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Annual Report on the Lunatic Asylum Jubbulpore, for the year 1883.
As is customary this Report takes the form of brief comments on each of
the 11 Statements furnished annually.
TABLE I is a general Statement giving the number remaining at the end of
the year : the new admissions : the results of treatment &c. : both for the year
under review and for the ten years preceding it. 21 (18 males and 3 females)
were new admissions and 5(4 males and 1 female) were re-admissions. Of the
latter 3 (2 males and 1 female) were criminal lunatics who had been declared by
the official visitors capable of making their defence : one was tried and re-admitted
into the Asylum under Section 471 of Criminal Procedure Code and the other
two had a relapse before their trial came on and were sent back. Of the remain-
ing two, one escaped and was re-captured after some months : the other was dis-
charged apparently cured, but after some months, his insanity recurred and he
was re-admitted.
The total population dealt with numbered 168, the highest during the past
five years : due altogether to our having begun the year with a high remaining
number, viz. 142 against 124 for the year preceding 29 (23 males and 6 females)
were discharged under the following heads. Cured 20 (15 males and 5 females)
improved 4 (3 males and 1 female), not improved 3 males, escaped 2 males. Of
the 15 males, insanity has since recurred in 3 and they have been re-admitted
in the others as far as one can ascertain the cure appears to have been of a
more permanent nature. There has been no relapse amongst the females.
All of the 4 discharged '' improved " were harmless imbeciles : they together
with 3 others " not improved '', were made over to their friends under the provi-
sions of Chief Commissioner's Book Circular No. XXXI. of 1877, they were
harmless, and not likely to derive any benefit from a residence in the Asylum
certainly there was no hope of a complete cure.
Two escaped of whom one was recaptured after about six months: the other
is still at large. The Asylum is very open: a large number are employed in the
garden protected only with a weak "mehndi" hedge with the city close by,
within the mazes of which a person very soon gets lost, so that this number of
escapes is not remarkable.
6 died : details of whose death will be given further on under table 8.
The year closed with 133 (99 males and 34 females) remaining in the Asylum
against 142 for the year preceding.
The daily average number confined wss 137.20 (101.98 males and 35.22
females.)
The greatest number confined on any one night was 148 or within 13 of the
full capacity of the Asylum. This points to the necessity for more care in send-
ing lunatics to the Asylum as directed in the Book Circular above quoted; other-
wise it may happen that there will be no room for violent or dangerous lunatics,
or for those who may be suffering from temporary insanity and likely to be cured
quicker in an Institution of this kind specially devoted to the management of the
insane than in a general hospital which possesses scarcely one condition requisite
for their treatment. I do not refer to those harmless imbeciles whose cure is
hopeless and who had best be left to the care of their friends: if they have none,
then a Poor House is the proper place for them : if there is no Poor House there
are very few Sadr Dispensaries where an out of the way corner could not be found
for them, and I would venture to say absolutely none where a small detached
room could not be put up at a trifling expense ; the greater part of it would in a
little time be covered by the cost of sending them to Jubbulpore.