353 
1880.] Insanity and its Difficulties . 
mind as a mere function or result of the brain, and those 
who, like the present writer, recognise in it an independent 
entity, must alike admit the correlation of insanity with 
cerebral disease. 
Madness, then, as an affedtion of the brain, is only one 
member of a class all of which seem to be decidedly on the 
increase — the diseases of the nervous system. What fosters 
this class ? Why, in spite of our improvements in the 
medical art, of our sanitary reforms, our advances in do- 
mestic comfort, our more wholesome food, and our freedom 
from some of the excesses of our forefathers, does our vitality 
thus appear to be withering ? 
Not a few writers of the present day seek for the cause of 
increasing insanity in drunkenness, or rather in alcoholism, 
with which we may couple the use of opium, of ether, 
chloral hydrate, perhaps of tobacco, and even of tea and 
coffee. 
Thus Dr. W. S. Hallaran* considers the use of whiskey 
as one of the constant and growing causes of insanity. Dr. 
W. A. F. Browne, of Dumfries, who had devoted much care 
and attention to the question of insanity, considers that 
close on one-fifth of the cases of derangement must be traced 
to intemperance. Earl Shaftesbury, after afting as a Com- 
missioner of Lunacy for twenty years, concluded that Go per 
cent of all the cases of insanity in the United Kingdom and 
in America “ arise from no other cause than from habits of 
intemperance.” This conclusion, it is but right to add, was 
uttered nearly thirty years ago, and consequently before the 
recent progress of insanity. 
Dr. F. R. Leest even declares that “ insanity in every 
country corresponds in the main to the use of intoxicating 
drinks.” In support of this proposition he gives a tabular 
view of the population per each deranged person in certain 
countries, in juxtaposition with the annual average con- 
sumption of alcohol per head. This table at first glance 
seems to support the theory in question, since, starting from 
Cairo, where there is one idiot or lunatic in every 30,714 
persons, and where the annual average consumption of 
alcohol is null, we proceed to England, where the insane 
rise to one in every 713 persons, with an average yearly 
ingestion of alcohol to the extent of 3 gallons. But the 
question at once arises — Are there no other points, save the 
consumption of alcohol, in which the social conditions of 
* Observations on Insanity. Cork : 1818. 
t An Argument for the Legislative Prohibition of the L : quor Traffic. 
London; Tweedie, 
2 C 3 
