The ‘Common-Sense’ Treatment of Indian Insanity

Pinto, Sarah Ann

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-94244-5_4

Sarah Ann Pinto⁴

Part of the book series: Mental Health in Historical Perspective ((MHHP))

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Abstract

This chapter analyses the failure of the colonial asylum system through a study of its treatment methods. Superintendents in Bombay adopted the ‘common-sense’ treatment of Indian insanity that entailed hybrid treatment methods. In Bombay, treatment methods from 1793 to 1921 essentially revolved around clothing, feeding, and occupying patients. The chapter argues that such treatment methods based on preconceived notions of Indians were often culturally insensitive. These treatment practices often led to greater abuse of patients, since there were no boundaries regarding what constituted moral treatment.

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Notes

1.
From B.B. Grayfoot, Superintendent, Lunatic Asylum, Dharwar, to the Personal Asst. to the Surgeon General with the Government of Bombay, 10 August 1904, GoB, GD, 1907/81, MSA, Mumbai.
2.
From B.B. Grayfoot, Superintendent, Lunatic Asylum, Dharwar, to the Personal Asst. to the Surgeon General with the Government of Bombay, 10 August 1904, GoB, GD, 1907/81, MSA.
3.
Waltraud Ernst and Anouska Bhattacharyya identified the hybrid nature of the colonial asylum. See Waltraud Ernst, ‘Idioms of Madness and Colonial Boundaries: The Case of the European and “Native” Mentally Ill in Early Nineteenth-Century British India’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 39, No. 01, January 1997, p. 168; Anouska Bhattacharyya, ‘Indian Insanes, Lunacy in the “Native” Asylums of Colonial India, 1858–1912’, PhD Thesis, Harvard University, 2013, p. 75.
4.
From B.B. Grayfoot, Superintendent, Lunatic Asylum, Dharwar, to the Personal Asst. to the Surgeon General with the Government of Bombay, 10 August 1904, GoB, GD, 1907/81, MSA.
5.
David Arnold, Colonizing the Body: State Medicine and Epidemic Disease in Nineteenth-Century India (Berkley and California: University of California Press, 1993), p. 251.
6.
Arnold, Colonizing the Body, p. 181.
7.
Ernst, ‘Idioms of Madness and Colonial Boundaries’, p. 172.
8.
Nicholas Dirks, ‘Foreword’, in Bernard Cohn, Colonialism and its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. ix.
9.
Ashish Nandy, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 3.
10.
Report on the Lunatic Asylum at Colaba for the Year Ending 1852, GoB, GD, 1853/48, MSA.
11.
Vivienne Richmond, Clothing the Poor in Nineteenth-Century England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 269.
12.
Michael Dietler, ‘Culinary Encounters: Food, Identity and Colonialism’, in Katheryn C. Twiss (ed.), The Archaeology of Food and Identity (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2007), p. 228.
13.
Mouloud Siber and Bouteldja Riche, ‘The Aesthetic of Natives’ Dress and Undress: Colonial Stereotype and Mimicry in Paul Gauguin’s and William Somerset Maugham’s Cultural Forms’, Linguistic Practices, Vol. 19, 2013, p. 27; Philippa Levine, ‘States of Undress: Nakedness and the Colonial Imagination’, Victorian Studies, Vol. 50, No. 2, 2008, p. 189.
14.
James Mills, ‘“More Important to Civilise than Subdue”? Lunatic Asylums, Psychiatric Practice and Fantasies of the “Civilising Mission” in British India 1858–1900’, in Harald Fischer-Tiné and Michael Mann (eds.), Colonialism as Civilising Mission (London: Anthem Press, 2003), pp. 171–182.
15.
Rianne Siebenga, ‘Colonial India’s “Fanatical Fakirs” and their Popular Representations’, History and Anthropology, Vol. 23, No. 4, 2012, p. 449.
16.
Levine, ‘States of Undress’, p. 210.
17.
Ibid., p. 210.
18.
From Asst. Surgeon J.A. Maxwell to the Chief Secretary to the Government of Bombay, 4 June 1814, GoB, PDD, 1814/368, MSA.
