No. 695-S. (Medl.).

FROM

               J. G. BEAZLEY, ESQ., I.C.S.,
                     Secretary to Government, Punjab,
                                          Transferred Departments,

TO

               THE SECRETARY TO THE GOVERNMENT OF
                           INDIA, HOME DEPARTMENT, SIMLA.

                                             Dated 2nd June 1928.

Medical.

SUBJECT :—Report on the Punjab Mental Hospital, Lahore,
                                       for the year 1927.

SIR,

I AM directed to forward, for the information of the Gov-
ernment of India, the statistical tables with regard to the
working of the Punjab Mental Hospital for the year 1927,
together with a note recorded by the Inspector-General of Civil
Hospitals, and to convey the following remarks of the Punjab
Government (Ministry of Local Self-Government).

2.    The number of new admissions to the Hospital in 1927
was 367, as compared with 282 in 1926, and has only twice,
in 1917 and 1918, been exceeded in the last twenty years.
The daily average population which had been gradually declining
since 1923, when the record of 900 was attained, rose from 854
in 1926 to 890 in the year under report; and towards the end
of the year over-crowding was serious, the number of patients at
one time being so high as 956, as compared with an assumed
capacity of 862. The number of patients shown as discharged,
" cured" or " improved " was 190, as compared with 209 in 1926,
and 171 in 1925, but no conclusions can be drawn from these
figures, as in 1926 the permanent Superintendent of the Hospital
was on leave and opinions of different officers to what consti-
tutes cure or improvement cannot be expected to agree.

3.    The mortality during the year amounted to 11.45 per
cent. of the daily average population, as compared with 9.25
per cent. in 1926 and an average of 11.6 per cent. for the last
twenty years. The improvement in respect of bowel diseases
noted in last year's review was continued, the number of cases
decreasing from 167 to 86 and of deaths from 11 to 9. Pneu-
monia and tuberculosis with 19 and 15 deaths, respectively, also