537-3-3.
In the subjoined statement is given the average cost for the year under review
of each patient in the local asylum in relation to establishment, diet, &c., &c.;
for comparison similar averages for Bengal, Bombay, and Burma for the previous
year are introduced.
Bengal
Bombay
Burma
1883
..
Burma for 1884 ...
Establish-
ment.
Rs.
42
66
47
49
A.
9
9
3
4
P.
6
2
0
0
Diet.
Rs.
34
64
39
48
A.
8
14
12
5
P.
8
3
11
8
Bazaar medi-
cines.
Rs.
0
0
0
0
A.
1
8
10
9
P.
1
4
11
11
Clothing, &c.
Rs.
3
9
2
4
A.
3
9
0
0
P.
8
7
0
2
Contingen-
cies.
Rs.
4
11
10
6
A.
2
11
7
2
P.
8
4
1
7
Other
charges.
Rs.
9
19
3
3
A.
10
7
4
8
P.
10
8
4
7
In examining this table it should be borne in mind that a considerable proportion
of the insanes in Bombay are Europeans or Eurasians, and the cost is included
in the foregoing figures for that presidency; whereas the cost of European and
Eurasian insanes is not provided for in the figures for Bengal, and though
included in those for Burma, the numbers are so small as not to affect very mate-
rially the average cost.
9. STATEMENT Nos. X AND XI call for no particular remark. The money
accounts at the asylum are not very complicated, and there is probably no great
risk of confusion, but the mode of dealing with receipts, described towards the end
of the Superintendent's report, is contrary to the system prescribed by the Account
Code (vide volume I, Chapter I, paragraph 1) and should be discontinued.
Annual Report on the Rangoon Lunatic Asylum for the year 1884.
Situation and Buildings.—I have nothing to add to what has been written in
former years regarding situation and buildings, except that the additional range of
criminal cells, 22 in all, sanctioned last year have been completed.
I may add that in former years some inspecting officers and visitors com-
mented unfavourably on the position of the hospital, although they did not consider
it essentially necessary to make a special representation to Government on the
subject. The objection to it is that it is very little separated from the general
body of the asylum, the sick either mingling with the bodily healthy, or we are
obliged to keep them sitting in the verandahs all day. The latter alternative we
are compelled to adopt both as much for the sake of discipline and the safe-cus-
tody of the sick insanes as for other obvious reasons. Beyond all doubt the hospital
should be separate from the body of the asylum, and as the population increases
it will become necessary to erect a building apart from the asylum itself. Thus
would be set free the present hospital, which I would wish to appropriate as an
office, storehouse, and board-room for the visitors to sit in whilst in committee.
At present they have to sit in a confined space under the floor of the hospital,
where patients are often under treatment with diseases which, if not contagious,
give off unavoidably very offensive effluvia.
A temporary bamboo and thatch building was erected at a distance from the
asylum for the use of the smallpox cases treated in the month of March last.