The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1912-03-09

sons, the robberies and those name
less crimes that even the law looks
upon with horror are thought to be
rooted in the wierd disorders of the
brain. David Graham Phillips, May
or Gaynor, President Mckinley and
a score of other men in public life
nave been assailed murderously by
these madmen intent on Staying.
In ten years an army of $50, 1000
people have taken their lives in this
country. This is madness of the
maddest sort, says the alienist, who
ought to know. In 1907 there were
6,745 suicides in the United States.
Every year since that time the num-
Der has been in the neighborhood
of $4,000 self-murderers. The crime
wave and the suicide wave rose to-
gether. They did in Rome and
Babylon. They always have.
The findings of the special census
on the insane are no surprise to the
men who deal with madness and
troubled brains. They have been
predicting for many years a further
increase of insanity in spite of it's
recent tremendous inroads on the
brains of the Americans
The number of institutions can
vassed by the census experts was
372. These have increased from
328 to 372 in six years. 1t is we'll
known that most of these asylums
are now crowded beyond their ca
pacity. Illinois is building some
new Institutions The Missouri asy-
lum for the insane is crowded. The
! n1Iin
enlarged recently. AS fast as more
quarters are provided they are TAX
en-. Apparently there are large num-
bers of mad men and women who
would he taken care of by the state
II the state was able to provide quar-
tiers for them.
AS to the large number of cases
OF insanity not resulting in commit
mentS to hospitals the census has not
data, says the report. Those only
who are duly tried and committed
for mental unsoundness are sent in
TO the big hospital-like structures
where science attempts to make sick
minds we'll
They come and they go through
the doors of these institutions, but
in the words of an infirmary super
intendent who served for years in
big Illinois asylum, MOSTLY they
come and they nearly always come
back" The census statisticians like
to deal with the population in blocks
of 100, 900. They found in 1904
that 61.5 people in every 100000
were being received into the wards
of insane hospitals. In 1910 they
found that they were passing in at
the rate of $50 to every 100000.
Massachusetts, Leads Insane.
Massachusetts has the heaviest
percentage of insane population. New
York is second. These two states
are more nearly taking care of their
insane than any others in the union.
Out in the Western states, those in
the mountains particularly, show
but little increase. Some of them
actually show a decrease in percent
| ages, but this is thought to be be-
cause of the carelessness of these
Western states in the matter of
building asylums for their mental
weaklings.
Seventy years ago the crazy folk
of the country were poorly taken
care of. Insane men were chained in
| filthy log cabins in many sections
! of the country. There was no or
| ganized method of taking care of
those from whom the mind had been
| driven. They wandered away and
/ died of exposure or were slain by
wild beasts. The treatment of in
sanity is a new thing. 1t is new
! because it is only within the last
| TN
made to make an insane hospital
different from prison. But the
| treatment has saved but fyw minds
| from oblivion after all.
| Experts can hardly define the thin
/ line that separates the insane from
the sane. There is a twilight of the
! mind in which many people buy and
! sell, love and divorce, marry and
! give in marriage and live and die.
| At no time in their lives are they
| really insane more than a few mo-
ments at a time and yet they live
| in a world that is tangled, out of
| tune and different from that all
around them.
Less Crazy People in Mountain States
The lack of increase of the insane
in the mountain states is accounted
! for by the theory that only the
strongest minds emigrate. The
weaklings, afraid to trust them
selves in a new country, stay at
home. The emigrants may come
from a class that is far less liable
to insanity than the stay-at-homes.
The mountain states and the Pacific
coast country is largely settled by