MODERN LIFE AND INSANITY. 437 



tributed to " over-application " a proportion much lower than that 

 observed in private asylums. 



Recently, Mr. Whitcornbe, assistant medical officer at the Bir- 

 mingham Borough Asylum, has done good service by publishing the 

 fact that, during the last twenty-five years, out of 3,800 pauper pa- 

 tients admitted into that asylum, 524, or fourteen per cent., had their 

 malady induced by drink, and that the total expenditure thus caused 

 by intemperance amounted, in maintenance and cost of building, etc., 

 to no less than 50,373 during that period. 



Some years ago we calculated the percentage of cases caused by 

 intemperance "in the asylums of England, and found it to be about 

 twelve. This proportion would be immensely increased were we to 

 add those in which domestic misery and pecuniary losses owed their 

 origin to this vice. Although rate-payers grumble about the building 

 of large lunatic asylums, it is amazing how meekly they bear with 

 the great cause of their burden, and how suicidally they resent any 

 attempt made to reduce by legislation the area of this wide-spread 

 and costly mischief. 



It is worthy of note that drink produces much less insanity in 

 Warwickshire outside Birmingham than in Birmingham itself. 



In connection with this aspect of the question, an interesting fact, 

 recorded by Dr. Yellowlees, when superintendent of the Glamorgan 

 County Asylum, may be mentioned: that during a " strike" of nine 

 months the male admissions fell to half their former number, the 

 female admissions being almost unaffected. " The decrease is doubt- 

 lessly mainly due to the fact that there is no money to spend in drink 

 and debauchery." High wages, however, would be infinitely better 

 than strikes, if the money were spent in good food, house-rent, and 

 clothing. 



The diet of the children of factory-operatives in Lancashire points 

 to one source of mental degeneration among that class. Dr. Fergus- 

 son, of Bolton, gave important evidence not long ago which indicated 

 the main cause of their debility and stunted development, whether or 

 not they are worse now than they were. He does not consider that 

 factory-labor in itself operates prejudicially, and reports the mills to 

 be more healthy to work in now than they were in years past. The 

 prime cause producing the bad physical condition of the factory-pop- 

 ulation is, in his opinion, the intemperate habits of the factory -work- 

 ers. By free indulgence in stimulants and in smoking, the parents 

 debilitate their own constitutions, and transmit feeble ones to their 

 children. Instead of rearing them on milk after they are weaned, 

 they give them tea or coffee in a morning, and in too many instances 

 they feed them upon tea three times a day. In short, they get very 

 little milk. 



Mr. Redgrave, the Senior Inspector of Factories, does not consider 

 that this miserable state of things has increased we hope not but 



