3
those of the Central Provinces,and it would appear from that table that much less
success is met with here than in other parts of India in the treatment of insa-
nity. The difference in favour of other Provinces is so remarkable that the Officiat-
ing Chief Commissioner is disposed to think that there must be either some differ-
ence of system or some error in the figures which vitiates the comparison. He
observes that the Central Provinces percentage of " cured to admitted," as given in
your table, is calculated on the " total population" (column 6 of Statement I.) of
our Asylums. The heading in column 3 of the table is " total admitted". This
for the Central Provinces means " total population". It may possibly not have
the same meaning in the figures given other Provinces. Again, the words ''total
cured" in column 4 of the table mean for the Central Provinces the total of cases
wholly cured as distinguished from merely " improved" (see Statement I.) Pos-
sibly cases "improved" are included under "cured' elsewhere. Differences
in different Provinces must moreover depend to some extent also on the strict-
ness observed in admitting cases to the Asylums. Dr. Rice, the Superintendent
of the Jubbulpore Asylum, observes : —
" Under recent rules no one is admitted until it is satisfactorily ascertained that his
case is a fit and proper one for detention in the asylum ; he is kept under the Civil Sur-
geon's observation in the Magistrate's havalat until he is satisfied that the man is really
insane, that it would be dangerous to the public to leave him at large, that his relatives are
not capable of controlling him, and that residence in the asylum affords the best means of
managing him, if not of restoring him to health".
Dr. Rice appears to be under some misapprehension in writing of " recent
rules" for regulating admissions, for Chief Commissioner's Circular No. 5 of 1885,
to which he apparently refers, merely directs that lunatics under observation
are to be kept in the Magistrate's havalats instead of in dispensaries, where no
arrangements for the safe custody of insanes exist. But it would seem that
admission to the Jubbulpore Asylum is not now granted so readily as formerly.
This stricter system of admission appears to have had its origin in the remarks
contained in paragraph 3 of the Chief Commissioner's Review of the Reports on
Lunatic Asylums for the year 1882, and as attention was drawn to those remarks
in the Review of last year's Report,District Magistrates have perhaps been more
careful of late as to the class of lunatics or supposed lunatics whom they send to
the Asylum.
In other provinces the system may possibly be less strict. Judging too from
the large number of admissions into the Nagpur Asylum during the year under
report, and the increased number of cases discharged as cured and improved, it
is possible that admission is more readily granted to this institution than to the
Jubbulpore Asylum.
Types of insanity.
5. As usual, the returns of the two Asylums exhibit great differences in
the types of cases treated. It was observed in para-
graph 3 of the Review of last year's Reports that these
differences in classification, which have often before been the subject of comment,
continue to raise doubts as to whether the diagnosis in the two Asylums is
based on the same principles, and it was suggested that you should take the
matter up in consultation with both Superintendents, with a view to securing
a nearer approach to uniformity of classification. It does not appear whether any-
thing has been done in this direction, but you give a table of statistics for other