The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1876-03-30
Intemperanee as a Cause of Insanity.

DR.. Clouston, Physician Superintend-
ent of the Royal Edinburgh Asylum, in
his annual report, says: "tilancing
over the summary of assigned causes,
it is at once seen that intemperance
stands out as by far the most frequent.
1t alone caused 4S of the 260, or about
20 per cent in which the cause was
known; and alone with other allied eX-
cesses for which the patients lad been
themselves responsible, it accounts for
-, or % per cent. of the cases. Much
is properly said about the prevention of
diseases now-a-days. Most unquestiOna-
bly, the sum total of the mental diseases
in our city might have been leSsened by
that amount if the laws of nature had
been better Obeyed. Fifty of the cases
thus resulting from drinking and eX-
cesses being paupers, each co, ding f27
a year to the public rates, E1S 600 will
have been paid for one years prOduc-
ton of lunacy from very preventible
causes, and, of course, this takes no
account of the cost of the old iucurable
cases already in the asylum from the
same cause. | am quite sure chat in
temperance was the remote cause of the
disease in more of the eases, hut even
allowing iOr these, we can not put this
down as accounting in any way jor more
than one in four of all cases of insanity.
In assigning intempeTance as the cause
of insanity in number OF ca es, two
things must not be forgotten The first
is, that the taking of stimulants may
not be cause at all, but merely a symp-
tom of the brain disorder; and Us mat
ter of fact, it is often one of the early
symptoms in many cases. The second
thing TO be kept in mind is that there
are many cases in which it is the real
cause of the mental disorder; but the
mental balance had always been so I'M
stable, and the brain working 50 easily
overset, then Il very little alcObOlindeed
will bring on an attack of Insanity in
the persons just as in those same peO-
pie a fright or q little Oyer-eNcitement
will upset their sanity. This is the class
of persons who, in my experience, get
upset by religious revivals. The re-
setting and recuperative power that is
really an essential part Of q healthy,
nervous system, whereby the effects of
not too long continued oYer-eatlng
or over-drinking, Over-fealing or
over work are at once recovered from,
is wanting in these people. Nature
provides that short eXcesse5 don't do
much harm to healthy people. 1t is a
poor sort of Il boiler that bursts when
ever the exact pressure needed for daily
work is exceeded. And before l leave
this subject | may mention that | have
not reckoned in any way the mere drink
craving or the inability to resist it, as
constituting insanity. l believe this
NAV or may not be real insanity in
different cases, but it was rom de-
vel0ped and unmistakable mental alien
alton that all mypersOns suffered. When
the causes of the insanity of our SO
private patients are compared with
those of 222 paupers, the difference IS
most striking, and entirely bears out
the general law already indicated. OF
those So private patients, mental
causes produced the disease in about
So, physical being only y per cent.
under them, while in the paupers they
were Just One-third as numerous.
These facts tend strongly to show that
the higher in the social scale we 90 the
more strongly do purely mental and
moral shocks act in upsetting a healthy
mental balance, and that those causes
operate more powerfully on the lower
classes of town population than agrl-
culfural -