19.
From R.C. Candy Esquire, Magistrate of Kanara, to the Secretary, Judicial Department, Government of Bombay, 11 June 1881, GoB, GD, 1881/56, MSA.
20.
Medical Certificate Issued by A. Pereira, Civil Surgeon, 16 August 1881, GoB, GD, 1881/56, MSA.
21.
Beggars, fakirs, and mendicants accounted for more than 70 per cent of the asylum population in the Presidency. APR, 1880, NLS, p. 2.
22.
Nile Green, ‘Breaking the Begging Bowl: Morals, Drugs, and Madness in the Fate of the Muslim Faqir’, South Asian History and Culture, Vol. 5, No. 2, 2014, p. 237.
23.
Siebenga, ‘Colonial India’s “Fanatical Fakirs”’, p. 449.
24.
Ibid.; Green, ‘Breaking the Begging Bowl’, p. 237.
25.
A medical form mentions the ‘lapse of modesty’ as a symptom of Pandu Dadji’s insanity. Form C, Mode of Taking Notes in a Case of Insanity before Sending a Patient to the Asylum, 23 June 1881, GoB, GD, 1881/56, MSA.
26.
Levine argued that in the colonial imagination, indigenous male nakedness was linked to ‘physical danger’ and female nakedness was perceived as ‘sexual availability’. See Philippa Levine, ‘Naked Truths: Bodies, Knowledge, and the Erotics of Colonial Power’, Journal of British Studies, Vol. 52, Iss. 1, 2013, pp. 16–18.
27.
Report on the Lunatic Asylum at Colaba for the Year Ending 1852, GoB, GD, 1853/48, MSA.
28.
Form A, Certificate of Medical Officer, GoB, GD, 1885/73, MSA.
29.
Rules of the Poona Lunatic Asylum, Preamble, 1874, GoB, GD, 1874/32, MSA.
30.
Levine, ‘States of Undress’, p. 209.
31.
Ibid., p. 199.
32.
Ibid., p. 207.
33.
James Mills, ‘The Lunatic Asylum in British India, 1857 to 1880: Colonialism, Medicine and Power’, PhD Thesis, The University of Edinburgh, 1997, pp. 33–40.
34.
From Asst. Surgeon J.A. Maxwell to the Chief Secretary to the Government of Bombay, 4 June 1814, GoB, PDD, 1814/368, MSA.
35.
Levine, ‘States of Undress’, p. 207.
36.
From the Senior Magistrate of Police and President of the Medical Board to the President and Governor in Council, Mounstuart Elphinstone, 1 September 1821, GoB, GD, 1821–1823/ 24/27, MSA; From the Member of the Medical Board to the President and Governor in Council Mounstuart Elphinstone, 1 February 1824, GoB, GD, 1824/10/66, MSA.
37.
Conolly emphasized the importance of clothing as part of the asylum regime. He explained: ‘In regulating the dress of insane patients as in every regulation for them we consider not only its first and indispensable uses, but also its effects on the mind’. See John Conolly, The Construction and Government of Lunatic Asylums as Hospitals for the Insanes (London: John Church Hill, 1847), p. 63.
38.
Superintendent of the Lunatic Asylum at Poona to the Secretary to the Surgeon General with the Government of Bombay, 1 December 1883, GoB, GD, 1883/95, MSA.
39.
Report on the Lunatic Asylum at Colaba for the Year Ending 1852, GoB, GD, 1853/48, MSA.
40.
Choolies is the plural form of Choli, a blouse or bodice worn with a saree or lehenga (a type of skirt).
41.
From the Civil Surgeon, Ratnagiri, to the Secretary to the Surgeon General with the Government of Bombay, 28 February 1886, GoB, GD, 1886/58, MSA.
42.
Perana is a type of shirt.
43.
Geegra is a long skirt worn under a saree; sadees is the same as sarees.
44.
Asylum General Rules (Bombay Presidency) submitted with Letter 1103 from the Surgeon General, IMD, 13 April 1874, GD, 1874/32, MSA.
45.
APR, 1875, p. 25, NLS.
46.
Sudra is a sacred muslin undershirt worn by the Parsis.
