Lunatic Asylums Arrive in Calcutta
Amit Ranjan Basu The arrival of psychiatry in India was a disjuncture from the practices that already existed for mental healing. Not only were these practices based on concepts that did not follow the Cartesian mind/body binary, but I also consider it inappropriate to call those practices psychiatry though many historians of Indian medicine do. It is one thing to use ’mental health’ or ’psychiatry’ or ’psychology’ interchangeably as a rhetoric while elaborating on indigenous systems in English, but to reduce different culturally saturated practices with their own terminologies to an all-engulfing western word psychiatry, is another. For, it tends to produce a narrative that simplistically brings psychiatry in a line where pre-colonial systems at once lose their characteristics and any autonomous domain. It is not true that mad persons were not confined in houses before the colonialists came. A brief historical overview on the Indian Lunacy Act, 1912 mentioned Mahmud Khilji (1436-69), who established a ’mental hospital’ at Dhar, near Mandu in Madhya Pradesh with Maulana Fazular Lah Hakim as the appointed physician.’[1] In fact, the concept of hospitals was first conceived and practised in Arabian medicine in all the countries ruled by Muslims, and served as a model for the European hospitals. The first such hospital was founded by Walid b. Abdal Malik in AD 707. Two types of hospitals emerged. One was the ’fixed hospital’ located in particular places and the other, the ’mobile’ one that used to move from place to place and stopped at one place as long as it was necessary. Insane persons were kept locked up and chained in hospitals specified for them under regular supervision. Firuz Shah, successor of Mohmmad Bin Tuglak, added several hospitals to a list of 70 hospitals run by his predecessor in Delhi. Firuz Shah had ordered that everyone suffering from insanity should be captured, chained and kept in the hospital and treated with medicine ’prescribed by him’ which was found ’useful’. Moreover, he also provided a ’special diet’ for them.[2] In any case, it is not very difficult to imagine that wandering and violent people were kept in custody and not many hospitals for the insane came up as it happened with British colonialists, who brought in a rational system of western medicine, which saw a growth of many institutions by the mid-eighteenth century. Arrangements for keeping lunatics under private care but with the East India Company’s patronage had started by the late-eighteenth century in Calcutta. The first recorded evidence for it can be dated to 1787. D.G. Crawford, who wrote A History of the Indian Medical Service, 1600-1913 in two volumes, gave a brief account of the establishment of this lunatic asylum in Calcutta: “The proceeding of the Calcutta Medical Board of 3rd April 1887, contain a memorial from surgeon G. M. Kenderdine in charge of the Insane Asylum …[t]he Board recommended to Government, in a letter dated 7th May 1787 the foundation of a regular asylum and nominated Assistant Surgeon William Dick to its charge … Dick was appointed on a salary of Rs. 200 per month. A Bengal Military letter dated 16th August 1787, reports in para 108-’Lunatic Hospital. Have accepted the proposals of Mr. Dick, an Asstt. Surgeon for the erection of one. The House (sic) is to be built at his Expense (sic) and rented by the company at Rs. 400 per month’ . A General letter from Bengal dated 6th November 1788, reports in para 98 that sanction has been given to the erection of a Lunatic Hospital for females, for which a rent of 200 rupees a month will be paid.”[3] During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the ’trade in lunacy’ became a lucrative business for England and India. In Calcutta, a surgeon, Mr Beardsmore entered into a contract with the Government of Bengal, which lasted for 30 years, and the government provided from about Rs. 20,000-40,000 per year for taking care of, on an average, 20-40 lunatics. Compared to the Hanwell Asylum of England, the average cost per patient was seven to eight times more here![4] The asylum came up in Calcutta in 1817 exclusively for Europeans. Unlike the previous one, which had to close down, this asylum still exists in the city as the Institute of Psychiatry. Let us look at its emergence narrated by an Indian psychiatrist 50 years ago: ” [I]n 1817, Surgeon Mr. Beardsmore who was superintendent of a Government Lunatic Asylum found that the conditions in the lunatic hospital were not congenial for the patients and so he decided to erect the lunatic asylum at the outskirts of Calcutta immediately behind the Presidency Jail. This was solely due to the enterprise and enthusiasm of Mr. Beardsmore and the hospital was a private property. It was meant exclusively for Europeans. Govt. contributed five-sixth of its expenses while one-sixth was met by the contributions of the private patients themselves. When the hospital was started Mr. Beardsmore had hardly half a dozen patients but soon they increased to 50-60 in number. The asylum had a central house surrounded by several ranges of barracks, which were thrown together in no very definite plan but were added from time to time to suit the needs of the public. Every visitor was pleased with the cleanliness of the apartments and ventilation of the rooms. The gardens were beautiful and had a pleasing and refreshing appearance. Patients looked happy, cheerful and comfortable. The asylum was managed by a European superintendent and a steward. There was an Apothecary to look after the male patients and a Matron to watch the female patients. Restraint was in use but it was in extreme moderation. Excited patients were treated with morphia, opium and hot baths. Sometimes leeches had to be applied to such patients in order to alloy their excitements but venesection was never done. Blisters were found useful in chronic patients as it helped them to shorten the duration of their periodic excitements.”[5] By early nineteenth century, the Court of Directors of