MODERN LIFE AND INSANITY. 439 



of less porous constitutions, and easily explaining the disastrous re- 

 sults which in many instances follow, sooner or later, as respects dis- 

 turbances of the nervous system, in one form or other. In fact, by 

 the time dinner is due, the stomach is in despair, and its owner finds 

 it necessary to goad a lost appetite by strong pickles and spirits, end- 

 ing with black coffee and some liqueur. When either dyspepsia or 

 over-business work is set down as the cause of the insanity of such 

 individuals, it should be considered what influence the amount of 

 alcohol imbibed has exerted upon the final catastrophe as well as 

 the assigned cause. But whatever may be the relative amount of 

 insanity produced among the affluent and the poor, of this there can 

 be no doubt, that certain mental causes of lunacy, as over-study and 

 business worry, produce more insanity among the upper than the 

 lower classes. We have examined the statistics of six asylums in 

 England for private patients only, and have found this to be the case. 

 At one such institution, Ticehurst, Sussex, we find, from statistics 

 kindly furnished us by Dr. Newington, that out of 266 admissions 

 29 were referred to over-study, and 18 to over-business work. Only 

 2S were referred to intemperance. Allowing a liberal margin for the 

 tendency of friends to refer the disease to the former rather than the 

 latter class, the figures remain striking, as pointing to the influence 

 of so-called overwork. We say " so-called " because there is an ap- 

 parent and fictitious as well as a real overwork. Both, however, 

 may terminate in nervous disorder. Overwork is often confounded 

 with the opposite condition want of occupation. Civilization and 

 mental strain are regarded by many as identical, and in consequence 

 much confusion is caused in the discussion of the present question. 

 It is forgotten that an idle life, leading to hysteria and to actual in- 

 sanity, is much more likely to be the product of civilization than of 

 savagery or barbarism. This is quite consistent with the other truth, 

 that without civilization we do not see evolved a certain high pressure, 

 also injurious to mental health. A London physician, Dr. Wilks, 

 when speaking of a common class of cases, young women without 

 either useful occupation or amusements, in whom the moral nature 

 becomes perverted, in addition to the derangement of the bodily 

 health, observes that the mother's sympathies too often only foster 

 her daughter's morbid proclivities, by insisting on her delicacy and the 

 necessity of various artificial methods for her restoration. It is obvi- 

 ous that such a case as this is the very child of a highly-organized 

 society, that is, of a high state of civilization, and yet that such a 

 young lady is not the victim of high pressure or mental strain in her 

 own person, although it is certainly possible that she may inherit a 

 susceptible brain from an overworked parent. However, the remedy 

 is work, not rest ; occupation, not idleness. We certainly do not 

 want to make her more refined or artificial, but more natural, and to 

 occupy herself with some really useful work. A luxurious, idle life is 



