Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 August 1879 — Insanity in England. [ARTICLE]

Insanity in England.

It is remarkable that the increase of insanity in England has occurred during the operation of a new and improved system of treatment. No one would return to the manacles and fetters of a former age; but it was expected that early admission to asylum treatment would produce more rapid recovery, and thereby diminish instead of increase the number of incurables. In expectation of speedy cure from this cause, vast sums have been expended on the construction of English asylums. A return, recently published, shows that during twenty years more than £6,000,000 have been thus employed. The repairs and extras may bring the sum to not much under £8,000,000; and, taking into account the annual interest on capital, the maintenance of lunatics must cost the country at least £2,000,000 p t r annum. It is irue that the worth of the expenditure is not to be reckoned by the money value alone. If, when the cost is highest, the cure and care of lunatics is greatest, that system is the best. When the cost is highest, and the cure and care lowest, we have a right to complain. For the last thirty years the Earl of Shaftesbury and the Lunacy Commissioners have had entire contxol; their recommendations have been carried out —their appeals to the humanity and liberality of the public have been complied with. All that money could yield, all that architecture could bestow, in obedience to the orders of the Government or the suggestions of the medical profession, has been freely, even lavishly, executed. Although the proportion of recoveries in all institutions, calculated on the admissions, has fallen, between 1859 and 1877, from 35.12 per cent, to 30.33 per cent., and although the recoveries, calculated on admissions to county and borough asylums, show no improvement, remaining at 30 per oent., while those calculated in each

year upon the whole number under treatment have fallen from 9.6 per cent, in 1859 to 7.9 per cent, in 1877—yet the Commissioners in Lunacy appear perfectly satisfied with the results obtained. Thus, while expenditure increases and lunacy advances, they aie content to see cure not merely stationary, but retrograde.—Fortnightly Magazine.