LUNACY IN LONDON.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVII, Issue 84, 9 December 1913, Page 4

LUNACY IN LONDON.

The second volume of the annual report of the London County Council, just published, contains the report ot the Asylums Committee for the year ended March :11st, 1913. A tabulated statement shows that whilst the ratio of insanity to the population tor the whole county of London was 1.73 per 101)0, it varied in the several parishes from .97 per 1000 in Bethnal Green to 5.16 in the Strand. Attention is drawn to what may at first seem the curious fact that the greatest proportion is not found uniformly iff the East End and iu some other parts of London where j poverty is the rule, but rath-] er in the West End, in West-1 minster, Bloomsbury, and the Strand. The table suggests a line of inquiry into the association between the occurrence of cases of insanity in certain districts and the social condition of those districts which might fruitfully be followed up, and it is suggested that industrial poverty is not so closely associated with insanity as other more irregular conditions of life. An-! other tabulated statement shows that during the year there were 28,517 lunacy cases in the county, an increase of 506 on the previous year, against the average annual increase of the past 23 years of 528. It is submitted that this increase is accounted for in great measure by a lessening asylum deathrate, a decrease in the number of discharges, and the increase of the number of known cases of insanity, rather than by a serious increase in the number of fresh cases of mental disease.