340 REPORTS FROM THE SECTIONS. 
The Causation and Prevention of Insanity. 
By F. Norton Mannine, M.D., &e., ce. 
[Read before the Medical Section of the Royal Society of N.S.W., 
10 September, 1880. ] 
Ir is one of the glories of our profession that its members have 
not only been foremost in recognising the importance—but have 
been the chief workers in the field—of preventive medicine, that 
they have discerned that prophylaxis has a higher aim than the 
rapeutics, and that ‘there is a larger and loftier success in pre- 
venting the diseases of communities than in curing the diseases of 
individuals.” In mental, as in physical disease, there is more 
scope for the physician in prevention than in cure, and itis in this 
direction I would ask your attention this evening. The causation 
and prevention of insanity is a subject of such importance that I 
need not apologise for its introduction. 
As a text for my observations, I place before you two tables 
which have been prepared with some care, and concerning whi 
some explanatory remarks are necessary. The first of these shows 
the assigned causes of insanity in 3,077 patients admitted into the 
Hospital for the Insane at Gladesville, from January Ist, 1869, to 
December 31st, 1878, a period of ten years. This table has been 
prepared from the case books of the Hospital, and I have to thank 
my friend Dr. Beattie for placing it in its present shape. The 
causes assigned in the papers forwarded with the patients, often 
conjectural, and sometimes absurd, have been supplemented by 
more important, not only as embracing larger numbers, but - 
based on an improved classification. It sets forth the assigned 
It will be seen that in the Gladesville table there is no cate 
iti in the Eng 
both are found to exist, with a result that the aggr 
total causes, including those unknown, exceeds t e whol 
of patients by exactly 30 per cent. In comparing the auc 
