116 Transactions. — Miscellaneous . 



properly comparing the statistics of the same country for 

 different years — that is, the difference in the age-distribution 

 of the population — makes it necessary also in comparing the 

 statistics of one country with those of another. Unfor- 

 tunately, the necessary data for dealing in this manner with 

 the statistics of any other country are not available in Auck- 

 land, and the work, therefore, cannot be attempted, though the 

 results to which it would lead would be, I believe, of supreme 

 interest. 



Insanity. 



The New Zealand Official Year-book tells us that the 

 proportion which the inmates of the lunatic asylums of the 

 colony, and those out on trial, bear to the whole population 

 changed from 1 in every 383 of population in the year 1884 to 

 1 in every 288 in 1900, this being equivalent to an increase, 

 relative to the whole population, of about 33 per cent, in six- 

 teen years. The change was regular and continuous from 

 year to year, and was not confined merely to the period just 

 referred to. 



On the strength of these and similar figures alarmist 

 articles on the great increase of insanity frequently appear in 

 our newspapers and magazines, and the greater strain of 

 modern competition and the unhealthy conditions of city life 

 are generally assigned as the chief causes. But others doubt 

 the reality of so great an increase in insanity, and these 

 suggest that the large number of good asylums, with the 

 greater use made of those institutions, consequent upon the 

 increased consideration shown for those suspected of in- 

 sanity, may be responsible for much or all of the apparent 

 increase, whilst the inclusion of a greater number of mental 

 maladies under the head of " insanity " may still further 

 tend to swell the numbers which so affright us. In any 

 case, it appears generally accepted that, without these or 

 similar explanations, the statistics of insanity indicate a con- 

 tinued increase in the modern man of liability to that mental 

 disorder. 



Now, I propose to show that the statistics of New Zealand 

 do not indicate any real increase in liability to insanity, even 

 if the numbers returned be taken as the proper measure of the 

 amount of insanity in the colony. For this purpose I shall 

 take the yearly admissions into the various lunatic asylums of 

 the colony. As these will be classified according to age, it is 

 necessary to leave out of consideration the small number of 

 patients of age unknown, but this will not appreciably vitiate 

 the results. The statistics must also be taken as given in the 

 annual volumes of statistics issued by the Government — that 

 is, with the idiotic included amongst the insane. The number 



