Mental diseases : a text-book of psychiatry for medical students and practitioners / by R.H. Cole.

  • Cole, R. H. (Robert Henry), 1866-
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Mental diseases : a text-book of psychiatry for medical students and practitioners / by R.H. Cole. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    views have been expressed by some authorities. Amongst them are those who preach that our race is degenerating at no < uncertain rate, as evidenced by the amount of pauperism, of | criminahty, and of mental and physical deficiency, amongst us ; j and that to stay the process of general deterioration, radical ^ Eugenic principles should be carried into effect, in the place | of the present system of segregation. Too often, however, is it. lost sight of, that the bulk of the average stock is sound enough,, | and that men of talent, and even of genius, continue to flourish as heretofore. True it is, that, in spite of modern methods: ; of research, the recovery rate of insanity shows no material ] reduction; yet the statistics of our asylums need not paralyse I our perspective altogether. The cost of insanity is indeed a , burden that has to be borne, the yearly upkeep of our pauper asylums costing upwards of three millions sterling—apart from capital expenditure—yet Humanity teaches us that this is , better than allowing those who are mentally defective or ■ insane to roam about, uncared for, as in the past. ! The Alleged Increase of Insanity.—There is no satis- ' factor}^ means of gauging the ratio of mental disease in the community, for there is no reliable information as to the ; numbers of the uncertified insane. Confining our attention to i the certified insane, it cannot be denied that their numbers i increase year by year, and that in a decade the percentage | increase is double that of the general population. To compare figures roughly: At the last census, in 1911, the population of England and Wales stood at 36 millions— j and at the previous census in 1901 at 321 millions—showing j a satisfactory increase in the decade of 3| millions, or 10|^%. | The annual returns of the certified insane for those years show I for 1911—133,157 as compared with 107,944 for 1901, or an I increase of about 23%. | Without unduly decrying the amount of this increase, for \ which many explanations are forthcoming, one is compelled ' to make the remark that, after all, these numbers are small in comparison with the milhons of our population—considering that there are 267 sane persons to every individual who is certified as insane ! When the uncertified mentally deficient—the number of whom is estimated at about the same number as the certified insane