24                                      LUNATIC ASYLUMS IN BENGAL.

Health of pa-
tients admitted and
discharged.

31. Sickness.—Table No. 10, appended to the report of each asylum, shows the health
of the lunatics on admission, the health of those discharged, and the condition on admission
of those who were discharged and died during the year. There are also columns for re-
cording the result of weighing. The terms good, indifferent, and bad used in this table are
very vague, but the table is useful, nevertheless, for the purpose of indicating in a general
way the health of patients admitted into different asylums and in different years. The gene-
ral result as regards admissions is given on
the margin for each asylum in percentages.
Rather more than half of those admitted were
considered to be in good health. Dr. Coates
is the only officer who records the weights
of lunatics. Weight is an important indi-
cation of the state of a patient's health, and
each asylum should have a good weighing
machine.

Bodily sickness
in asylums.

The sickness amounted only to 4.8 per cent. of strength—a decrease on past years. The
proportion of sick varies in different asylums, and this is probably due in part to the practice in
some of them of having separate convalescent lists containing those suffering from
slight ailments, and not ill enough to be actually confined to hospital. The statement in
paragraph 12 shows that there was no excess of sickness in any particular season. Table No. 14,
appended to the report of each asylum, gives a detail of diseases treated. Dengue prevailed
to a slight extent in the Dacca and Cuttack asylums.

General man-
agement of asy-
lums.

32. Management.—I have nothing new to report under this head. Industry and order

are the main elements of asylum manage-
ment in Bengal. The number employed in
each asylum is shown marginally. Restraint
continues to be employed occasionally in
Dullunda, and solitary confinement has
sometimes to be resorted to. The extent to
which either has been found necessary is
shown in Table No. 15 appended to each report

Finances of asy-
lums.

33. Finances.—Statement No. 11 gives the financial facts of the year in a concise form,
admitting of the easy comparison of the several institutions with each other and of the year
under report, with its predecessors. The accounts of the Bhowanipore Asylum are not
included, and will be shown separately.

                                                                                              STATEMENT No. 11.

                                                                  Showing the Expenditure and Receipts of each Asylum.