ALLEGED INCREASE OF INSANITY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LVII, Issue 6507, 4 January 1882, Page 5

ALLEGED INCREASE OF INSANITY.

It appears from the thirty-fifth report of the Commissioners in Lunacy that whereas on Jan. 1, 1880, there were in all 71,151 individuals known to the Commissioners as lunatics, idiots, or persons of unsound mind, the return for Jan. 1,1831, gives tbe number as 73,113, being an increase of 1922. The Commissioners say: “We may here at once state that the excess in the average annual increase of numbers shown by the figures of Jan. 1 last, as compared with those of Jan. 1, 1880, is fully accounted for by the diminished death-rate in asylums, hospitals, and licensed houses of the year ISSO, as compared with 1879." The increase is in the pauper, not in the private class. It is significant and interesting, as bearing upon the question, “Is insanity increasing?" that the Commissioners have introduced a new tabular statement showing “the yearly ratio of fresh admissions to population." From this it appears that, the ratios per 10,000 of admissions to population in the years 1869-80 were as follows : —Totals —1869, 4 71; 1870, 4-54; 1871, 462 : 1572, 459; 1873, 4-80 j 1874, 5 03; 1875, 5T9; 1876, 5 30; 1877. 5 28; 1878, 5 36; 1879, 6‘20; 1880, 5 19. For the purposes of this table the transfers and the admissions to idiot asylums have been excluded. The Commissioners observe :“ it is, we think, an established fact that the legislation of 1874 has tended to encourage the removal of pauper lunatics from workhouses into asylums, and has thus helped annually to swell the total admissions. It will, however, be observed that, notwithstanding this fact above stated, the rat:ocf the yearly increase of the admissions to population has been but slight and not constant, showing that the largo increase in the total number of tho insane under care in asylums, hospitals, and licensed houses during the twelve years to which the table refers is mainly duo to accumulation, and not to a greater annual product of insanity." This official acknowledgment of the facts is welcome, and deserves to be noted, although it is somewhat late.— Lancet.