Insanity among the coloured population of the free states / by Edward Jarvis.

  • Edward Jarvis
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Insanity among the coloured population of the free states / by Edward Jarvis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    ture, but of positive and extensive demonstration. In due time the document came forth, under the sanction of Congress, and corrected at the Department of State. Such a document as we have described, heavy with its errors and its misstatements, instead of being a messenger of truth to the world, to enlighten its knowledge and guide its opinions; it is, in respect to human ailment—a bearer of falsehood to confuse and mislead. So far from being an aid to the progress of medical science, as it was the intention of goverrt- ment in ordering these inquiries, it has thrown a stumbling-block in its way, which it will require years to remove. Where these errors originated, whether with the thousand marshals who counted the people in all the districts of the nation, or with the clerks in the State Department, who analyzed and reduced their returns to tables as now published, we have no means of judging. But so far as they were made at Washington, the case is not without remedy. The original returns may be re-examined, and a new and more accurate set of tables of the numbers of the insane, the deaf, and the blind, may be prepared. We commend this matter to the attention of the next Congress. We hope they will cause all the original papers respecting the sixth census to be revised, and all the errors which were made in copying them corrected, and a new and satis- factory edition sent forth, so that the correction of the mistakes and the refutation of the errors may follow them as early and as widely as possible. This is due to the honour of our country, to medical science, and to truth. others, as belonging to the class of the free; and all coloured lunatics who are supported at private charge, and no others, as being slaves. Upon these principles we have prepared an analysis of the cases of insanity among the free and slave blacks of the southern states, as in the following table. Slaves. State or Territory. Dist. Columbia, Florida, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Slave states. 4,694 25,717 19,935 58.240 182,258 18V)59 195,211 168,452 253,532 280,944 3-27,038 295,817 448,987 89,495 2,605 2.485,984 fnsane at pri vate charge. One in 4 1173 12 2146 13 1533 50 1164 132 1380 124 1476 66 2957 38 7657 100 2532 108 26iil 121 2702 192 1280 327 1372 99 904 21 124 1407 1766 ■*ree coloured population. 8,361 817 465 1,574 7,317 5,524 1,366 25,502 2,039 2, ?.) 3 8,276 22,7:i2 49,842 62,020 16,919 215,5(17 Insane at pub- lic charge. 3 0 8 18 48 28 16 * 7 25 26 16 29 54 42 7 427 *> One in 2787 58 87 152 198 85 3643 81 105 517 7839 923 1576 2117 659