47.
Asylum General Rules (Bombay Presidency) submitted with Letter 1103 from the Surgeon General, IMD, 13 April 1874, GD, 1874/32, MSA.
48.
Richmond, Clothing the Poor in Nineteenth-Century England, pp. 268, 283.
49.
Cohn, Colonialism and its Forms of Knowledge, p. 121; Emma Tarlo, Clothing Matters: Dress and Identity in India (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), p. 13.
50.
Report on the Lunatic Asylum at Colaba for the Year Ending 1852, GoB, GD, 1853/48, MSA.
51.
Richmond, Clothing the Poor, p. 268.
52.
Catherine Weiberger Thomas, Ashes of Immortality: Widow Burning in India, trans. Jeffrey Mehlman and David Gordon White (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), p. 24.
53.
Brenda E.F. Beck, ‘Colour and Heat in South Indian Ritual’, Man, New Series, Vol. 4, No. 4, December 1969, p. 559.
54.
Sarah Lamb, ‘Aging, Gender and Widowhood: Perspectives from Rural West Bengal’, Contributions to Indian Sociology, Vol. 33, No 3, 1999, p. 546; Uma Chakravarti, ‘Ageing, Gender Caste and Labour: Ideological and Material Structure of Widowhood’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 30, No. 36, 9 September 1995, p. 2251.
55.
Asylum General Rules (Bombay Presidency) submitted with Letter 1103 from the Surgeon General, IMD, 13 April 1874, GD, 1874/32, MSA.
56.
Rules for the Lunatic Asylums in the Bombay Presidency (Up to 1907), GoB, GD, 1908/80, MSA.
57.
Asst. Surgeon, Colaba Lunatic Asylum, to the Secretary of the Medical Board, 21 February 1847, GoB, GD, 1847/ 41, MSA.
58.
Report on the Lunatic Asylum at Colaba for the Year Ending 1852, GoB, GD, 1853/48, MSA.
59.
Asylum General Rules (Bombay Presidency) submitted with Letter 1103 from the Surgeon General, IMD, 13 April 1874, GoB, GD, 1874/32, MSA.
60.
APR, 1875, p. 23, NLS.
61.
APR, 1897, p. 25; APR, 1898, p. 10; and Triennial Report on the Lunatic Asylums under the Government of Bombay, 1912–1914, p. 6, NLS.
62.
APR, 1895, p. 6, NLS.
63.
Rules for the Lunatic Asylums in the Bombay Presidency (Up to 1907), GoB, GD, 1908/80, MSA. The rules were based on Asylum Rules for 1874, and only a few minor changes were made to them. However, rules applying to clothing remained the same.
64.
From B.B. Grayfoot, Superintendent Lunatic Asylum, Dharwar, to the Personal Asst. to the Surgeon General with the Government of Bombay, 10 August 1904, GoB, GD, 1907/81, MSA.
65.
From B.B. Grayfoot, Superintendent Lunatic Asylum, Dharwar, to the Personal Asst. to the Surgeon General with the Government of Bombay, 10 August 1904, GoB, GD, 1907/81, MSA.
66.
From the Surgeon General with the Government of Bombay to the Secretary to the Government of Bombay, 22 February 1909, GoB, GD, 1908/80, MSA.
67.
Siebenga, ‘Colonial India’s “Fanatical Fakirs”’, p. 449.
68.
Tarlo, Clothing Matters, p. 24.
69.
Nirad Chaudhuri, Culture in the Vanity Bag (Bombay: Jaico, 1976), p. 73.
70.
Margaret Owen, A World of Widows (London: Zed Books, 1996), p. 17.
71.
Cohn, Colonialism and its Forms of Knowledge, p. 162.
72.
Tarlo, Clothing Matters, p. 37.
73.
Mills argued that diet and occupation as part of asylum treatment was used to create an ‘idealized European’. See James Mills, “‘More Important to Civilise than Subdue”’, p. 189.
74.
Shilpi Rajpal, ‘Quotidian Madness: Time, Management and Asylums in Colonial North India’, Studies in History, Vol. 31, No. 2, p. 221.
75.
