SPREAD OF MENTAL DISEASE

Hokitika Guardian, 7 August 1931, Page 5

SPREAD OF MENTAL DISEASE

SOME CAUSES.

EFFECT OF SOCIAL CHANGES ON WO'-vIEa.

We have no way of estimating the nuinb-r of mental cases as a whole ; ail we can say is that the mental hospitals are more crowded,” said l’roiessor cdielley, Professor of Education at Canterbury College, \vb-n discussing the mere.is.s iliac _na:v:e taken-place in recent years in the number 111 mental hospitals.

•He attributed the increases, in part, to the lact that home life had changed so greatly. He pointed out that when people lived at home more than they do now there was always somebody to look after any member of the family who might be mentally afflicted. It was looked upon as rather a stigma to have any member of the family in a mental hospital. Nowadays, however, with the development of motor cars and the extension of amusements, when people lived more of their lives outside the home and when frequently the home was left unattended, a person who was: mentally afflicted became more in the way and there would be a greater tendency to make use of the mental hospitals. That was undoubtedly one reason for. the increase in tile mental hospital figures. SEX DIVISION. One of the things tliat had to be taken into consideration, said Professor Shelley, was Jtfie relationship of the, sexes to mental cases. The proportion of women afflicted seemed to have gradually climbed. At the present time the figures were about 39 per 10,000. The rise seemed to have been steady since 1922. In 1922 the proportion, was 32.8 per 10,000. There had been an increase every year since then. In regard to men the number per 10,000 showed a definite decrease from 1921 to 1925, and than had increased rapidly until it was 44.8 in 1929. It would be seen, therefore, that except for the fact that the increase in males came later by three or four years, the increase seemed to be much the same in both sexes. effect OF WAR. Some explanation might be offered as far as the men were concerned and, possibly, also' for the women, in terms of the war. Men who were at the war in their twenties and early thirties were now, in many cases at a more trying part of their career, and the strains caused during those years, which were thrust on ojle side temporarily after their return, ‘were beginning to show themselves increasingly through an accumulation of other mental strains caused by the shouldering of more responsibilities. What in some casts would have been recognised as shellshock during the war or immediately after, was'only flow developing in shine individuals. He had personally crone across fiovTjt'al casett, which had been admitted to mental hospitals during the lust ym ov two, which were definitely the aftermath of wav service, INILUENOES ON WOMEN.

In regard to women, one could not but feel that the disintegration of the home as a social unit had caused rathei a serious breakdown of the motheiS sense of responsibility and usefulness after the children bad grown up. The woman felt as if her life’s work was done unless she could find some, adequate' expression for herself in community welfare. This loss of contact with the responsibilities of life, instead of liberating the mind, was apt to cause a feeling of inferiority, and, together with physical changes, contributed towards a lack of mental balance/ Another contributing cause with women might be the increased part they were playing in the industrial world, and the conflict of this industrial life with the instinctive demands on their nature with respect to the function of motherhood. mental tension.

These explanations, said Professor Shelley were partly borne out by the fact of’ the increases of insanity at particular ages. The increases noted among women between thirty and forty yeais of age were not much more than half the increases between forty and fifty and fifty and sixty. In the case of men much of the increase had taken place between thirty and forty years. If the increase among men were due to the effects of the war then it could be expected between these ages. Any general increases noted,, which could not he accounted for by the increased tendency i'or people to put their afflicted kin into institutions, must be explained by a general increase pt mental tension brought about by the rap'dly changing nature of social institutions consequent upon the rapid increase of speedy communication. People living in terms of speed, in terms of moving about, were less liable to anchor themselves to local institutions, in which they could find means of expressing themselves, and their minds tended to be pulled in all sorts of directions.