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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    son, and from mother to daughter. The French statistics are confirmatory of that theory. In 1000 admissions of each sex, 264 males and 266 females had received the germ of their malady at birth ; and of the 264 mals, 128 inherit¬ ed from their father, 110 from their mother, and 26 from both parents; of the 266 females, 100 inherited from the parental, 130 from the maternal side, and 36 from the two combined. Fifteen per cent, of the insane cured were re¬ corded as having had hereditary tendency to the disease. The returns do not discriminate in the discharges those before and after cure prior to 1854, but in that year the proportion of discharges in 100 cases treated was 9 per cent, cured, and 5*4 avantguerison. In 1860 the relative proportions were 7*0 and 7*1, so that the ratio of cures has regularly diminished, whilst that of uncured has gradu¬ ally increased. The same results are observable if we take 100 discharges as the basis. In 1854 there were 62 cured, and in 1860 only 50 ; the numbers uncured were, therefore, 38 in 1854, and 50 in 1860. It is worthy of remark that the cures are more numerous among men than women ; the average proportion was 8*7 per cent, of men treated, and 38 per cent, of women This difference, M. Behic believes, obtains in other countries, and is partly due to the desire on the part of the asylum authorities to abridge the period of convalescence amongst men, so that they may the sooner re¬ turn to their families who are dependent upon them ; whilst the females are detained as long as possible from a humane dislike to expose them to the forlorn, isolated, and dependent position which awaits so many of them on their return to society. Another reason for the greater proportion of cures amongst males is that the causes which most frequently produce in¬ sanity in them are those most easily amenable to proper treatment and cure. Thus intemperance, which is the most frequent cause of insanity in men, produces a less intense form of the malady, and one more easily curable, than the prevailing causes of insanity in the other sex. Nothing is more clearly established in the records of in¬ sanity than that the chance of cure diminishes gradually with the duration of the treatment. Thus, on an average of 100 cures, 80 per cent, (four-filths) were in the first year of treatment, of which 38 percent, took place in the first three