82 MARRIAGE AND DISEASE. 



has been " cruel only to be kind," for rather a thou- 

 sand times the quiet forgetfulness of the tomb than 

 the lifelong battle of the chronic maniac, the imagi- 

 nary, but no less torturing hell in which the melan- 

 choliac exists, or the living death of the dement. 



And if it be certain that no other disease causes 

 such terrible suffering and degradation in its victims, 

 it is still more certain that there is no " ill that flesh 

 is heir to " which creates a tithe of the misery and 

 distress amongst the relatives and dependents of those 

 afflicted. Need I speak of the agonies of the young 

 wife, but yesterday full of life and hope, whose partner 

 has been dragged shrieking from her side, leaving her 

 wedded yet widowed, she and her young children a 

 charge upon the cold world, or perhaps colder friends ; 

 or, on the other hand, the terrible position of the 

 husband who has learnt to look with terror upon the 

 approach of what should be a time of family rejoicing, 

 and who must curse the day he became a father, when 

 he thinks of the future of his children. Well might 

 the ancients imagine such things could but come from 

 the devil. 



According to the last report of the Commissioners in 

 Lunacy (June 1891) there were no less than 86,795 

 "lunatics, idiots, and persons of unsound mind" in 

 England and Wales. It must be remembered, too, 

 that these figures, while representing the great mass of 

 our insane population, by no means exhaust it, for there 

 are hundreds of senile dements and idiotic and imbecile 

 children, epileptic and otherwise, who, belonging to the 



