(
7 )
The Rules for the transmission of lunatics from outlying districts, published
with the Lunatic Asylum Manual—are also apt to be overlocked.
TABLE IV deals with the occupation of those admitted : " Domestic Servants"
furnish the larger number : probably because being residents of large towns,
their habits are more dissipated: or they are more addicted to the use of in-
toxicating drugs : or they are so circumstanced that their eccentricities attract the
notice of people who are at once less tolerant of them and know better how to
dispose of them; or probably because of all three reasons combined.
The others are too few to admit of any conclusions being drawn from them.
TABLE V. gives the ages.
In former reports, I endeavoured to explain how it is between 20 and 40
years of age that the circumstances of life take on those characters likely to ex-
cite insanity in those who are pre-disposed to it: how if people are to get mad at
all it will be most likely to happen to them before they are 40.
TABLE VI. brings us to the crucial ground of the various forms of insanity
under which patients are said to be suffering. The differences in this respect
between the two Asylums I admit are greater than could be accounted for by
the proverbial license allowed to Doctors and always attracted the notice of our
reviewers, who I fear must have had a slight leaven of suspicion that our patients
had a hand in the diagnosis of their cases !
It is at first sight curious why there shauld be more idiots in Jubbulpore than
in Nagpur. Some explanation lies in the fact that years ago when the Nagpur
Asylum was overcrowded, the Superintendent was directed to transfer a number
of the inmates to Jubbulpore.: every one he sent was an "idiot": I do not wish to
imply anything wrong in this ; I myself would prefer to keep the more interest-
ing class of patients. But the fact remains—and as they are very tenacious of
life—(we had only one death in an idiot for the past two years) hanging on from
year to year in a state of existence little in advance of a vegetable : as fresh cases
of the same class come to be admitted: as they never get cured, and as it is
extremely difficult to get " friends" ready to come forward and take charge of
them they must " accumulate" in the Asylum.
Further, most forms of insanity, as years go on, tend towards a state of
idiotcy; and as the register should be kept as an exact record of the existing
mental condition of the inmates, many cases originally admitted under other
heads have to be changed to this, and something also must be set down to the
action of district officers referred to in the remarks on Table III concerning Book
Circular No. XXXI.
TABLE VII. deals with the causes of insanity and furnishes another difficulty :
so many of those sent to the Asylum are wandering lunatics of whom nothing
is known—as to their friends, homes, or previous history : and in so many cases
no cause for their insanity can be discovered even when all the above are known:
or some absurd one assigned as in Mt. Khimia's " Sore eyes'': that it is rather a
source of congratulation that we are able to state it in the case of so many as 104
out of 168 individuals dealt with in these returns.
Of course if one accepts anything that the neighbours assign as the cause of
insanity why then he can give a reason for everything. I have always en-
deavoured to ascertain from District and Police Officers as much as it is possible
to learn: but only too often no one can give them any information worth
recording.
Out of 26 cases admitted during the year we have been able to ascertain
with a reasonable degree of certainty the cause in 16 of them. As usual the
abuse of ganja and opium accounts for a large proportion.
A remarkable circumstance is that signs of religious monomania were well
developed in 5 cases of whom 4 were criminal lunatics. One of them named
Ganesh fasts every Monday : he goes through many forms savouring of religious