The Atlanta constitution. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1885-19??, 1894-06-25
FUTURE OF THE RACE.
THOUGHT OF THE WORLD ON THE
TWENTIETH CENTURY INTELLECT.
Mentol MarveIs Said to be Coming-An
Enormous Decrease in Insanity May
Reasonably be Expected.

Reasonably be Expected.
The whole world is waking up to the fact
that better times are coming. None SO Iar
has gone SO far as to say that the perfect
man will come with the twentieth century,
but almost all science lifts its voice with
the welcome news that with the twentieth
century man will approach perfection much
more nearly than he does now. Improve
ment comes at geometrical ratio just as
deterioration does. When the Greeks and
Romans began to fail they went down with
a sweeping rush that would have carried
them into oblivion had they not left their
books and their monuments behind them.
The man of today Is going up with the
same sweeping rush, and it Will carry him
far beyond any point dreamed OF twenty
years ago. Perhaps there is no stronger evil
denCe of the truth of this possibility than
the interest that these articles, telling the
prophecies Of scientific men, have aroused
That dealing with the proper birth of chill
dren, printed several weeks ago, has
called out many letters to the writer from
people in almost every possible walk OF
life. This shows that not alone the scien-
titic men, but the people themselves, are
| progressive Scarcely less interest is arous-
ed by the table the increase of the
length of human life, printed the week fol-
| lowing, and there are indications that the
astonishing facts concerning heredity pub
! lished last Monday will prove of quite as
great interest.
If these messages were interesting, what
| will the message today be? 1t tells how in
| sanity and idiocy will be wiped out, how our
mental development will equal our phys
ical gain, how in the future will be
| predisposed to melancholia and failure. The
coming man, says science will be hopeful
and jolly well strong and long-lived.
| Groundless sorrow will die out. AS authori-
| Il 1rrh ~S I
| students are offered. Below will be found
| interviews with Forbes WinsloW and Ed
| ward George Youger EngandS greatest
| mental specialists; NJ. Bertillon, of Paris;
DR.. h. G. Seal and Dr.. Frederick Peterson,
| of New York. Such testimony as this can
not be ignored.
A Great LOndOner.
The Importance of DR.. Forbes Winslow is
| overshadowing. representative of this
paper called upon him at his residence, 50
Devonshire street. n W., three weeks ago,
| and the utterance that followed was made
rapidly and enthusiastically. 1t should be
said that almost every criminal case IN
Great Britain where insanity figures is re-
ferred to DIR. Winslow.
coming Mental Wonders.
will the strength of the human mind
increase, DR.. WinSlow, the strength of
the human body has done?' asked the
writer.
II can see no reason to doubt it, he re-
piled. 1T is a somewhat discOuraging sub
ject to discuss now-that is, it would be
to a man who could not see beyond the
present. There has not been a decrease
of insanity coeXistent with the decrease
in the death rate. That does not mean,
however that the human mind has not
been growing stronger, but that an arti-
fetal agency has been at work to overcome
its improvement. The ratio of lunaticS to
each 10 600 inha bitantS of Great Britain in
1853 was 1857. In 1888 it was 80 p. 1t should
be understood, however, that a law passed
here some two years ago requiring all
cases of lunacy to be reported to the au-
thorities has brought the full number OF
lunatcs to the public notice, whereas, prior
to the passage of that law they existed but
were not SO widely known That accounts
for d part of the apparent increase.
Due to Drink.
1.-THE remaining real increase, I say, with
| out the slightest hesitation, is due to one
| thing, and that one thing only-drink
! Drink is and has always been at the head
! of statistical causes. Then follow compeu-
! ton pressure of business and 1ntermar-
! riage. If intermarriage could be done away
| with and drunken men and women could
| be prevented from becoming the parents
| of children, then insanity and idiocy would
| be instantly reduced so per cent. 1t is the
| inheritance of the germs of insanity from
| drinking parents rather than from lndul-
gence in drink that produces insanity, and
! in this way d man who drinks heaVlly ana
| eventually becomes insane is often erro-
neously said to have drunk himself crazy,
whereas his mental disease which he in
| herited forced him to liquor, and drinking
was the effect rather than the cause of his
| insanity Political and religious excitement
are also productive of mental alteration
and after every political campaign here our
| asylums are temporarily crowded. This de-
| of however. USUALLY
passed away when the immediate cause is
| removed.
To a pessbnist these facts might readily
| be discouraging. To an optimist they are
| far from without encouragement L cannot
| believe that we shall have to increase our
| number of drunkards and l cannot be
| Heve that the present agitation for rauonal
| marriage-almost the first in the history of
| the world and one that is so wide reaching
| that it actually forms the basis of the most
| popular English fiction of the day, as IN
| stance The Heavenly TWins'-will have its
| effect If as | said, the drink habit could
| be cured and improper marriages done away
| with insanity and ldiocy would decrease
| at once so per cent. l believe both will
| come in time
Whisky Causes 30 Per Cent.
DR.. Younger corroborated DIR. Winslow' s
testimony as to the effect of drink. Said
| he: over 80 per cent of the entire number
of lunatics in the world owe their condition
directly or indirectly to drink Fifty per
cent of the lunatics and imbecils in Euro
pean cities come from drunken parents.
| The proportions of drunkenness as a cause
are horrifying. In the great asylum at St.
! Petersburg for instance, out of 997 lunatics
| admitted during the year, S37 were reduced
| to that state by intoXication. The less alco-
| hol used the less insanity exists. Drink
certainly is the most formidable obstacle in
| the way of eliminating lunacy from the list
of diseases and it, as many people hope, the
Dreeent vigorous reform movement tending
| toward teetotalism and moderate drinking
have good results, their effects will in
| stantly be felt in the reports of our insane