LUNATIC ASYLUMS IN BENGAL.                                                   3

Comparison with
previous years.

5. In statement No. 2 the aggregate results for all asylums are shown in comparison
with the actuals and averages of the preceding five years, and certain calculations of percentages
are added for the purposes of facilitating this comparison; for it will be observed that an
increase in the actual number of occurrences of a particular kind is frequently coincident
with a decrease in the ratio which these bear to mean population or number treated. This
table will serve as a basis of comment in discussing the number of insane persons in
confinement, the admissions, recoveries, and deaths of the year:—

                                                                      STATEMENT No. 2.

                                             Comparison of 1874 with the five preceding years.

* Does not include " transfers" from one asylum to another.

Population.

Increase.

Accumulation of
chronic lunatics.

6. Population.—Whether we take the number of persons resident on the first day
of the year, the number treated during the year, or the mean population, statement No. 2
shows that the figures exhibit a considerable advance upon those of 1873, and a still more
considerable advance upon the average of the years 1869—73. In short, the number of
lunatics in confinement in the asylums of Bengal was never so large as it has been in 1874,
and the figures of past years show a progressive increase This result is due, not to the
greater number of admissions, for these, though showing a similar tendency to progressive
increase, were actually somewhat fever in 1874 than in 1873, but to the relatively diminished
number of discharges, and the consequent accumulation of lunatics in asylums. The rate of
increase for the year, or the difference between the admission and discharge rates, was 6.4,
which is not unusual; but the average period of detention of each lunatic, namely 267.83
days, was considerably higher than in previous years, showing still more clearly than in past
years the growing tendency to accumulation of chronic lunatics in asylums.

Overcrowding.

Need of additional
asylum
accommodation.

New asylum
Berhampors.

7. Overcrowding.—Administratively, this gradual increase of persons, whose care and
custody devolves on the State, resolves itself into two considerations, namely,—can the increase
be prevented by placing any bar or limit on the number of admissions ? and,—is there sufficient
accommodation and provision for the accumulating lunatics ? With the first question I have
no concern; but the second has been strongly forcing itself on my attention and on that of
Government for years, and has never asserted itself so strongly as at the present moment.
Additional accommodation became available during the year by the opening, on the 2nd of
August, of the new asylum at Berhampore, to which were transferred 85 patients (50 males
and 35 females) from Dullunda, and 20 females from Patna, and into which were received
13 patients (ten males and three females), who would probably have been admitted into the