The Temuka Leader. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1878.

Temuka Leader, Volume I, Issue 98, 23 November 1878, Page 2

The Temuka Leader. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1878.

Much has been spoken and written of late about the unsatisfactory state of the eig.it lunatic asyluruns of this colony. Accepting the principle that “precaution is better than cure, ’ we would like to invite our medical g ml lemen and others to look more to ’he cause than to the < ure of the fearful ma ady whose victim < fid these asylums. We c-.nnot he p thinking there is something radically wrong when a colony like ours, u ith a dim Me, perhaps the most suitable to Europeans of any in the world, blessed with a refreshing sea breeze from the one -side, the air purified by the snowy ranges on the other, a soil teeming with the materials for the most wholesome food, and with water as pure as the streams that quenched (he r I first of the first pa r in the Garden of Eden, produces a larger proportion of madmen than any other. Men in business of any sort are not so driven to their wits’ end to make ends meet as in old and crowded countries. On the contrary most of them are accumulating wealth, which, in proportion to the deep thought and watchfulness required in business in thickly populated countries, is as one hundred to one for the labour expended in acquiring it. The working classes, too, have not. only the comforts of life in abundance, but many of its luxuries as well. Any o. e who took the Double to study the large picnic parties of thousands of working men on tbe Christchurch show ground the other week must have been struck with the happy, healthy look and the well-to-do appearance of the artizan and tiie laborer and his family as they s't and ate the refreshing morse’s they had provided for the occasion. Any one. we say, who rook a careful survey of such a picture could not but ask himself. What was there to lead to the unseating of tbcgKiug of Reason, leaving tbe man a demon ? T!sis is no singular case All over the colon v the same happy, contented look is to be found. What is it, then, that 'ends to the crowding n P our asylums ? Dr Sk e. Inspector of Lnna.t : c \sylntns, teds ns there ; re some 900 lunatics in confinement in these eight crowded institutions, and that (be increase is going on at the rate of eighty every year. This is astounding ! Something is wrong. What is it 1 The animal man, physiologists ted us, is not so very differently constituted from other anima's as to haul to such a result; yet we do not find t’ at the horse, or the bullock, or the “-beep, go mnd as we find man do Mildness is a disease of t e brain. What induces this ui-ea-e ? That is the question to a-k ourselves Freirh medical men who live gVon much time to the

study <1 flie (train, nrofess to map nit t..e nnman i.ead, anu say they are able to put their finder i.pou the part dis ased. and even git so far as to say they can provide a cure for tucsi,• d.senses of t e br.i'n. How ar they have been, or will be. successful in their operations it is not fo us to say. It is some ci mfort even id mi k it possible that scicin e can be brought to the aid of the afflicted in mind as ''el as to the afflicted i.i body. Knowing t tat a heal hy mind on y e.x'sts wlien there is a healthy bo..y, wn nad witii ihe greatest satisfaction any me ms adapted to cure a diseased Imaiu, and we fully sympathise with 11 t so wim use them i ilueuce to mitigate the miff r ugs of the poor dementi ti ones wiio inhabit galleries of

••pictures of misety ” our asy’ums. It must auaken in the minds of the most hardene ! waltb or : lea. nr -hunter sympathy and compassion to see the absent gass , the vac-n.t Imk of idiocy on un ets

will) at every turn in these places. The glory of man is well ieustrated by emu paring - it t > the grass of th • lie d. If this glory is his iutelle t how speedi y is it destroyed ? In the morning its posse sor arises fresh and bright and fair, before the day < loses he may lav hands upon his own life as gif ed Hugh Mil er. orattempt the life of another like a Judge Keogh. Sadden ng sigi t! A man or woman bereft of reason ! It is right that every att n'ion should he paid to the suffering patient, and nn Go’ eminent should deal with a sparing hand t e funds necessary to provide all that is in the power of man to provide in the shape of p rsona) comforts. But we say again prevention is better than cure. la a future article we may point out wh t, i:i our opinion, are some of the most prominent causes, humanly speaking, which help to make New Zealand such a madhouse, and in the meantime we ask our leaders to turn over in their minds what they can do to stop the rapid increase of this fearful malady of insanity in our midst.