Michael Dietler, ‘Culinary Encounters’, p. 222.
76.
Report on the Lunatic Asylum at Colaba for the Year Ending 1852, GoB, GD, 1853/48, MSA.
77.
From the Superintendent, Lunatic Asylum, Colaba, to the Secretary to the Medical Board, 21 June 1851, GoB, GD, 1851/15, MSA.
78.
APR, 1898, p. 9, NLS.
79.
APR, 1876, p. 21, NLS.
80.
APR, 1874, p. 19, NLS.
81.
APR, 1873, p. 45; APR, 1885, p. 7. NLS.
82.
F. Scholz, Handbook of Mental Science (Leipzig: Mayer, 1890), p. 32, in Ron Van Deth and Walter Vandereychken, ‘Food Refusal and Insanity: Sitophobia and Anorexia Nervosa in Victorian Asylums’, International Journal of Eating Disorders, Vol. 27, No. 4, May 2000, p. 392.
83.
From Asst. Surgeon J.A. Maxwell to the Chief Secretary to the Government of Bombay, 4 June 1814, GoB, PDD, 1814/368, MSA.
84.
From the Magistrate of Ahmedabad to the Civil Surgeon, Ahmedabad, 13 August 1849, JD, GoB, GD, 1849/38, MSA.
85.
From the Superintending Surgeon to the Secretary to the Medical Board, 17 August 1849, GoB, GD, 1849/38, MSA.
86.
From the Civil Surgeon to the Magistrate of Ahmedabad, 14 August 1849, GoB, GD, 1849/38, MSA.
87.
APR, 1873–1874, p.17, NLS.
88.
From Lt. Col. J.P. Barry, Superintendent, Colaba Lunatic Asylum, to the Personal Asst. to the Surgeon General with the Government of Bombay, 11 November 1901, GoB, GD, 1904/57, MSA.
89.
APR, 1873–1874, p. 3, NLS.
90.
APR, 1874–1875, p. 13, NLS.
91.
From the Civil Surgeon, Ahmedabad, to the Magistrate of Ahmedabad, 14 August 1849, GoB, GD, 1849/38, MSA.
92.
APR, 1873–1874, p. 3, NLS.
93.
From Asst. Surgeon J.A. Maxwell to the Chief Secretary to the Government of Bombay, 4 June 1814, GoB, PDD, 1814/368, MSA.
94.
APR, 1874–1975 p. 13, NLS.
95.
APR, 1874–1875, p. 11, NLS.
96.
From the Superintendent of the Poona Asylum to the Personal Asst. to the Surgeon General with the Government of Bombay, GoB, GD, 1905/55, MSA.
97.
Rules for the Lunatic Asylums in the Bombay Presidency (Up to 1907), GoB, GD, 1908/80, MSA.
98.
APR, 1873–1874, p. 44, NLS.
99.
APR, 1873–1874, pp. 7–8, NLS.
100.
APR, 1876, p. 27, NLS.
101.
Rules of the Bombay Lunatic Asylum, 1864, GoB, GD, 1862–1864/15, MSA.
102.
APR, 1873–1874, p. 7, NLS.
103.
APR, 1874–1875 p.13, NLS.
104.
Asylum General Rules (Bombay Presidency) submitted with Letter 1103 from the Surgeon General, Indian Medical Department, 13 April 1874, GD, 1874/32, MSA.
105.
APR, 1873–1874, p. 8, NLS.
106.
From Sajan Curim to the Superintendent, Lunatic Asylum Colaba, 17 October 1891, GoB, GD, 1893/75, MSA.
107.
Nandy, The Intimate Enemy, p. 3.
108.
The Naupada Asylum appointed a Brahmin cook in 1911. Statement of Accounts for the Bai Putlibai Trust, GoB, GD, 1911/117, MSA.
109.
Rules of the Bombay Lunatic Asylum, 1864, GoB, GD, 1862–1864/15, MSA.
110.
Rules for the Lunatic Asylums in the Bombay Presidency (Up to 1907), GoB, GD, 1908/80, MSA.
111.
A.H.L. Fraser and C.J.H. Warden, Notes on Asylum Administration, 7 August 1894, GoB, GD, 1895/77, MSA.
