276 



THE ABNORMAL MAN. 



The Final 

 Remedy. 



Insanity* 



Increase of 

 Insanity, 



ture grave. If the cities of the dead could speak, 

 if crying infants could tell of their prenatal strug- 

 gles against poisons, what a revelation they would 

 make ! If the shamefully common practice of this 

 heinous crime were made public it would shock 

 the sensibilities of the most Calloused and awaken 

 pity in the heart of the most hardened criminal ! 



When the state will prohibit the marriage of 

 the idiotic and feeble-minded, when prospective 

 parents will abstain from the use of narcotics; 

 when physicians will stop prescribing poisonous 

 drugs to ladies during gestation; when people 

 cease preventing conception and attempting to 

 produce abortion by the use of drugs; then, and 

 not until then, will it be possible to stop the pro- 

 duction of the epileptic and idiotic classes. 



Insanity had its origin among the nobility. In 

 ancient times it was rarely known among the 

 common people ; while among the royal families it 

 was, as it is today, frequent. As a hereditary 

 taint it is the most ineradicable. Many writers 

 hold that when the insane taint becomes estab- 

 lished in the blood it is transmitted from genera- 

 tion to generation until the family becomes utterly 

 degenerate or extinct. 



Within the last quarter of a century insanity, 

 like epilepsy and feeble-mindedness, has increased 

 at an alarming rate. It has more than trebled 

 in most of the European countries and almost 

 quadrupled in the United States. Statistics indi- 

 cate that there were about 41,000 insane persons 

 in the States in 1880. This would mean about 

 one to every 1,200 of the population; while in 

 1900 there are over 1 50,000, or one to about every 

 460. 



