The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1895-06-10
Tie Growth of rladreSs.


The Medical Record quotes from DR..
T. s. Clouston. superintendent of the
Morningslde asylum, Scotland, Il sig
nlficant paragraph and follows it with
statistics even less cheerful, as follows:
lone terrible form Of brain disease, with
mental symptoms. Is certainly increasing.
That mGlady may be described as a break
down OF the great center of mind and mo-
ton in the brain; 1t always GoeG on from
bad to worse till it renders its victim ut
terly helpless in mind and body. and kills
him in q few years. No cure, and scarcely
any mitigation of this latter-day curse,
has yet been devised. 1t IL q disease Of
cities, of restless lives, of active brains in
their prime sometimes of dissipation and
debauchory, Of l.fe at high pressure COM
monty" During the past year the asy
lums of Scotland received $50 new cases;
those of England. 1,lCo and those of Ire
land, So. The asylum statistics of this
country show an even greater number. In
g. single asylum of this state, for example,
that at Ogdensburg, there were among
the 659 admissions 81 cases of general pare
sis. This would make the proportion of
general paresis over per cent. Among
seven state asylums, to which 1912 IA
TENTS were admitted in 1880, there We're
6G cases of general paresis, or a little over
per cent. If per cent. be the general
ratio for this disease in the state of New
York, then the total number of pareti"s
among the 5000 !nsdne would be about
So AS q matter of fact, the number is
much greater, because the proportion OF
this disease is larger in the New York and
Kings county asylums than N. those Of
the state at large. But even II there were
but 4OOO cases of general paresis among
the 100000 insane of this country, it would
be an extraordinary cviGci cc of the iave!-
opment of a di 'ease which ii the last GEN.
tury was certainly not known, even II it
did exist.
What are we to infer from these
figures? The immediate inference, of
course is that the American people are
rushing themselves into premature de-
cay. This is a natural consequence of
the prevalent crowdlng Of great masses
Of people into unwholesome cities.
Fifty years ago the man was a rarity
in this country who had not, as a boy,
been reared on q farm or else sufficient
ly near to a farm to lnhale pure air, get
ample exercise and preserve a speaking
ACQUAINTANCE with Mother Nature at
first hand. Today, if census could be
taken of the young Americans who
have never seen a real, country farm
nor basked with any regularity in the
health-giving freedom of rural environ
mant, it would doubtless astonish the
cheerful optlmists who imagine that
the rush of the younger generation city
wards is fraught with no evils to the
future Of our country and of our race.
No doubt time viii some day come
when the American people will come to
their senses and then take life easy
Present processes of slow suicide must,
it would seem, sometime pail upon the
masses who are today their facile vic
Tins. The idea that civilization can
permanently deprive these who are at
least nominally civilized of common
sense Is hardly to be entertained with
Out llDtlllls IL 10
not to be supposed that the coming
man. and especially the coming Ameri-
can, will be content to invite physical
degeneracy and mental decay by for
ever continuing the present stampede
for urban homes and for urban-won
dimes and dollars. A period must come
when the pendulum of popular habit
will reverse itself; when the maddened
multitude will tire of the citys stencil
and roar and pollutions, and will go
back once more to the old homestead,
with it's lavish sunlight and its soothing
shades and slumber
In the meantime, there is apparently
nothing to do but to take chances on
escaping the fool-catcher.