362 



The National Geographic Magazine 



a general tendency on the part of statis-- 

 ticians and those engaged in the study 

 of abnormal mental conditions, to follow 

 along these lines with a view to estab- 

 lishing relations of cause and effect. 



If I am not able to present to you 

 such laws as I originally dreamt of, 

 clothed in all the beauty of mathemat- 

 ical formula? and demonstrating beyond 

 doubt the precise effects of each cli- 

 matic and geographic factor upon the 

 prevalence of mental disease, I at least 

 hope to be able to show why it is not 

 possible to do so, and I feel assured 

 that my results may be just as valuable 

 as if it were. 



The social organism is extremel} 7 

 complex, and any effort to reason from 

 the association of two or more condi- 

 tions to the probable causative relations 

 between them is always dangerous, and 

 when figures are suborned for such 

 purposes the results are notoriously 

 inaccurate. With the elaborate means 

 used of late years by the governments 

 of all civilized nations for the collection 



of statistics, it is but natural that the 

 figures obtained should be applied to 

 all sorts of social conditions, and thus 

 we are treated by the authorities to 

 elaborate tables which show the month, 

 day, and hour when suicide is most 

 prevalent in a certain country, the sea- 

 son of the year in which crimes of vio- 

 lence reach their maximum, the effects 

 of temperature, barometric pressure, 

 humidity, wind velocity, and precipi- 

 tation upon various phases of conduct, 

 such as attendance at school, infrac- 

 tions of discipline in prisons, clerical 

 errors in banks, &c. , &c. 



In view 7 of all these facts, it is my 

 function tonight to inquire whether the 

 prevalence of insanity in the various 

 regions of the United States can be 

 shown to have any definite relation to 

 any one or more of these environmental 

 conditions ; whether insanity is more 

 prevalent at certain elevations above 

 sea-level or between certain degrees of 

 latitude ; whether it prevails more espe- 

 cial!} 7 in regions of a certain average 



Outline Map No. I. — Ratio of Total Insane per ico,ooo Population, Census 1880 



