St. Paul daily globe., 1888-05-13
CALIFORNIA GOING MAD.

CALIFORNIA GOING MAD.
A Calculation Shows That at the
Present Rate the Whole Popula-
tion Will in Time be Insane.
St. Louis Globe Democrat.
At recent meeting Of the West End
W. G. T. u, Mrs. E. A. Meriwether,
who has just returned from visit to
the Pacific slope, read an intere sting
paper OH the moral condition of Califor-
mia: "In proportion to its population"
she said, "California has more insanity
than any other state in the Union. In
his report of 1882, DR.. E. L. Wilkins,
the resident physician of the state asy-
lum at Napa, says: If the ratio of in
crease continues as it has done in the
past twenty years, one-third Of the pop
ulatiOn of the state will be in
sane by the end of the century,
Since that report the ratio has
not decreased; on the contrary, it has
increased. The Napa building was fin
ished in 1876 and intended to hold only
600 patients. 1t has been made to hold
1,450, and still they come. Each small
room intended to receive one inmate is
made to take two. Beds are spread
down at night in the halls. There is
also another state asylum at Stockton
equally as crowded. Stockton has 1850
insane, and every day brings fresh re-
cruitS 10 this army of nnfortunateS.
DR.. Wilkins, Tennesseean and an old
friend, invited me to visit the Napa in
stitutian, which is fifty miles from San
Francisco: thus it happened that for
three days and nights l was under the
same roof whi h shelters 1850 crazy
people, So alarming is the increase of
insanity that the state is now building a
third asylum. In addition to these,
throughout the country are several pri-
vate retreats in which the Weather
classes place their unfortunates. If
nothing is done to stop this evil the time
is not far distant when the numbers of
sane people will hardly be sufficient to
care for the afflicted; indeed, if the
ratio continues to
INCREASE IN THE FUTURE
as it has in the past, little calculation
may show the time when the whole state
will be mad, and neighboring states will
be called on to care for California'S in
sane. While in Napa [ learned some
remarkable facts concerning mental dis
eases. which it were we'll the world
should know.
'Dr. Wilkins and other experts say
that the finer, the better the quality of
the human brain, the less it is liable to
any species of mental disorders. The
lower, the poorer the natural intellect,
the easier it loses its balance, is over
thrown, becomes frenZied OF demented.
Dementia means utter loss OF mind. In
Napa were quite number of men,
young, strengthening men, who had not
as much sense as a fly, worm. This
c ErpnVIpn
arrangement may be cured; dementia
never.
''Dr. Wilkins says women enjoy
almost an immunity from incurable
brain diseases, such as general pareSiS,
organic disease of brain and paralysis.
Forty men to four women die of
these fatal diseases. In connection
with experts opinions that the
weaker the mind the more easily it goes
insane, it may seem little odd that so
many more men go insane than women,
since from time immemOrial women are
counted the weaker vessel. OF the 1,450
insane at Napa only about 335 are wo-
men; l, 1l5 insane men to 335 insane WO-
men. OF the 1850 insane in Stockton
about the same disprOportiOn of the
sexes exists. How is this to be accounted
for? Every mother who has reared a
family of boys and girls knows that
while these boys and girls are under her
supervision the girls are fully as liable
to brain diseases as her boys. 1t would
not do to say Woman's comparative i'm
munity from lunacy comes from her su-
perior brain. 1t would never do to hint
that the lords of creation are
NATURALLY WEAKER-MINDED
than women. Where. then, must we
look for the cause of this strange state
of affairs?
"Dr. Wilkins informed me that two
thirds of California's insane are of for
eign birth, and that One-third of the
states population was of foreign birth.
Thus we have the singular fact that
one-third of the population furnishes
two-thirds of the insane. The large ma
jority of the foreign insane in the state
aSylumS are from Germany and Ireland.
Only small proportion are from pagan
China, yet in San Francisco alone are
about 10000 or $1,000 Chinese. In Napa
were thirty-five insane Cinnamon and
one insane ChinawOman.
all the insanity in the state is directly
or Indirectly caused by alcoholic drinks.
The population of San Francisco is
about 250,00 The greater proportion
of lunatics are furnished by this city.
There are nearly 5000 dram shops in
San Francisco, one drinking place to
every seventy souls, one to every eleven
voters. 1t is estimated that 1000 men
nightly visit these shops; 75 per cent
of these visitors are under the age of
thirty years; hundreds are under eight
cen. made study of Chinatown, 60
ing through it both by day and night to
learn the ways of paganS. Chinatown,
though small part of San Francisco,
is in reality a small section of
heather China set down in America.
Here are observed all the habits and
customs of China; here they will not
adopt the Christians practice of dram
shop visiting. In all Chinatown l did
not see beer saloon or whisky shop.
True, some of these heathenS smoke
opium, but from my observations and
all the testimony l could get, not one
quarter to the extent that our people
drink. l visited the opium dens, both
by night and by day, and found COM
paratively few using the poison.
Every Chinaman who could speak adj
mitted that opium was bad, and so far
as | could learn, no effort is ever made
to induce people to learn the habit"