INCREASE OF ALCOHOLIC INSANITY 



271 



consideration has been truly alarming. Table E shows us that 

 the increase in the annual triennial average holds good for both 

 sexes ; it is even more accentuated for the female sex than for 

 the male sex, the former having increased its average from 52-66 

 to 125-33, and the latter from 314-66 to 604-33. 



We are thus justified in concluding that the increase in the 

 total rate of insanity is very largely due to the increase in the 

 consumption of alcohol. M. Duprat, in a recent work on the 



Table E. — Geowth of Alcoholic Insaj^ity rBOM 1874-88 — Statistics 



OF THE InFIRMAKY OF THE POLIOE PeBFEOTUKE IN PaEIS. 



social causes of insanity, has reached the same conclusion ; and 

 remarks that if the proportional number of insane persons varies 

 slightly every year, this annual variation is due to the constant 

 increase in the number of persons afflicted by alcoholic insanity 

 and general progressive paralysis. At the other end of the scale 

 the category of senile dementia remains practically identical 

 from year to year.^ 



1 G. L. Duprat, Les Causes Societies de la Folie, p. 49. Paris, Alcan, 

 1900. 



