106 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



unconscious perversion of facts, either from the false meanings which, 

 owing to specific views and predilections and fears, are read into 

 them, not only by the laity, but often by the profession, or else from 

 the wrong deductions derived from actual facts clearly understood. 

 Try as one may, it is often most difficult to get a sufficient number 

 of clearly defined facts to enable even the most expert to form a 

 true and comprehensive idea of the case in hand.* This leads to 

 the remark that what is now absolutely needed is some form of record- 

 keeping which shall become a general practice on the part of heads of 

 families and their physicians, and which may be handed down from 

 generation to generation; and not only this, but that these shall be 

 so accurately and fully kept that they may be worthy of consideration 

 as the best and in fact the only basis of a scientific generalization in 

 case of mental or moral emergency. That people as a rule would 

 probably resent this, as constituting an undue interference with the 

 sanctity of personal and family rights, while undoubtedly rendering 

 it practically nugatory for the time being, does not in any good sense 

 militate against either the scientific need or the great good which 

 would accrue from the use of such family records faithfully and in- 

 telligently kept. It is encouraging to note that already the way for 

 such records is being opened in the demands made by the various ques- 

 tioynaires sent out by Dr. G. Stanley Hall and others who are in- 

 terested in the scientific study of children. (See various issues of 

 the American Journal of Psychology, and of the Pedagogical Semi- 

 nary, for pertinent suggestions and results. Also an article by Dr. 

 William H. Thomson, in the Yale Medical Journal for April, 1898.) 

 Much more useful and in general satisfactory would this be than the 

 blind staggering after elusory causation now so universally and yet so 

 futilely pursued. 



And the same may be said with reference to statistics as com- 

 monly tabulated. These having reference but to the surface show- 

 ings, the after-the-mischief-is-done results, and so often obtained 

 under misleading constraint or other unfavorable influences, are 

 scarcely capable of even hinting the significance of real conditions, 

 and especially of tendencies that have existed antecedent to the 

 individual breakdown. For instance, such statistics as those com- 

 piled by Dr. "Wise (see State Hospitals Bulletin, vol. i, page 157), 

 when subjected to the requirements of an accurate causative consid- 

 eration, easily lend themselves to the criticism made by the author 

 himself, who says, " The careful inquirer can receive no reliable in- 

 formation from the study of insane hospital statistics except the bare 



* See an instance clearly elucidative of this in an account of the Kelly murder trial, 

 given by Dr. Walter Channing in the American Journal of Insanity for January, 1898, 

 page 385. 



