Mental Hospital Admissions in Mysore State, India

Abstract

The older psychiatric literature has here and there valuable reports about mental illnesses amongst African, Asian and other societies which are very different from Europe. These authors normally express opinions or speculations based on chance experiences rather than systematic observations. It is only in recent years that more extensive mental health work has been done in these countries, which also has enabled many workers to collect a great deal of information. This is important not only for the countries concerned, so as to help them to plan an appropriate health service, but also for psychiatry as a whole. It gives an impetus to comparative psychiatry, one of the most important basic sciences to clinical psychiatry.