The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1874-04-30
INSANITY.
Statistics Show an Increase In the Num-
Der OF Insane Pei sons,

The great master Of statistics, Quote
let, considers insanity under the uniyer
sal point of view of tho development
of tho Moral and Spiritual Faculties Of
Man :" yet there seems to be an impor
tant distinction to be made between the
vicious perversion Of the mind and
heart and merely physical disease OF
the brain. Moral statistics have mostly
to deal with tho moral and mental
aspects OF insanity, and with the intiu
ence of perverse habits III bringing or
the bodily disease. 1t is hard to draw
the line between the moral and physi
cal factors of insanity, although there
is line of division between them; and
physical, TIC VresHiISt OF innerliSuce, &c eli,
mate, or acute sickness, and in other
cases it springs from pride, sensuality,
debauchery, and habitual vices, and has
n previous history, It preparatory i'm
morality, which ends in what is called
moral insanity"
The general opinion is that insanity
is on the increase in modern civilization,
and is multiplying that saddest form of
death, the ruin of the intellect but it
is not easy to give positive facts to sus.
tain that view. 1t is not Just to base
our estimate upon the increase of resi-,
dents in insane hospitals, since the in
crease may only prove that better care
is now taken of the insane, and the pre-
iudice against those institutions has
been dying away. Yet wherever obser-
vations have been made, the increase in
the number of the insane has been re-
ported as so constant, and under all cir
cumstances as in such regular proper
tion, that we cannot help believing that
this evil grows among us rs decidedly
as suicide. The proportion of the In
crease in the different kinds of insanity,
and the closer investigation of its dis
tribution in city and country, as well as
in the different civil and professional
classes, leave no doubt that the peculiar
ways and moral mischiefs of our mod.
crn civilization favor the progress Of
this calamity. Without being able to
declare the absolute correctness of the
figures, we may ascrlbe out Of tine 3OO,-
600 insane of Europe Gncludlng idiots
the greatest relative number, two per
thousand, to the most highly civilized
nation, the German while the Rou-
manians hold the middle ground, near
ly one per thousand, and Sclavic Tar.
tars the lowest place, O.G, or slX-tenths
of one, per thousand. 1t is much the
same with insanity as with suicide, and
it prevails, like suicide, more IN the
north aud northwest of Europe than in
the less civilized southern and south
eastern parts. In all the more civilized
countries, too, there is moro increase OF
insanity than Of idioGy; and it is the
same III cities as compared with the
country, for the stir and passion of
overwrought civilization tend more to
distract the brain into madness than to
dull it into idiocy.
Among different callings the profes
sions that are called liberal are most in
cIined to deluson and melancholy.
While these constitute only about a
twentieth of the whole population, or
5.Ol per cent, they number among the
melancholy 1890, and among the de-
lirious 9.4l per cent. In general, mel
ancholy and mania prevail more among
women, idiocy and dclusion more among
men.
la respect to civil condition, the I'M
married, widows, and, above all, diyor-
ced persons, give larger proportion of
insane than the married. Although
children, who are little, if any, exposed
to insanity, are reckoned in the percen-
tage of the unmarried-sixty-two to
siXty-four per cent. yet throughout
Germany the proportion of celibates
amongthc insane is much more unfavor-
ablc-about seventy per cent. and in
Bavaria as much as elghty-one per cent.
Divorced women are especially liable to
delusion and mania. Thus, while in
Saxony tho divorced constitute only
0. 1G per cent, or sixteen-hundroths of
one per cent, or three-tenths of one
per cent, among women, they give to
the insane asylums in the relation of
|. 81 and 3.0l per cent. thus III mania
the proportion Of divorced women rises
as high as G.02 per cent, and IN the cat
egory OF individual delusion as high as
five per cent.-HaIpcr'S Md9dsinc.