112.
APR, 1898, p. 9, NLS.
113.
Annual Report of the Bombay Lunatic Asylum, 31 March 1849, Board Collections, 1849–1851 (1851–1852), F42450, IOR, BL, London.
114.
APR, 1874–1875, p. 9, NLS.
115.
APR, 1873–1874, p. 17, NLS.
116.
APR, 1873–1874, p. 4, NLS.
117.
APR, 1874–1874, p. 44, NLS.
118.
APR, 1873–1874, p. 44, NLS.
119.
From Sajan Curim (former patient) through the Surgeon General to the Secretary to Government, 16 October 1893, GoB, GD, 1893/75, MSA.
120.
From Lt. Col. Barry, Superintendent, Colaba Lunatic Asylum, to the Personal Asst. to the Surgeon General with the Government of Bombay, 25 June 1904, GoB, GD, 1907/81, MSA.
121.
Rachel Slocum, ‘Race in the Study of Food’, Progress in Human Geography, Vol. 35, No. 3, 2011, p. 315.
122.
Ibid., p. 313.
123.
Nicholas Dirks, Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), p. 5.
124.
From the Superintendent of the Lunatic Asylum, Colaba, to the Secretary to the Inspector General, Medical Department, GoB, GD, 1862–1864/15, MSA.
125.
Statement of Accounts for the Bai Putlibai Trust, GoB, GD, 1911/117, MSA.
126.
PWD, No. 98-C.W.366, 25 February 1891, GoB, GD, 1901/66, MSA.
127.
Extracts from the Reports of Visitors of the Lunatic Asylum, Colaba, 19 January 1869, GoB, GD, 1869/4, MSA.
128.
Slocum, ‘Race in the Study of Food’, p. 313.
129.
APR, 1873–1874, pp. 7–8, NLS.
130.
Cecelia Leong-Salobir, Food Culture in Colonial Asia: A Taste of Empire (London and New York: Routledge, 2011), p. 8.
131.
APR, 1873–1874, pp. 7–8, NLS.
132.
Arnold, Colonizing the Body, p. 251.
133.
Nandy, The Intimate Enemy, p. 3.
134.
Ian Cook and Michelle Harrison, ‘Cross Over Food: Rematerializing Postcolonial Geographies’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, No. 28, 2003, p. 310.
135.
Report on the Lunatic Asylum at Colaba for the Year Ending 1852, GoB, GD, 1853/48, MSA.
136.
From the Inspector General, IMD, to the Adjunct General of the Army, 12 January 1869, GoB, GD, 1869/4, MSA.
137.
Ranajit Guha, Dominance Without Hegemony: History and Power in Colonial India (Cambridge, London: Harvard University Press, 1997), pp. 25, 27.
138.
Ibid., p. 27.
139.
Annual Report of the Bombay Lunatic Asylum, 31 March 1849, Board Collections, 1849–1851 (1851–1852), F42450, IOR, BL.
140.
W.J. Moore Esq., Surgeon General with the Government of Bombay, to the Secretary to the Government of Bombay, General Department, Bombay, 7 October 1885, Home Department, GoI, Medical Proceedings, November, Nos. 21 and 22, NAI, New Delhi.
141.
Roman et al., ‘No Time for Nostalgia!: Asylum-making, Medicalized Colonialism in British Columbia (1859–97) and Artistic Praxis for Social Transformation’, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, Vol. 22, No. 1, 2009, p. 34.
142.
From the Civil Surgeon, Dharwar, to Officer Simon Esquire, 3 August 1844, GoB, GD, 1844/34-840, MSA.
143.
From the Offg. Secretary to the Government of India to Secretary to the Government of Bombay, 13 August 1894, GoI, Home Department, P 4554, IOR, BL.
144.
APR, 1873–1874, p. 11, NLS.
145.
Asst. Surgeon Lunatic Asylum, Colaba, to the Secretary of the Medical Board, 21 February 1847, GoB, GD, 1847/41, MSA.
146.
APR, 1873–1874, p. 22, NLS.
147.
