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The numbers admitted are too few to draw any inferences as to difference
in predisposition to insanity between the Aryan, Aboriginal and Mahomedan
classes.
As usual Jubbulpore holds the first place in the numbers admitted from
each district : next comes Seoni with 6, and Hoshangabad with 4 admissions.
To compare Jubbulpore with the other districts exactly, the 3 who were
declared "not insane" should be deducted. Doubtless similar cases occur in
other districts, and on the advice of the Medical officer are treated in the same
way, but not sent to the asylum.
Statement No. V. gives their occupation.
Beggars, ryots and servants account for two-thirds of the whole. Beggars
are exposed to much privation and lead irregular lives : but perhaps the more
correct way of putting it is that they are beggars because they have a tendency
to insanity in them, which unfits them for any other mode of living. Cultivators
are the most numerous class in the general population, and if it were not for the
simple out-of-door lives they lead would contribute considerably more to the
population of the asylum.
Domestic servants living chiefly in large towns lead dissolute lives in much
larger proportions than do other classes ; doubtless to this may reasonably be
set down the large proportion of them who become mad. Bunyas, dhobis, mochis,
sweepers and stone-cutters are too few to warrant any inferences.
Statement No. V. represents the ages.
21 out of the 29 were between 20 and 40 years; if one is to get insane at
all, it is likely to show itself within these ages. The two under 20 years are
exceptional. One was a young Policeman, a student in the Police school: he
suffered from a mild form of melancholia for about a month consequent on the
death of his father, but he soon recovered. The other was one Gungadhur, a
lad of weak intellect from Hoshangabad, who killed his sister and her daughter
in a fit of frenzy : he is a heavy, stupid, morose fellow : keeps to himself, never
talking to any body, or caring to be friendly with other lunatics.
Statement No. VI. deals with the types of insanity of those under treatment.
" Chronic Dementia" " Chronic Mania" and "Idiotcy" are the prevailing
types.
In former reports I have dwelt a good deal on the classification of the
different forms of insanity : so many are on the border land between one form
and another that much depends on the peculiarities of the observer : these differ-
ences in classification at once attract the notice of non-professional persons and
are very apt to be commented on.
I have attempted to show how in long standing cases lunatics who were first
seized with violent mania passed from one form to another until they ended in
chronic dementia or idiotcy : we have in the asylum instances of this : patients
who came to us maniacal twelve or fifteen years ago are now quite half witted
helpless creatures, little short of being idiots : those who survive accumulate in
this form, and it is to me easily intelligible why there should be more patients
under the above mentioned heads than in the others.
Out of the 26 new cases who were insane 17 were found to be of those types
which insanity is apt to assume in its earlier stages,—mania acute, dementia and
melancholia. If I had my way in the matter I would interpolate between mania
acute and chronic, a form which is more aptly describable under the terms
" sub-acute mania."
The recoveries occurred in cases which would be more correctly described as
sub-acute mania and sub-acute dementia.