No. 3718.

Extract from the Proceedings of the Chief Commissioner, Central Provinces,
            in the General Department, dated Pachmarhi, the 3rd June 1896.

READ-

         Letter No. 934-542, dated the 5th March 1896, from the Alminiatrative Medical Officer
                     Central Provinces, forwarding the Annual Report and Statements of the Lunatic
                     Asylums in the Central Provinces for the year 1895.

                                                RESOLUTION.

The total population of the two Asylums during the year 1895 was
381, or five in excess of that of last year, the figure for Nagpur being 207, and
that for Jubbulpore 174. The daily average strength was 317.95 (Nagpur 170.87,
Jubbulpore 147.08).

2.    The percentage of patients cured to total population was 6.30, as against
5.32. These figures are still low as compared with those of other provinces, though
the proportion is greater than at Rangoon in 1894 (5.92), and nearly equal to
that at Tezpur in the same year (6.85). The Administrative Medical Officer is
unable to give any complete explanation of this fact, but it is probably due to a
difference of practice in dealing with criminal lunatics who recover wholly or
partially, but whom it is not thought prudent to release from the Asylum.

3.    The percentage of deaths to daily average strength was 7.23, while that
for last year was 8.99. The general health of the patients also showed an
improvement, the total admissions to hospital being 229, or less by 87 than the
figures for 1894.

There were no deaths from cholera or smallpox, though there were two
cases of the latter disease at Jubbulpore during the year ; both occurred in
patients who had been vaccinated, and in one case the patient had previously
suffered from the disease.

4.    At the close of the year there were, in the Nagpur Asylum, 69, and in
the Jubbulpore Asylum 31 criminal lunatics. Many of these are now.
doubtless, as the Superintendent of the Jubbulpore Asylum observes, quite
harmless, and are only detained in the absence of friends to take care of them.
The Chief Commissioner has reason to think that some of the persons so
detained may have altogether recovered their reason, and that their detention
in the Asylum may be due to neglect of the instructions conveyed in Book
Circular No. LXIII, dated the 19th December 1888, which adopted (with a few
slight modifications) the Bengal rules for the treatment of such lunatics.
These rules provide for recovered criminal lunatics, who are fit for such
employment, being transferred to Central Jails as prisoner or jail warders.
Mr. Lyall will be glad if the Administrative Medical Officer will draw the
attention of the Superintendents of the two Asylums to the correspondence
of 1888, as well as to Chapter XXV of the Report of the Commission of 1889
on Jail Management in India.