(RESOLUTION.)

                                     JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT.

                                                MEDICAL.

                            Fort William, the 30th October 1871.

READ

A letter, No. 475, dated the 15th August 1871, submitting the reports and returns of
the lunatic asylums in the Lower Provinces for the year 1870.

1.    The Lieutenant-Governor perceives that the statements have been
differently arranged from the last report, and that some new tables have been
added, rendering the whole more comprehensive. His Honor quite agrees
with the Inspector-General's remarks as to the necessity for uniformity of
plan in the returns of the several institutions and in those of the general
report, and hopes to see an improvement in this respect caused by the forms
which the Inspector-General proposes to adopt, unnecessary diffuseness and
repetition of details being avoided as much as possible. The nominal lists
and particulars of individual cases, which of course must be carefully recorded
in the departmental registers, need not appear in the printed report.

2.    The number of insanes remaining in the five native asylums on the
1st of January 1870 was 746, and 401 were admitted during the year,
making a total number of 1,147 persons treated, which is in excess of the
average of the preceding five years by 119, but only 41 more than the total
of the previous year. The actual admissions were less by 17, and the
re-admissions again were more numerous—44 against 27 in the previous year,
the increase appearing at Dullunda and Patna.

3.    The excess in the total number of persons treated is attributed in
some degree to the accumulation of criminal lunatics in consequence of
difficulty in discharging them; but a far greater number appear to have been
discharged in 1870 than in any of the previous years compared, namely 62
against a previous average of 26. On the other hand, a larger number also
appear to have been re-admitted, namely 12, against a previous average of 3,
pointing to hasty discharge in the first instance. The average daily strength
of criminal lunatics was 150.69, against 162.37 in the previous year, being
20.62 per cent. of the whole number confined. The high proportion of
criminal lunatics points clearly to the small and unwilling recourse which
is had to public asylums by the friends and relatives of lunatics generally.

4.    The examination made by Dr. Campbell Brown into the statistics
of admissions, cures, and deaths, is useful and interesting, and gives results not
unfavorable to the management of Bengal asylums. In comparing the
proportion of cures in Bengal to those in other asylums, the very large
proportion of criminal lunatics has a tendency to vitiate the comparison, as
pointed out by Dr. Brown; but, on the other hand, it seems to the Lieutenant-
Governor that the number of ganja-smokers, who though only temporary
lunatics and easily cured, none the less go to swell the figures in Bengal,
should also be considered per contra.

5.    Of thetotal number of insane persons under treatment during the
year, 187, or 16.3 per cent., were discharged cured ; while 49, or 4.2 per cent.,
were improved and transferred to the care of friends,—results which do not
exhibit any marked difference in comparison with the previous year,