8

are treated without certification. The Committee after great
deliberation passed the following resolution :—

"The Committee while approving generally the scheme
consider that it is rather one for private enterprise than for one
to be financed by public money. They recommend that Govern-
ments of Bengal and Bihar should give all assistance possible in
the way of publicity and giving facilities by provision of a site ''.

24.  Suicide, injuries and absconding.—During the year
under review with the exception of a few minor injuries and
accidents there were no cases of serious accidents or injuries
amongst the patients. Similarly there was no case of suicide or
absconding.

25.  Autopsy.—Post-mortem examinations were held on 25
cases during the year under report.

26.  Conservancy and sanitation.—The sanitary condition of
the hospital as well as that of the staff lines was kept satisfactory
throughout the year under report.

27.  Methods and treatment of insane.—The care and treat-
ment of insane to-day in a modern mental hospital can only be
fully appreciated by a comparison with conditions which existed
in the one time old asylums of India. A visit to the Ranchi
Indian Mental Hospital cannot fail to convince an unbiased person
of the complete hygienic and favourable conditions which exist.
A modern mental hospital is a self-contained unit and in its
communal life the patients find everything they need and no
effort is spared to make their daily lives as happy, comfortable
and contented as is possible having regard to the distressing
mental conditions from which many of them suffer. Where
recovery from mental illness is possible, the progress is slow and
the methods which have to be adopted are painstaking and diffi-
cult. A modern mental hospital represents a highly specialised
development where Psychiatry is best studied. One gets in-
numerable opportunities to study the life histories of great many
patients as they live 20, 30, 40 years and sometimes more, and to
follow them by the pathological findings after the end has come.
Modern mental hospital offer outstanding opportunities for
medical research. The armamentarium of medicine in-general
and of Psychiatry in particular has enormously increased and it
has become one of the functions of the Ranchi Indian Mental
Hospital to bring all these various diagnostic and therapeutic
agencies which have been developed through the years to the
service of its patients.