The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1876-11-30
Modern Insanity.

The letter of our Boston correspondent
Gals attention to form of insanity so
marked as to receive special designation
as the New England type. 1t is charac-
terized by intensity. 1t is recognized by
its acute nervous excitement and tenden-
cy to self-dcstruction. There is more
brain activity in it than in ordinary forms
of arrangement. Some of the French re-
ports show a growing tendency in the
SAME direction in that country, and per-
haps it is one of the results of modern life,
which is so largely mental and sympa-
thctic in its characteristics. An intellect
able intellectual activity and excitement,
taking recreation of an intellectual form
from the theater and novel and lyceum,
will naturally break down at the point
where the greatest strain comes. And the
point to be specially guarded against in
our systems of education and life habits
is the too violent or continuous tensions
of the intellect, either in study, business,
politics or social excitements. The mus
cular side of life, the sentimental side of
human nature, should have an ampler
provision and receive more attention than
we have made for them. The brain
must be balanced by biceps, and the ex-
ercise of the heart is more important
for health and happiness than the undue
exercise of the intellect in any direction.
Statistics show that insanity is rapidly IN
creasing in modern life, and perhaps the
specific form it is taking in Massachusetts
indicates the principal cause of its in
crease. 1t is sad to think that small
State like Massachusetts, has 1000 insane
people in it. At the modern English rate
of valuation these insane people represent
total of 81, SOC, 900; and when the build
ings now in process of erection for their
treatment are completed they will repre-
sent a cost of $3,500,0O0. But such
mathematical calculations of cost and
care provoke rather than satisfy. We
scorn all such financial estimates of the
value of man or woman. Who can tell
the worth of father to a family depend
ent on his support and oversight? What
figures can represent the value OF
mother to her little ones, Or a devoted
brilliant daughter just unfolding into
womanhood? The preventives of insanity
in modern life do not begin to receive the
attention they deserve. Every few
months the community is startled by
some fresh statement of inhu.
mainly to the patients of insane
asyums. In some instances these
complaints are we'll founded, and each
nov vurr"eo -a-. -1-~- IF ha1nless de-
pendents elicits an outburst of public in
dignation. But what is far better for
society at large than any rhetorical indig-
nation or sentimental sympathy is the in
creasing attention the ablest physicians in
this country and Europe are giving to
every form of mental arrangement, and
the light they are throwing on the proper
treatment of all diseases of the mind. 1t is
acheering fact that about all that has been
done to alleviate the condition of this I'M
fortunate class of sufferers, and eventually
restore them to themselves again, has
been accomplished within the recollection
of living physicians. Whathas been done
for the insane within fifty years, when
they were Gagged as wild beasts and
chained in outhouses ana immured in
dungeons, encourages the hope that it will
eventually be ranked as one of the gencr-
ally durable disorders Of the human sys-
tenn. But to reduce the insanity in modern
society to the lowest possible point is a
far more difficult yet far more important
undertaking IN. Y. Graphic.