ANNUAL REPORT ON LUNATIC ASYLUMS.
19
details. He draws all the rations in the morning. There is not too much to do, if
his time could be, which it cannot be, exclusively devoted to the details of cooking
itself alone, but it is the system which pervades the asylum of using men on details
of duty which overlap one another, and are all taken together impossible of proper
fulfilment, that has done so much harm: all the stress arises from this. If
Mr. McKenzie were only all day at the kitchen, he could adequately supervise the
cooking arrangements, but to give him clerk's work as well, means indifferent
cooking, owing to indifferent supervision by him, and errors in the clerical details
of his accounts which again throw back more work on steward and Superintendent
to find out and set right."
" European Attendants.—They perform their work, I believe, to the best of
their ability, and with a satisfactory result on the whole, but it is no dispraise of
them if I say that they do not come up to what I consider the standard required,
inasmuch as I doubt the possibility of getting more suitable men. Several qualifi-
cations are necessary in a good lunatic attendant:—
(a) Good physique.
(b) Good temper.
(c) Knowledge of natives.
(d) Knowledge of the languages.
(e) Ability to read and write and do simple arithmetic and to write plain
intelligible English letters.
(f) Good common sense.
Now, it is the combination of these qualifications that is essential and such a
man could command fair wages in other walks of life. What inducement has he
to take to a lunatic asylum life ? It is hard work, monotonous and if he be not a
kind hearted man, he may very easily slide into a very cruel one—simply because
he sees helpless human nature from its lowest and most repulsive side and sees
it constantly. I strongly recommend a reserve of these attendants to allow of
a fixed holiday for them, not as a favour but a right for their health's sake, and
yet we have no available reserve, and in cases of emergency have to fall
back on untrained outsiders to do highly skilled work—for these men not only
require the qualifications of European Asylum attendants but, have in addition
the difficulties of the language and the same difficulties of patient's temper, fasti-
diousness, follies, even perhaps in a greater degree than the European insane."
" Native attendants.—The character of the native attendants as attendants
on insane patients is poor. To adequately perform the duties required of them at
the present strength of our establishment, and considering the class from which
we draw them, is I think impossible—they have neither the will nor intelligence
nor education, and I say candidly that from their point of view I cannot much
blame them ; they are not men of refined feeling, their ordinary work is practically
to feed, clean and provide for a human beast; that he is human it is true, but in
the majority of cases the human faculty is too much in abeyance, the animal too
prominent: hence arises the constant lapse into perfunctoriness, the tendency to
roughness, to neglect of the watchfulness on which so much depends, and to feel
what is quite true in many cases—that if the work is done well, it inspires no
gratitude, that the feelings of the recipient are often purely negative, and that
whether ill or well done, the result, except in the long run, will not show much
difference; added to which the morbid side of a distempered mind often renders a
patient's character disagreeable or even utterly odious. This difficulty is especially
felt at night in the hospital. In the day time with much care and supervision,
the sick can be looked after with as fair a result as can be expected with such
rough material, but at night directly one is away, I see no guarantee that a
sick lunatic will be looked after at all, I think the chances are much against it.
The nursing by men of the sick is always a matter of doubtful expediency, but of
lunatics who are much more confined necessarily, it is even more difficult to
arrange satisfactorily than with sane patients."
" Toties.—Another difficulty arises connected with these. Assuming that the
most necessary point is to feed the lunatic adequately, what should be looked on