Annual Reports.—
Report on the Lunatic Asylums in the
Bombay Presidency for the year
1898.
General Department.
No. 3541
Bombay Castle,
14th August 1899.
Letter from the Surgeon General with the Government of Bombay, No. S.B.—171,
dated the 11th July 1899—
Submitting the Annual Report on the Lunatic Asylums in the Bombay Presidency for
the year 1898.
RESOLUTION.—The report for the year 1898 again shows a slight increase
in the total population of the Asylums in the Presidency. The percentage of
insanes discharged cured was about the same as in the previous year, while the
cases of sickness and the deaths decreased.
2. Of the cases in which the cause of insanity was known, by far the greater
number is, as usual, attributed to the use of intoxicating drugs and abuse of
spirits, the smoking of charas and gánja and the use of bháng accounting for
112 out of 493, while among criminal insanes charged with crimes of violence,
the insanity of 12 out of 39 known cases was ascribed to gánja. In view of the
conclusions arrived at by the Hemp Drugs Commission on the connection
between gánja and insanity, the history of these cases would seem to need
further enquiry.
3. As regards Statement IX which exhibits the cost of the Asylums, the
Surgeon General has contented himself, as for the past two years, with referring
to the remarks made in his report for 1895, but His Excellency the Governor
in Council is compelled to point out that the cost of dieting and clothing and
bedding per head of daily average strength increases every year and some
explanation should be possible. Famine prices accounted for the rise in dieting
charges in 1897, but prices fell in 1898 and famine should not cause a steady
increase in the cost of bedding and clothing. Doubtless the number of Europeans
from various parts of India confined at Colába tends to raise the cost, but the
average for the Presidency is far higher than that of any other Province.
4. His Excellency the Governer in Council hopes that the new Nowpáda
Asylum will soon be ready for occupation and that the project for a Central
Asylum for Europeans and men from above ghauts at Poona will be taken in
hand before long. With these two institutions the defects pointed out by the
Surgeon General in paragraph 14 of his report should be removed and facilities
afforded for the extended employment, both out-door and in-door, of harmless
lunatics.
R. B. STEWART,
Acting Secretary to Government.
To
The Surgeon General with the Government of Bombay,
(With copies of Government Resolution, Revenue Department, No. 3265, dated
the 1st May 1895, and accompaniments.)
The Sanitary Commissioner for the Government
of Bombay,
The Commissioner in Sind,
The Commissioner, N. D.,
The Commissioner,
The Commissioner, S. D.,
The Collector of Poona,
The Collector of Ahmedabad,
The Collector ot Dhárwár,
The Collector of Ratnágiri,
The Judicial Department of the Secretariat,
The Public Works Department of the Secretariat.
With copies of the
report.
The Private Secretary to His Excellency the Governor,
The Editors' Table, Bombay,
The Editors' Table, Poona,
The Editors' Table, Dhárwár,
The Editors' Table, Belgaum,
The Government of India,
The Secretary of State for India.
By letter.