Asst. Surgeon, Lunatic Asylum, Colaba, to the Secretary of the Medical Board, 21 February 1847, GoB, GD, 1847/41, MSA.
148.
APR, 1899, p. 12, NLS.
149.
APR, 1873–1874, pp. 10–11, 22, NLS.
150.
In Poona, as a memo stated: ‘Outdoor occupation, so largely conducive to the amelioration of the patient [was] largely wanting’. Memorandum of the Final Proceeding of the Visitors of the Lunatic Asylum, Poona, GoB, GD, 1871/34, MSA; APR, 1873–1874, pp. 21–24, NLS.
151.
From the Surgeon General with the Government of Bombay to the Secretary to the Government of Bombay, 15 February 1893, GOB, GD, 1893/68, MSA.
152.
APR, 1873–1874, p. 1, NLS.
153.
APR, 1873–1874, p. 11, NLS.
154.
APR, 1874–1874, p. 11, NLS.
155.
APR, 1876, p. 25, NLS.
156.
Proceedings of the Government of Bombay, General Department, No. 2056, 3 Nov 1868, Home Department, Public Proceedings, 1869, GOI, OC 218/97, NAI.
157.
APR, 1886, p. 1, NLS.
158.
From Dr. R. Lord, Acting Civil Surgeon, Poona, to the Deputy Inspector General of Hospitals, 23 June 1864, GoB, GD, 1862–1864/15, MSA.
159.
APR, 1894, pp. 116–118, NLS.
160.
Administration of Lunatic Asylums in India, Home Department Notes from the Government of Bengal, No. 3680, 25 August 1896, Simla Records 4, Medical Proceedings, August 1896, No. 188-232, NAI.
161.
Dr. Rice, Surgeon General, Further Notes on the Remarks by Messrs. Fraser and Warden on the Management of Lunatic Asylums in India, 24 October 1894, Home Department, GoI, Simla Records, Medical Proceedings, March 1895, No. 97-99, NAI.
162.
From the Surgeon General with the Government of Bombay to the Secretary to the Government, 15 February 1893, GOB, GD, 1893/68, MSA.
163.
From the Survey Commissioner and Director, Land Records and Agriculture, to the Chief Secretary to the Government of Bombay, 17 June 1893, GoB, GD, 1893/68, MSA.
164.
From the Survey Commissioner and Director, Land Records and Agriculture, to the Chief Secretary to the Government of Bombay, 17 June 1893, GoB, GD, 1893/68, MSA.
165.
From the Surgeon General with the Government of Bombay to the Secretary to the Government of Bombay, 27 July 1893, GoB, GD, 1893/68, MSA.
166.
APR, 1873–1874, p. 44, NLS.
167.
From the Commissioner in Sindh to the Governor and President in Council, 11 July 1871, Kurachee, GoB, GD, 1871/ 34, MSA.
168.
A.W. Hughes, A Gazetteer of the Province of Sindh (London: George Bell and Sons, 1874), p. 206.
169.
APR, 1875, p. 24, NLS.
170.
APR, 1885, p. 7, NLS.
171.
APR, 1875, p. 25, NLS.
172.
RNP, Bombay Samachar, 5 June 1906, 1906, J–J, GoB, MSA.
173.
APR, 1898, p. 9, NLS.
174.
APR, 1896, p. 7; APR, 1897, p. 25, NLS.
175.
Ranajit Guha argued that the colonial state used indigenous people for begar or forced labour for public works, for ordering the Empire. The policy of forced labour was mostly used on poorer classes like the paharis and adivasis. They had to provide various labour services for colonial officials, ranging from carrying baggage to constructing roads for ‘no remuneration at all’. See Guha, Dominance without Hegemony, p. 26.
176.
The Akbari Saudagar in 1871 criticized asylum authorities for making patients carry provisions from the commissariat stores to the asylum during the sultry hours of the day. RNP, Akbari Sowdagar, 13 April 1871, K 406, J–D, PG. 1-543, GoB, MSA.
177.
