Denton and Haughton Examiner, etc. — 1886-09-04 (Denton, Greater Manchester, England)

INSANITY IN IRELAND.  The thirty-fifth report of the district, criminal, and private lunatic asylums in Ireland has been published in the form of a Blue Book. The distribution of the insane both in public and private institutions on the Ist of January, 1885, was as follows : In district asylums, especially intended for the poorer classes, there were 9687-5322 being males and 4365 females; in the Dundrum or Criminal Asylum, 178, 146 men and 32 women; in houses licensed under the sth and , 6th Vic., cap. 123, 639 persons were keeled, comprising 215 males and 394 females, belonging to the better classes of society, and paying various stipends for their care and maintenance; while in poor law unions there were no less than 3775, of whom a perceptible majority, or 2257, were females. From the preceding data it would appear, as regards the accommodation of the insane poor in Ireland, that while each sex is almost identical in the population at large, the male inmates of district asylums are seven per cent, over the female, whereas females in poorhouses are 23 per cent, more numerous than males. A further disparity may be added, namely, that moral causes of lunacy are a third more prevalent among women than men, with whom physical causes stand nearly in a two-fold excess. A total of 14,279 persons were registered as being mentally affected in some form or other at the beginning of last year, in the course of which, independent of the 9687 above adverted to as being iu district asylums, 2850 cans were admitted, constituting an aggregate of 6798 males, and 5739 females, as the full number treated in these establishments on a daily average of 9781. Of the admissions, 2240 were cases of first attack, and 610 relapses, the intervals of recovery in the latter varying from months to years ; a fact indicative of the fixity of mental disease in some eonstitutions, awaiting only, as it were, an opportunity for its re-development. With reference to these admisiions, we cannot but think from personal observation on visits of inspection to asylums, and the opinions of resident physicians in them, that in the past year, much more than previously, acute attacks of insanity were caused by a want of nutritious food,and at the same time by a continuous indulgence in raw spirituous liquors of bad quality. The patients so affected, and physically of good frame, were recognisable from their pallid, emaciated features, extreme irritability, waywardness, and disposition to violence. Some few ewes proved speedily fatal. The discharges cured in 1885 were returned at 1196, and Of! relieved at 516; 89 were taken home on probation, for I the most part by their relatives, mentally little improved, though tranquil and inoffensive—a change, which, not alone on the grounds of humanity, but as likely to prove beneficial, we could desire to be more general, particularly among the better circumstanced in society, tight persons continuing insane were relegated to other institution. Adding to the insane accommodated in district asylums on the 31st of December, 1884, those admitted during the subsequent twelvemonth, a total is made up of 12,537: abstracting from which ordinary discharges, deaths, escapes, and transferences, 9872-5302 aisles and 4470 females remained under treatment.  No ARTICLE requires more care than the choice of Ten; through recommendation the beneEts ec Bondman's Tea is daily extended, it is guaranteed pure; whilst for strength and flavour, it is unequallied; being free from the usual mineral facing powder it is perfectly wholesome.  Tan five men who are charged with being concerned in an attempt to murder Mr. Tabak, a diamond merchant, have again been brought up at how-street, and further remanded, after evidence had been given by a man who is undergoing a term of penal servitude for complicity in a robbery ol dlanttnde from the prosecutor.