The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1899-10-29
INSANITY OF FARMERS WIVES

In a recent article ON the necessity for
more amusements and diversions the
Charlotte Observer states that there is
more insanity among farmers wives than
any other class of our population. If
an error, it is one that has been often as
serted and one which has been com
monty accepted. Mr.. f. B. Sanborn, OF
Massachusetts, in an article in the Am
erican Agriculturalist, says that the as
sertion is wholly lacking in proof" and
goes ON to say that Sin no State has the
exact number of farmers wives been
counted, and the exact number of
their insane found out, and thus COM
pared proportionately with the insane
among other women. Until this has been
done we shall lack arithmetical proof
of the theory; but the census sheds no
light on this problem. Certain facts, how
ever, make strongly against the theory
that hard work and unsuitable compan-
ionship of women in the rural districts
directly causes insanity"
Mr.. Sanborn argues as follows:
'Now, although we know little las yet
of the real causation of insanity Ill par
ticular cases, we do know that it comes,
in most cases, from physical conditions,
not from those which are strictly mental
Among women, Insanity is often INHERIT
ed, and often occasioned by accidents
and diseases peculiar to the sex. / know
no reason why farmers families should
inherit the insane tendency more than
others; ner why the women in rural dis
tricts should be specially liable to femnn-
inc maladies. But we do know that ONE
form of insanity-the dreaded general
paralysis-is far less common in the coun-
try than in centers of dense population
and we must note the fact that INSANITY
in general seems to increase most III
such centers. In proportion as coun-
try becomes less mural and more urban,
insanity is found to increase more rapid
ly: while our manufacturing cities, nike
Lowell, Lawrence and Boston, send more
than their due share of women to the
Insane hospitals. This was the observa-
ton of the late Dr. Goldsmith, made to
me while he was at the head of the
DanviIle lunatic hospital and, though II
cannot be automatically proved, for lack
of the elements or calculation, it has long
seemed to me extremely probable.
''In travelling through the country we
often see woodlands which locomotive
sparks have set on fire; in Maine they
may be pine or spruce; in Massachu-
setts. manle. oak or chestnut; IN New
York, sometimes the magnificent tulip
tree. Could we say that the pine is
more exposed to engine fires than the
oak? Certainly the maple will be thus
attacked sooner than the tulip tree
Wherever. as in New England, where the
delusion first began to- be encouraged,
the wives and daughters of farmers make
up great part of the feminine popula-
ton, insanity among them has been com
mon: but not more so than at NOW i
among the operative population of factory
towns. 1t is not solitude and not always
hard work which causes insanity among
women: the vicious women of cities VINO
toll not. neither do they spins are more
exposed to insanity by their ways of lIfe
than the families of farmers in Vermont
or Michigan, or on the prairies OF the
Northwest
"The fallacy of which | write is one OF
the many fruits of insufficient premises
and hasty generalization. The Engiisn
quack who invented a remedy for all com
plaints tried it first on shoemaker
who recovered; his next patient was
blacksmith, who died. Thereupon nc
marked the bottle which contained ms
panacea: This medicine cures shoemak
ers. hut kills blacksmiths. Much OF the
reasoning about insanity and its cause o.
cure which / have encountered since
first began to study the subject IN lSbo
has been of this primitive sort-post noe
ergo propter hoe, as pedants say. Ihefe
have been few pedants more pedahtic
than many of the writer's on psychiatry
and neuroses. and their arguments are
often addressed to the fancy rather than
the logic of their readers.
In North Carolina of course these are
more wives of farmers who go insane
than the wives of any other calling be
cause seven tenths of our population 1--we
in the country. 1t would be interesting
to have the statistics in a long series OF
years from all State hospitals to know
whether proportionately more farmers
wives lose their minds than the wives o.
other men. The students of sociology
have been telling us that it is the haste
and rush of this age that accounts for th'
increase of insanity, that if men were
content to live in the simple and plai1
manner of our fathers insanity would b.
ON the decrease. AS the farmers wives
are remote from the rush and hurry OF
modern life, the sociologists are all
wrong if more of them become insane
than inhabitants of cities.
pArcTNc tn Ann CRY