274 



HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



of insanity. The following figures will permit of our judging of 

 the constancy of its increase : 



Table F.— Incbbasb of General Pboobbssive Paralysis — Statistics 

 OF THE Police Peefboture in Paris. 



If we take the fifteen years from 1874-88, and divide them 

 up into triennial periods, as we did in the case of alcoholic 

 insanity, we find that the annual triennial average of general 

 paralysis has increased, according to the same statistics, from 

 187 for the triennial period 1874-76 to 333 for the triennial 

 period 1886-88. The increase is observable in both sexes ; for 

 the male sex the increase has been from 146-33 (annual triennial 

 average for the period 1874-76) to 237 (annual triennial average 

 for the period 1886-88). For the female sex the increase has 

 been from 40'66 (annual triennial average for the period 1874-76) 

 to 96 (annual triennial average for the period 1886-88). Thus 

 the increase in the rate of paralytic insanity is as constant and 

 as alarming as the increase in the rate of alcoholic insanity. 



III. 



If we turn now to the statistics of the consumption of alcohol 

 in France, we find a constant augmentation of the rate of con- 

 sumption per head of the population since 1850. The following 

 return, showing the increase during each period of ten years, is 

 instructive :^ 



1 Bevue de Statistique, vol. viii., No. 35, p. 275. Paris, 1905. 



