Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1912-11-18
Huntinq Delayed Mental Development

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| Huntinq Delayed Mental Development
| conservation of sanity" is the key
| note Of "a movement that has sprung
| up among the self-confessed sane in
fhe Rum Belt" where they manufac-
ture insanity on the instalment and
every other plan, and pay high cost of
living prices for it, too. The movement
is said to have started in New York,
but other states where regulation is
loudly advertised to prevent men and
women, and children, too. from becom-
ing too good to keep, are expected to
look favorably on the notion.
That there is method in this special
brand of madness is shown IN the
number of insane which the supposed
to-be sane are supporting. Some
chap who delights in startling the
sane with figures, has discovered that
the insane in our boasted land OF
freedorn--and booze trust personal
iberty"-outnumber the enrolment OF
all its universities, and that the care
of these unfortunate costs the nation
an annual sum greater than the pay
of the standing army.
And yet the federal government for
a small remuneration. continues in the
business of making insanity and GRIM
inality by the hundreds of thousands
of cases yearly.
More than 250,000 insane persons 1t
is stated are now harbored at public
expense in institutions throughout the
country and the cost of their care is
upwards of 500, 100000 yearly. While
25 per cent of the cases treated in
asylums and hospitals are cured it is
the belief of the investigators that
with proper understanding this figure
would be largely increased and the n
nancial burden of the public CORE
spondingly reduced. The realization
of the gravity of the situation has led
to the holding in New York of the first
congress of mental hygiene which has
ever been brought together for the
purpose of making an organized and
intelligent fight against insanity
The congress has demonstrated that
many cases if taken in their incipien-
CIV could be cured and that such a con-
servation of the national sanity would
mean a saving of many millions an
nually. What is chiefly needed to
bring about this end is better under
standing of the causes of insanity, and
accordingly a series of tests have been
compiled for the detection of delayed
mental development, of weakness from
which so many cases of insanity de-
velop and which if discovered in time
could he successfully treated. Several
hundred thousand New Workers are
now busiIy applying these tests not
only to themselves but to their chill
dren as well and while sanity has not
heretofore been included among the
national resources needing conserva-
ton, the first congress of mental hy-
giene has proven so successful as to
indicate the birth of new and impor-
tant movement to this end.
None is so blind as the one who pre-
fers not to see. Hunting delayed
mental developments" these consecrat-
ed conservationists will undoubtedly
pass by the greatest of all causes of
delayed mental and delayed moral
development, the cause which also ar
rests all kinds of development except
dividends on booze stock and turns
progress into retrogression.
New York. with it's thousands of
gilded bar-rooms, searching for the
cause of insanity is pitiful spectacle.
1t is comparable only to the Holy Hy-
phenator hunting for Hades