The Cause. 



tion, both regular and irregular hysteria, 

 catalepsy, extasis, vertigo, and various states of 

 disordered sensibility," etc., etc. 



In Dr. R. P. Ritchie's " Frequent Causes of 

 Insanity in Young Men " (1861), we read : " It 

 is remarkable that writers on mental maladies 

 pass over this section of mental affection with 

 scarcely any allusion to the occasion of it the 

 vice of masturbation. I am also induced to 

 submit the following observation to the profes- 

 sion from the fact that in 119 cases, which were 

 recognised after admission in Bethnal House 

 Asylum to be due to this melancholy cause, in 

 only six was the true cause understood previous 

 to admission, whilst the greater proportion of 

 those cases in which the supposed cause was 

 stated, were attributed to religion and over- 

 study. . . . There is little doubt that in this 

 way a variety of obscure maladies are occa- 

 sioned." 



More attention is now being given to sexual 

 abuses as being productive of insanity, and in 

 some of our asylums patients are being specially 

 treated for that phase of the disease. 



Dr. Copland tells us that epilepsy precedes 

 insanity from this cause, and either it, or general 

 paralysis, often complicates the advanced pro- 

 gress of the mental disorder when thus occa- 

 sioned. 



Epilepsy being a functional disease of the 

 nervous system, it is quite reasonable to suppose 

 that in many cases it may be traced to the vice 

 in question, although there are some who deny 

 that this is the case. 



j 2 87 