APR, 1876, p. 18; From the Superintendent, Lunatic Asylum, Poona, to the Surgeon General with the Government of Bombay, 20 January 1911, GoB, GD, 1911/ 117, MSA; From the Superintendent, Central Lunatic Asylum, Yerawada, Poona, to the Personal Asst. to the Surgeon General, GoB, GD, 1915/697, MSA.
178.
APR, 1876, p. 18, NLS.
179.
APR, 1876, p. 21, NLS; Similar practices of employing patients were also used in asylums around the world. See Geoffery Reaume, ‘Insane Asylum Inmates’ Labour in Ontario, 1841–1900’, in James Moran and David Wright (eds.), Mental Health and Canadian Society (Montreal & Kingston, London, Ithaca: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006), pp. 69–96; Sally Swartz, ‘The Black Insane in Cape, 1891–1920’, Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 21, No. 3, September 1995, pp. 411–414.
180.
APR, 1876, p. 27, NLS.
181.
Chawl is a type of housing unit in India used by the lower-middle or poor classes.
182.
APR, 1873–1874, p. 6, NLS.
183.
APR, 1873–1874, p. 4, NLS.
184.
APR, 1898, p. 9, NLS.
185.
APR, 1915, p. 2, NLS.
186.
Report on the Lunatic Asylums under the Government of Bombay, Triennial, 1906–1908, p. 5; Report on the Lunatic Asylums for the Government of Bombay, Triennial, 1909–1911, p. 6, NLS
187.
Triennial Report of the Lunatic Asylums under the Government of Bombay, 1912–1914, p. 30, NLS.
188.
Note by the Director-General, Indian Medical Service, on the Reports Lunatic Asylums, Under Local Governments and Administrations for the Year 1895, Home Department, Medical Proceedings, Simla Records, September 1896, Nos. 65-90, NAI.
189.
From the Offg. Secretary to the Government of India to Secretary to the Government of Bombay, 13 August 1894, GoI, Home Department, P 4554, IOR, BL.
190.
From the Surgeon General to the Government of Bombay, 3 August 1935, GoB, GD, 4192IVB:81, MSA, in James Mills, ‘Modern Psychiatry in India, 1858–1947’, History of Psychiatry, Vol. 12, No. 431, 2001, pp. 446–447.
191.
APR, 1916, p. 26, NLS.
192.
Mills, ‘“More Important to Civilize than Subdue”’, pp. 171–190.
193.
Cohn, Colonialism and its Forms of Knowledge, p. xi.
194.
Nandy, The Intimate Enemy, p. 3.
195.
James Mills, ‘The History of Modern Psychiatry in India, 1858–1947’, History of Psychiatry, Vol. 12, 2001, pp. 434–435.
196.
Waltraud Ernst, Colonialism and Transnational Psychiatry: The Development of an Indian Mental Hospital in British India, 1925–1930 (London, New York: Anthem Press, 2013), pp. 178–194. While the Indian Mental Hospital at Ranchi reached its zenith under the superintendence of Dr. Dhunjibhoy, its condition deteriorated after India’s independence. See Waltraud Ernst, ‘The Indianization of Colonial Medicine: The Case of Psychiatry in Early-Twentieth-Century British India’, NTM International Journal of History &Ethics of Natural Sciences, Technology and Medicine, Vol. 20, May 2012, p. 71.
197.
Annual Report on the Working of the Ranchi Indian Mental Hospital, Kanke in Bihar and Orissa for the Year 1930, p. 9, NLS.
198.
Annual Report on the Mental Hospitals in the Bombay Presidency for the Year (AR) 1926, p. 7, NLS.
199.
AR, 1933, p. 3, NLS.
200.
Dr. Niven, Superintendent of the Colaba Lunatic Asylum, noted that while the Lunacy Acts made provisions for the ‘care and treatment’ of patients in lunatic asylums, most often ‘poor lunatics’ received ‘too much treatment and too little care’. APR, 1873–1874, p. 21, NLS.

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Sarah Ann Pinto

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Pinto, S.A. (2018). The ‘Common-Sense’ Treatment of Indian Insanity. In: Lunatic Asylums in Colonial Bombay. Mental Health in Historical Perspective. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94244-5_4

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94244-5_4
Published: 29 August 2018
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-94243-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-94244-5
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