26 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences^ Arts and Letters. 



THE INCREASE OF INSANITY. 



SECOND PAPER. 1883. 

 By A. O. Wright, Secretary State Board of Charities and Reform. 



Last year I presented to the Academy a paper upon the 

 increase of insanity in this state, in which I gave a census 

 of the insane under public care, by counties, the first ever 

 made in the state, showing that we had then 1,773 insane 

 persons under public care or one to every 742 persons in the 

 state, and predicted that we should probably reach the num- 

 ber of 3,200 insane in the state by the close of this century. 



I have completed another census of the insane under pub- 

 lic care, and am able to give statistics for this year. 

 There were on September 30, 1882, under public care in this 

 state, 1,913 insane persons. This is an increase of 140 over 

 last year. If the same increase occurs for the next eighteen 

 years, or until 1900, we shall have about 5,000 insane per- 

 sons at that time under public care. 



On the supposition that we shall have about 1,000,000 pop- 

 ulation at the close of the century, that would be one insane 

 person to every 320 of the population, or not far from the 

 proportion of Massachusetts. 



But it is not likely that the increase during the whole pe- 

 riod will be so rapid, or the number of insane at the end of 

 the century so great as these figures seem to show. In all 

 probability insanity will continue to increase until eventu- 

 ally we reach the ratio of Massachusetts or even of Scotland, 

 one to 290. But this increase will be by a continually re- 

 tarded ratio. As the number of the insane increases, the 

 rate of increase will grow less, until some fixed ratio is 

 reached, from which the variations will be slight and tem- 

 porary, as long as the conditions of society remain the same. 



The increase, or in some cases, decrease, of insane by 

 counties, is shown by the following table: 



