238 



Rerieir of Reviews, tOISJ06. 



AUSTRALIANS UNHAPPY INSANE. 



PUBLIC IGNORANCE AND INDIFFERENCE. 



BY DR. RAMSAY MAILER, MELBOURNE. 



\ Phot I, 



The great pre- 

 valence of In- 

 sanity, and its un- 

 doubted increase 

 all over the 

 civilised world, 

 make it a mo- 

 mentous question 

 in modern civili- 

 sation. In ^Ireat 

 liritain to-day one 

 person in about 

 \er\- three hun- 

 dred of the popu- 

 lation is insane. 

 Less than fifty 

 \ears ago one 

 only in every five 

 iiundred and fifty 

 was so afflicted. 

 Consequently dur- 

 ing the last half- 

 centurv the ratio 

 to population has 

 almost double ; 

 certainlv an un- 

 in this respect tht 



Johnslo c. 0'^liaiiuei.sv and Co.] 



Dp Ramsay Mailer. 



pleasant state of affairs. And 



figures of Great Britain are disquieting, those of 

 Australia are alarming. In our sparsely peopled 

 Commonwealth there are in round numbers 15,000 

 mentally deranged persons, or a proportion of one 

 in.sane to every 260 of the population. That is to 

 say, could we divide the people of our continent into 

 groups, each the size of an ordinarv Melbourne Cup 

 Day attendance, there would be, roughly, four hun- 

 dred insane people to each group. Surely these are 

 facts to make men, aye, and women, too, pause and 

 think. Yet I know of no question of equal im- 

 portance that receives so little attention from the 

 general public in Australia to-day as does the ques- 

 tion of Insanity. 



That this lack of interest is due to the indifference 

 born oi ignoranfce I feel certain, otherwise drastic 

 steps would have been taken long ere this to im- 

 prove the conditions under which the insane in many 

 of our asylums exist. Some Australian States must 

 indeed rank low among civili.sed countries be thev 

 judged by the care they take of the helpless insane. 

 And little change for the better can be looked for 

 vinti! indifference is dispelled and in its place a 

 stern determination by thf^ pvblic of these States 



to no longer remain under the reproach of so cruelly 

 neglecting those unable to voice their own griev- 

 ances. 



At the present Insanity is a subject that many 

 prefer to hear nothing about. These are the people 

 fortunate in po.ssessing no one belonging to them 

 afflicttd with mental trouble. To them " The Insane 

 and Their Care " is a disagreeable topic, and as they 

 have no jX'rsonal interest in the question they prefer 

 to leave it severely alone. Consequently they retain 

 the verv erroneous impression of a mentally-deranged 

 person we all formed when children. 



An incident that remains most vividh in ni\ rerul- 

 lection is a sight I once saw when a small bo\. On 

 my way home from school I noticed a number of 

 |>ersons gathered round a grocers shop. Boy-like, 

 mingling with the crowd, I heard awed whispers 

 that there was a mad woman inside, and that she 

 was about to be taken to a Lunatic Asylum. Pre- 

 sently a poor anxious looking woman was brought 

 out and placed in a cab. As she came through the 

 shop the group of onlookers shrank back in fear,, 

 and I quickly disappeared. To have been told that 

 she had committed some crime and was being sent 

 to gaol would only have excited my curiosity. To, 

 learn that she was insane and going to an Asylum 

 terrified me, and to this day I can remember how 

 frightened I felt and what terrible sights 1 conv 

 jectured upon going to bed that night. Looking 

 back I know now the chances are that the poor 

 woman was absolutely harmless, and as little to be 

 feared as a woman suffering from heart disease or 

 any other bodily ailment. Yet my childish impres- 

 sion — and for that matter the same impression pre- 

 vailed long after that period of mv life had beea 

 left behind — was that all insane persons were dan- 

 gerous beings, closely allied to wild animals, and 

 only safe when kept behind barred windows and 

 locked doors. 



A similarly erroneous opinion, I regret to say, is 

 held by most people at the present time, and is, I 

 believe, the heavy obstacle retarding the movement 

 — now slowly but surely setting in — for improving 

 the conditions under which the unhappy insane exist. 



To what, then, is this totallv wrong impression 

 due? Mainly, without doubt, to the barbarous 

 methods it was thought necessary to adopt in dealing 

 with the insane in days happily fast passing away. 

 The public, hearing of the appliances in use such 

 as manacles, wristlets, strait-jackets, locked gloves, 

 etc., naturally concluded that persons who could only 



