The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1876-10-26
CAUSES OF INSANITY.
An Interesting Paper from the supe lint en-
dent of au English AsyIu

DR.. Clouston, physician superinten-
dent of the Edinburgh asylum. in his
annual report, says: Glancing over the
summary of assigned causes, it is at once
seen that intemperance stands out as by
far the most frequent. It alone caused
forty eight of the 260, or about twenty
per cent of the cases. Much is properly
said about the prevention of diseases
nowadays. Most unquestionably the
sum total of the mental diseases in our
city might have been lessened in that
amount if the laws of nature had been
better obeyed. Fifty Of the cases thus
resulting from drinking and excesses
being paupers, each costing e27 year
to the public rates, over E1 300 will have
been paid for one years production of
lunacy from very preventable causes,
and, of course, this takes no account of
the cost of the old incurable cases al,
ready il the asylum from the same
cause.
I am quite sure that intemperance was
the remote cause of the disease in more
of the cases; but, even allowing for
those, we cannot put this down as ac-
counting in any way for more than one
in four in all cases of insanity. In as
signing intemperance as the cause of in
sanity in a number of cases, two things
must not be forgotten. The first is,
that the taking of stimulants may not
be cause at all, but merely symptom
of the brain disorder; and, as matter
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 has always been so un.
stable and the brain working SO easily
overset that very little alcohol indeed
will bring on an attack of insanity in
these persons, just as in those same peo
pie fright or little overexcitement will
upset their sanity. This is the class oi
persons who, in my experience, get up.
set by religious revivals.
The resetting and recuperative power
that is really an essential part of O
healthy, nervous system, whereby tho
effect OF not too long continued overeat
ing or overdrinking, overfeedipg OIL
overwork, are at once recovered from, il
wanting in these people, Nature pro
vides that short excesses do notdo mucf
harm to healthy people. 1t is a pool
sort Of boiler that bursts whenever tht
exact pressure needed for its daily orl
is exceeded. And before leave thi
subject may mention that 1 have no
reckoned in any way the mere drinking
craving or the inability to resist it, a
constituting insanity. Ibelievethis ma.
or may not be real insanity in differen
cases, but it was from developed ant
unmistakable mental alienation that al
my patients suffered. When the causel
of insanity of our eighty-four private
: patients are compared with those of th
222 paupers, the difference is most strik
ing, and entirely bears out the genera
law already indicated.
OF those eighty-eight private patients
mental causes produced the disease il
about thirty-eight, physical being onl
twelve per cent. under them, while il
the paupers they were just one-third a
numerous. These facts tend strongly t
show that the higher in the social seal
we go the more strongly do purely men
tai and moral shocks act in upsetting
healthy mental balance, and that thos
:. causes operate more powerfully on tn
: lower classes of town population tina
an agricultural.