Nineteenth annual report of the Somerset County Pauper Lunatic Asylum : from the 1st of January to the end of the year 1866.

  • Somerset County Pauper Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Nineteenth annual report of the Somerset County Pauper Lunatic Asylum : from the 1st of January to the end of the year 1866. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the lost mental equilibrium. Therefore he adds: II me serait clone pas etonnant que, si les aliimes maries sont moms nombreux dans les etablissements speciaux, Us eussent, au con- traire, line superiority numerique marquee qoarmi les malades a domicile. Occupation.—The influence of occupation onbodily health is known to be considerable ; the mens sana in corpore sano implies concurrent circumstances of suitable employment, with proper food, clothing, and lodging. M. Behic classifies his patients according to their profession or calling, and obtains these results :— * a Militaires et marins . . .1 admission to every 1,7tl inhabitants. Professions liberates . 1 ,, ,, ,, 1,911 ,, Rentiers et proprietaires •- . 1 ,, ,, ,, 3,609 ,, Professions industrielles, ) , g commerciales, manuelles 1 ’ ” ” ” ' ’ ,s Professions agricoles . . . 1 „ s» „ 18,819 >, Thus we see that the agricultural class, in proportion to its population, supplies but an inconsiderable contingent to insanity, whilst the profession of the soldier and the sailor is most prolific in mental aberration. But M, Behic warns us that we should commit a grave error if we inferred from the foregoing that insanity is really more frequent in the Army and Navy than in other classes of society, and attributes the high proportion we have quoted to the vigilance of the administration in forthwith placing under treatment every soldier or sailor who shows signs of the malady. There may be something in this reasoning, but nevertheless it does not seem difficult to believe that the soldier’s life and daily associations, with the temptation to drink, are more likely to engender an unhealthy state of the mind than almost any other calling. As a set-off against the proclivity to insanity on the part of the honourable profession of arms, it is right to point out that of all classes they show by far the largest proportion of cures. The vigilance just adverted to insures their being brought under treatment at the first dawn of the malady, and they are all of an age at which the greatest proportion of cures is found, so that everything is in their favour. After them the agricultural class offers the next highest proportion of recoveries, and following them come the domestic servants, wages and salaries class (gens a, gages).