RELATIONS TO OTHER SCIENCES 245 



lack of intelligent interest, and in nearly all by the allied science of 

 politics. Indeed, while this last exists, state hospitals will always fall 

 a little short of the ideal. The psychiatrist stands on one hand 

 striving to bring things up to his highest views, the politician on 

 the other, urging something cheaper, and standing for an influence 

 that tends toward mere custodianship. 



The science of psychiatry comes in touch with many branches of 

 human knowledge. In so far as psychiatry has a practical side, it 

 stands in close relation with what may be called, in general, economics; 

 to an extent, also, it is in relation with all those sciences which par- 

 ticularly tend to prevent and ward off insanity by improving social 

 conditions through sanitation, education, and better heredity. 



The science of psychiatry utilizes, at all times, the work of the 

 psychologist, but, most of all perhaps, it stands in relation with 

 certain departments of internal medicine, such as pathology, and 

 chemistry. Psychiatry has also certain relations with the law, with 

 the criminal, and in general with abnormal man. 



To take up all these relations in detail would make an address very 

 long and very desultory. Yet I do not see how, in the nature of the 

 case, my remarks will not have some of both these characters. 

 I shall, however, while touching on a number of topics, lay special 

 emphasis on a few that seem most important. 



Psychiatry and Economics 



The relation of psychiatry to economics is one of increasing interest 

 and importance. The loss to the state and the expense in money 

 from disease is a subject that has received increasing attention of 

 late years, until now in many directions public knowledge and state 

 action are almost adequate to the problems involved. The results 

 have been the extermination of some and the holding in check of 

 other diseases. Thus, in the more advanced communities, with the 

 exception of certain pulmonary troubles, and a few of the infectious 

 and eruptive fevers, the prevalence of microbic diseases has been 

 decidedly checked. 



Nervous diseases, however, if we include also those due primarily 

 to vascular disease, are probably more numerous than ever. Statis- 

 tics are almost useless for determining this question, because there 

 is no common nomenclature, the diseases are not notifiable, and, at 

 best, we must go by death statistics. I believe it to be common 

 medical opinion, however, as it is certainly my own, that both 

 organic and functional neuroses are relatively more numerous than 

 they were fifty years ago. 



As to the psychoses, there is little doubt that they are also increas- 

 ing, relatively, more than the population. This is shown in the reports 



