RO ee a "PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECTIONS. 
‘ Registrar General’s estimates of population for 1879 ae 1880, 
and especially for the latter year, and finding that, calculated on 
than the estimate for 1880. The proportion of insane has there- 
fore increased from 2°34 to 2°85, and not 2-72 per 1,000. 
The whole of the statistics now before you prove beyond a doubt 
that the amount of oe and registered insanity has greatly in- 
sg ast that the great wave of tapistered insanity is still slowly 
advancing, but that, king the last twenty years, the advance h 
been es during the last than during the first ‘decade, and 
the imerease is at a declining r 
The statistics, indeed, have a first sight a very formidable and 
alarming appearance ; but the very greatness of the increase might 
ell raise a suspicion that it has not been due mainly to an 
shat of former times as to cause such an e. 
English, Scotch, and Irish Cominienoriees in Lunacy, be 
the Statintics of the United Kingdom before them, are at one 
believing the increase to be due ts other causes than an ihoreasiig 
* amount "of mental disease. The English Commissioners, in thet 
‘15th report, state : “We have not found any reasons supportin 
subject than formerly to attacks of, insanity,” a all recent 
_ reports mes have attributed the increase to othe 
The Commissioners, i i d pact, "that for 1879, 
om "necessarily due to an increasing amount of mental Re coe 
ks the Tris h Inspectors, in their. 29th report, also” for 1879, ane nO” igs 
ee 
” and in two admirable papers d 
ogieal mee in 1869, set forth his reasons for tl 
duction of insanity. However we may regard the 
history of the last half-century, it has ne differed so much from 
M4 
