REPORT AND RETURNS
OF THE
Lunatic Asylums in the United Provinces of Agra & Oudh,
FOR THE YEAR
1907.
No.1993
2R— 3*
FROM
THE HON'BLE COLONEL R. D. MURRAY, M.B., I.M.S.,
INSPECTOR GENERAL OF CIVIL HOSPITALS,
UNITED PROVINCES,
To
THE SECRETARY TO GOVERNMENT,
UNITED PROVINCES,
JUDICIAL (CRIMINAL) DEPARTMENT.
Dated Lucknow, the 19th, February
1908.
SIR,
I HAVE the honour to submit the annual statistics relating to the Lunatic
Asylums in these Provinces for the year 1907.
2. The total admissions fell from 328 in 1906 to 273 in 1907 and the total
population from l,537 to 1,481. There was a decrease also in the daily average
strength.
3. Although the number of cures increased from 124 to 146, and the number
of deaths fell from 130 to 140, the daily average sick increased from 90.18 to
99.93
There was a slight increase in the percentage of cures to the daily average
strength, but the percentage of cures to admissions rose from 13.33 to 20.67. The
percentage of deaths to the daily average strength fell from 10.69 to 9.13. The
death rate in the English Asylums during 1906 was 9.85 per cent. on the daily
average number resident.
4. As regards deaths, Bareilly reports 26 against 15 and Benares 35 against
30, but the high death rate at Agra of 85 in 1906 has, I am glad to say, been
reduced to 49. This number would have been still further reduced to 30 if influ-
enza, which was very prevalent in Agra, had not unfortunately broken out in the
asylum in November. The 19 deaths from influenza, out of the 62 admitted to
hospital, occurred in the last six weeks of the year, and extremely rapid signs of
pneumonia set in after a few hours malaise associated with slight cough and fever.
It was treated throughout as acutely infectious and was confined to the one section
of the asylum in which the first cases appeared. In many cases when the patient
survived over the third day symptoms of enteritis supervened. The influenza
death rate was 30 per cent., but it must be remembered that the patients were
suffering from insanity which reduces the power of resistance to other diseases to
the lowest. On the 11th January the Superintendent reported that the disease
had subsided. Of the remaining 30 deaths dysentery accounted for 10. There was
only one death from heat stroke against 18 in 1906. The flushing system of
conservancy in the Benares Asylum was stopped in June 1907 and the dry earth
system reintroduced. During the flushing system period the health of the asylum
remained as bad as it has been since the system was introduced, and 21 deaths
occurred during the first six months of the year. With the introduction of the
dry earth system the health of the asylum has gone back to its former excellent
standard, and though 14 deaths occurred during the second half of the year some of
these contracted their ailments during the first six months, while no fewer than
six were from causes which were non-preventable. The Superintendent reports that
the asylum now contains no serious cases, and that he has every reason to hope
that the asylum has reverted to its normal healthy condition. Of the 26 deaths
at Bareilly one was from small-pox, five from dysentery and four from phthisis.