A first study of the statistics of insanity and the inheritance of the insane diathesis / by David Heron.

  • Heron, David.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A first study of the statistics of insanity and the inheritance of the insane diathesis / by David Heron. 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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    idle. What advantage can possibly arise from telling us that an insane person has so many alcoholic uncles if we do not know either the total number of his parents brothers and sisters, or the percentage of alcoholic members in the same grade of relationship of a sane individual of the same social class ? But if an examination of the Annual Reports of the Asylums shows the statistician that little of real value for the problem of inheritance is as yet to be found in them, it does provide evidence that in many quarters the medical officers have themselves realised this fact. One sees evidence here and there that the need for slowly and steadily collecting complete family histories is being more and more recognised. This dull plodding work may not appear to have much fascination for those who long at once for brilliant generalis- ations and rapid conclusions; it is like the slow work of the astronomer who piles up data that his successor a century hence may by comparing the positions of stars at distant intervals learn the truth. But may we not apply to the medical investigator the words of Sir David Gill in his Presidential Address and urge that for him also the supreme duty is to secure for future generations those data the value of which grows by time ? These words are not written without some knowledge of the difficulties which attend the collection of complete family histories. It is admitted at once that the duties of many medical officers are far too multifarious to allow of work of this kind, of whatever national importance it may be ; there are many of them whose tastes and abilities lead them in a different direction. It wants tact and even slimness to elicit the plainest facts, but the guile of the uneducated who form the bulk of the material is often of a very shallow kind, and it does not require much experience and know- ledge on the part of the investigator to circumvent it*. It does, however, need the temperament that is not easily discouraged and is patient with much talking. And again, even if the relatives are willing to give the fullest information in their power, what too often does it amount to ? Why the statement that a grandparent, an aunt, or cousin was eccentric, alcoholic or insane. They are too often wholly unable to specify the particular type of insanity, its cause or even duration. With the material at present available it would be almost idle to attempt any treatment of the inheritance of a special type of insanity. Sometimes the inquirer may have had the relative under his own charge, or may be able from the layman's account to make a shrewd guess at the type of illness, but in a very large number of cases we must be content with the broad statement that an Ancestor was insane. The solution of this difficulty, and the present writer believes of many other difficulties in the statistics of * It is not always, however, so transparent as in the following case narrated by a medical officer who takes very full family histories and sees (and compares the accounts of) all available relatives. In this case a father and mother had brought a son to the asylum. The father had been cross-examined and had stoutly maintained that there was no family history on either side. The medical officer in parting with him said he would like to see the mother, whom he had heard had also come to the asylum with the son would the man send her in 1 After some hesitation, he replied that he could not do so at present, for she was visiting a sister in the women's wards !