Geographical! Distribution of Insanity 



IS 



and delinquent classes at the Tenth 

 Census, says about pauperism: "The 

 law which governs the distribution of 

 pauperism in the United States (and 

 which, we believe, has not been sus- 

 pected by any student of the subject — 

 at least I have never seen any reference 

 to it) is brought out as clearly by the 

 census of 1850 as by that of 18S0, and 

 it is confirmed by every census that has 

 been taken. This law is as follows : 

 The ratio of paupers to the total popu- 

 lation diminishes alike from north to 

 south and from east to west. In other 

 words, if New England, or the princi- 

 pal NewEngland state (Massachusetts) , 

 be taken as a starting point, it matters 

 not in which direction a line be drawn, 

 the largest amount of pauperism rela- 

 tively to the population will be found 

 to exist in Massachusetts, and the 

 smallest in the state farthest removed 

 from Massachusetts, while the interven- 

 ing states will exhibit, on the whole 

 and with scarcely an exception, a grad- 

 ual decline in something like the degree 



of their removal from the extreme 

 northeast." As clearly as Mr. Wines 

 defines this law, it is rather strange 

 that he did not discover the practically 

 identical condition relative to the in- 

 sane. 



We have one other state of affairs in 

 the United States that is worth while 

 looking into. I refer to our large negro 

 population. The ratio of insanity in the 

 negro population is smaller than in the 

 white population, being as 1 to 1,069 i n 

 the former and 1 to 505 in the latter 

 (Census 1880). Although this is so, it 

 is generally admitted that the percent- 

 age of insanity has been gradually in- 

 creasing since the Civil War. Berkley * 

 says on this point: "Before the Civil 

 War there were few or no psychoses 

 among them, and such organic degen- 

 erative diseases as syphilitic insanity and 

 dementia paralytica were practically un- 

 known. Today in communities where 

 many are collected, as in Washington 

 or Baltimore, the percentage of insane 

 * Ibid. 



Outline Map No. V. — White Insane Only, Census 1880 



