90 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



tion is not made between farmers and laborers. And not 

 only this, but a man is committed to a hospital, and called 

 a farmer, when perhaps he may have been only a hired hand 

 on a farm for a few months preceding his commitment. The 

 fact that there is a large proportion of patients classified by 

 their occupation as farmers in the Northampton and Worces- 

 ter hospitals is because they are located in a portion of the 

 State where farmers are more numerous, and these are the 

 hospitals to which they would most naturally be committed 

 when insane. And the reverse is true of the hospitals in 

 the eastern part of the State ; they showing the occupation 

 of their patients to be much more of the artisans, mechanics, 

 and trades-people. 



But, whatever may be the showing of statistics in this 

 matter (and figures do not tell the whole truth), the fact is 

 patent, and a solemn one, too, that very many of our farmers 

 do get into our insane-receptacles, and that these many 

 are a great many too many. There is some wrong doing or 

 living, when such a large number of the longest-lived occu- 

 pation the world over bring up so often at the establish- 

 ments where the demented, idiotic, furious, raving, melan- 

 cholic, and weak-minded either are stranded for a time, or 

 are ultimately completely wrecked. And especially so since 

 insanity is brought about much more by causes which affect 

 the bodily health than other states or conditions. For ex- 

 ample, in the Northampton Hospital, out of six hundred 

 and eighty-seven patients the cause of whose insanity was 

 ascertained, five hundred and thirty-nine, or seventy-eight 

 per cent, were from physical causes ; while but the remain- 

 ing hundred and forty-eight, or twenty-two per cent, were 

 induced by mental and moral causes. So it is a fair infer- 

 ence that farmers are driven into insanity by other than ma- 

 terial and physical impediments, and it is a matter of serious 

 study to learn these causes, and how to resist them. 



Dr. Earle of Northampton tells us that excess of any kind 

 is a broad cause of insanity to us all. An excess of any 

 thing which draws down our vital power or force will bring 

 on the malady. Nature is exceedingly particular that all 

 her powers, ordinary and reserved, be well balanced. 



The uses of alcohol and tobacco are excesses which hatch 

 out much insanity. Mental overwork with bodily confine- 



