^2 JVisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. 



those who are free to neglect their health outside of insane 

 asylums. ISTow this process of preserving the lives of the 

 insane has been going on in this state for the last twenty 

 years with the inevitable result of increasing the number of 

 the insane. For while as many have been becoming insane 

 as ever, fewer have been dying off, and thus the number in- 

 sane alive at any given time is growing greater. 



IV. Another cause of the increase of insanity is the in- 

 crease of population. Wisconsin has increased from 775,000 

 in 1860 to 1,315,000 in 1880. While the population has nearly 

 doubled it is not wonderful that the number of insane should 

 increase also. 



V. An important cause of the increase of insanity in 

 this state is that Wisconsin is passing from a new state to 

 an old settled state. The first generation of pioneers who 

 settled the southern part of the state are passing away. 

 When they came here, they were usually people of vigorous 

 health and in the prime of life. Like most settlers of a. new 

 country they left their defective classes behind them. There 

 were few insane among the immigrants who came iirst or 

 among those who have followed them since from 'the eastern 

 states or from foreign lands. The cases of insanity we have 

 had have mostly been produced upon our own soil. Now^ 

 bearing in mind the great part that heredity has in produc- 

 ing insanity, it is plain that a body of immigrants 

 selected for healthfulness of body and mind, as nearly all 

 immigrants are, will have less insanity for several genera- 

 tions than the people of an old settled country. The ratio 

 of insanity to the population will show this. The census of 

 1860 shows insanity in the ratio of one insane person to every 

 2,740 of the population. A census which I have recently 

 taken of the insane under public care which is at least as 

 imperfect as that was, because it gives only those 

 under public care, and not those cared for at home, 

 gives a ratio of one insane person to every 713 of the 

 population. This shows a sufficiently rapid increase in 

 the ratio of insanity. But the same census when shown by 

 counties as in the subjoined table, and illustrated by the 

 map which I have prepared, shows very clearly that the in- 



