The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1878-06-28
INSANITY.
Rapid Increase Of Mental Disorders Here
and Ahroad-Ths Apparent Causes.
New Y,.rk Herald.

NGh lCIA
Within the past few years the steady
increase in the number of commit
| ments to hospitals and asylums for
mental diseases has attracted general
attention. An examination of the
yearly reports of the principal asylums
of the country show that during the
past five years or more there has been
pretty regular increase i'm the ratio
of insane persons to the population,
and, as stated in the report for 1877 Of
the Willard Asylum for the Insane,
"that the increase is out Of proportion
to that of population, and seems to he
confined to the dependent and middle
classes"
In England and Wales the ratio of in
sane to the population is l to 313; in
Massachusetts l to 423; New York,
to 5S7; Illinois, l to SO6, and Iowa, !
10 ], ,101. This shows that the density
Of population has a more or less pres
dispOsing effect, producing, as it de-
Cidedly does, a deteriOrating influence
on the human race, morally and phys
ically. The increase III the number of
insane in the State of New York for
the past quarter of a century is over
one hundred per cent, and, according
to experts in mental diseases, this in
tISCSt 10 DOl COllllIlttA W any
lar sections Ofthe State, but is more or
less general.
No one who has been a constant
reader of the daily papers for the past
few years can fail to have been inn
pressed with the great increase of re-
ports of suicides, hOmicides and the
commitments of alleged lunatics in
the different city and county asylums.
While much of this is directly due to
the rapid increase of the population of
New York and neighbOring cities,
there must he other causes for the dis
ease at work. Increase of population
brings with it OvercrOwding, disease
producing surroundings, bad sanitary
arrangements, which, by lowering the
tone of the people, both in a moral as
well as a physical point of view, di-
rectly predispOses the very poor and
middling classes to mental disease
DIR. luke, a well~knOwn London alien
ist, has written work under the title
of "Insanity in Ancient and Modern
Life" In this he deliberately investi-
gates the causes of mental
diseases in Great Britain, where the
increase of lunatics has been enOr-
mOusly large during the past half cen
tury. After careful examination of
all the statistics, showing that the
number of insane people confined in
asylums in England and Scotland at
the present time reaches G6, $50, DIR.
Tuke concludes that the principal eau
SeS of mental diseases at the present
time are: First, intOXicatiOn, inclu-
ding the action of alcohol and allied
stimulants, not only in the individu-
ais taking them to excess. but upon
his or her Ofisprings, whose weakness
produces degeneracy in the succeeding
generation; second, that defective
nourishment, leading as il does to eX-
haustiOn and malnutritiOn Of the uer-
VOus centers, canses degenCraCy of the |
race, the evidence OF which can be
seen in the large, insufficiently fed
populations. Closely allied to this DIR.
TulIe considers bad sanitary arrange
ments and OvercrOwding in filthy
dwellings. Under the third class of
causes he considers moral influences,
''partly mixed in character, which eX-
cite or depresS the emotions profound
ly, as dissolute life, depraved habits,
domestic sorrow or misery, CONNER
cial speculatiOns, losses, religious eX-
citement, disappOintments in love and
general OverwOrk." Under the fourth
and last head is considered INTEL actual
strain as a cause of insanity, which he
holds to he the least frequent of all
causes If examined alone.
An examination of the reports of
the principal lunatic asylums in this
country, public and private, confirms
TO very to a very great extent the
observations DR.. Tuke made in Eng~
land.