The Increase of Insanitij. 23 



crease in the ratio of insanity has been in the older settled 

 counties. Thus the same law is at work within the state as 

 between the counties which is at work upon the state at 

 large. 



When the results of the United States census of 1880 in 

 regard to the insane are published^ there will probably be 

 about 2,000 insane shown to be in the state or one to every 

 GoO of the population. 



Of the five causes for the apparent or real increase of in- 

 sanity, we may suppose that hereafter we shall have as 

 accurate returns of insanity as the nature of the subject 

 admits of. While it is questionable whether certain persons 

 are insane or not, no one can count the insane with entire 

 accuracy; but they will be hereafter counted as accurately 

 as possible. The second cause in the wider definitions of 

 insanity has gone about as far as it is likely to go in increas- 

 ing the number of the insane. If anything, there is likely 

 to be a reaction as the result of Guiteau's trial, and of other 

 causes, to narrow somewhat the definition of insanity and 

 thus slightly reduce the number of those called insane. The 

 increase of insanity caused by the more humane treatment 

 and therefore longer lives, is, we may trust, a permanent 

 increase. Rather than resort to the old, barbarous methods, 

 it would be far better to give these poor creatures the euthan- 

 asia afforded by an overdose of laudanum. If they are to 

 be killed off, let it at least be done without unnecessary 

 cruelty. But though the increase in the number of insane 

 from this cause is doubtless a permanent one, it will not be 

 as rapid in the future as in the past. 



When the expectation of life among the insane has once 

 been permanently lengthened by more humane modes of 

 treating them, they will not continue to accumulate forever, 

 but will die off as before, only at a greater age. We have not 

 yet reached the end of this change for the better in the treat- 

 ment of the insane. But when we have done so, then this 

 source of increase will soon cease. The increase of popula- 

 tion in our state will doubtless go on, but at a slower rate, 

 and with it necessarily that increase in the total number of 

 insane which goes with it. The increase of insanity, which 



