HEREDITY IN INSANITY. 87 



Now, this procedure can have but one result, and 

 that is, the cultivation and increase of insanity and 

 other nervous diseases and degenerations as epilepsy, 

 chorea, deaf-mutism, suicide, hysteria, idiocy, and the 

 like, and Sir William Aitken is certainly justified in 

 asking that such tainted persons should not be per- 

 mitted to contaminate the race by propagating their 

 like. 



There is another matter which requires explanation 

 before we can admit that insanity is not on the in- 

 crease, and that is suicide. If the supposition that 

 the increase in the number of certified insane is 

 entirely due to the gathering together of nearly all 

 the insane in the asylums be true, then it follows that 

 the proportion of insane outside asylums should be 

 proportionately diminished, and consequently suicide, 

 which we may take in the majority of instances to be 

 the outcome of mental disorder, should be much less 

 frequent than it was before the insane were so care- 

 fully weeded from the general population. If the 

 theory of those who say that insanity is not on the 

 increase be sound, deaths from suicide amongst those 

 outside asylums should diminish. But what is the fact ? 

 On reference to the Registrar- General's reports, we find 

 that deaths from suicide are increasing year by year, 

 much as the certified insane are. The number of 

 deaths from suicide recorded in 1 864 was 1340; in 

 1870, 1554; in 1875, 1601 ; in 1880, 1979; in 1885, 

 2007; and in 1888 it had increased to 2308. Nor is 

 this increase apparent only, for while the proportion 



