Disease of the mind : Notes on the early management, European and American progress, modern methods, etc. in the treatment of insanity, with especial reference to the needs of Massachusetts and the United States / by Charles F. Folsom.

  • Charles Follen Folsom
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Disease of the mind : Notes on the early management, European and American progress, modern methods, etc. in the treatment of insanity, with especial reference to the needs of Massachusetts and the United States / by Charles F. Folsom. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    53.29, 49.74, 53.54, 49.42, 47.96, 56.34. The acute cases from the South Boston Asylum are not included in the last twenty years, as there were no records by which they could be readily got; they would make the percentage of acute cases slightly greater for the last four quinqeuuial periods. We cannot, indeed, say definitely just how much influence this conservation and prolongation of life has in increasing the number of our insane; and the cure-rates in asylums are estimated on such different bases by different individuals, and our statistics are otherwise so incomplete, that we should not learn much from considering them with reference to this point. But it is clear that the number of curable cases exist- ing in the State is less in proportion to the whole number from year to year. On the other hand, under the influence of increased confidence on the part of the public, a larger part of the insane of all classes are admitted to our asylums each year, while the incurable cases accumulate, so that the ratio of recoveries seems less; and this fact explains many otherwise puzzling statistics of our insane asylums.* If this view be correct, the annual rate of increase must at some time diminish and finally cease to be anything : and it is worthy of remark that the total increase of the past year [1875] over the preceding one has been less than in any other year since 1859 in England,! covering the period (eighteen years) during which full statistics have been kept. Perhaps the extreme point has been reached there. According to Dr. Jarvis's accurate and exhaustive report to the Legislature in 1855, there were then in Massachusetts, 2,632 insane and 1,087 idiots, with a population of 1,132,369. By the census of Massachusetts, in 1875, there were 3,637 * A good illustration of this fact is found in the statistics of the only insane asylum in Maine for the three decades and a half of its existence, from 1S40 to 1875, where the increasing death-rate and diminishing cure-rate indicate the change in the charac- ter of the patients admitted and treated :— Time. Number of Patients Admitted. Proportion of Cures to Admissions. Proportion of Deaths to Admissions. First decade, Second decade Third decade, Fourth period, one-half decade 1,064 1,185 1,374 953 42.10 40.75 40 32 36.41 7.80 17.80 23.28 25.81 t Thirtieth report of the Commissioners in Lunacy, page 2.
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