OFFICE OF SURGEON-GENERAL, C.M.D.,
                                                      FORT ST. GEORGE, 5th July 1880.

                                                No. 325,

From

            Surgeon-General W. R. CORNISH, F.R.C.S., C.I.E.,
                                                            Civil Medical Department,

To

      R. DAVIDSON, ESQ., C.I.E.,
                  Chief Secretary to Government,
                                          Judicial Department,
                                                     Fort St. George.

SIR,

I HAVE the honor to submit, for the information of His Excellency the Most
Noble the Governor in Council, the Annual Report on the Lunatic Asylums of the
Madras Presidency for 1879-80.

2. During this period there has taken place a great improvement in public health
of the general population. Food grains decreased in price, and there was a general
immunity from cholera in all parts of the country. The lunatic population in
asylums felt the influence of the changed hygienic conditions indicated by plentiful
food supplies, and absence of epidemic disease, and their physical condition as
shown by lowered death-rate had changed for the better.

3. Accommodation.—The three asylums in Madras have accommodation for
538 males and 165 females. The largest number of patients confined in any one
night during the year was 343—males 256 and females 87. It will be apparent
from this statement that there was no overcrowding during the year. The present
accommodation in fact appears to be sufficient to meet the public requirements,
especially as chronic cases are now, whenever practicable, made over to friends
willing to take charge of them.

4.  General Results.—The following table shows the results as regards
recoveries and deaths in the asylums during 1879-80, as contrasted with the results
of the previous five years. The proportion of recoveries to admissions were 41.86
per cent., against 46.02 in the preceding year, but the death-rate fell from 21.73
per cent. of the daily average strength in 1878-79 to 13.45 per cent. in 1879-80.
During the three years ending 1878-79, the death-rate in the asylums had been
largely increased by the famine, and consequent ill-health of a large portion of the
persons admitted, but in the present year the mortality has fallen to its normal
rate. It must be remembered that the various forms of insanity tend inevitably to
shorten life, and that mortality amongst chronic insanes must, from the natural
progress of the disease, be always high:—