Causes of Insanity
From an interesting Report on Lunatic Asylums in Ireland, issued in 1862, we find that the moral Causes of Insanity predominate in females, the physical causes to a larger extent in males, particularly intemperance and irregularity of life. The cause of disease was ascertained in 2186 cases: in 323 it was intemperance and irregularity; in 183, religious excitement; in 115, love, jealousy, and seduction. Thirty-seven per cent. of the cases were ascribable to hereditary transmission and intemperance combined. With regard to the hereditary character of insanity, it is observed that mental, like bodily affections, gradually wear out from the intermixture of blood. There was no case found in Ireland in unbroken descent to the fourth generation. On the important question whether insanity is on the increase, there is no certain proof furnished. We know that, with fresh accommodation for the insane, fresh, though long-existing cases, are presented for admission into asylums, creating an apparent increase of lunacy; and we know that improved treatment and care have tended materially to the prolongation of life among lunatics, and to their consequent accumulation. We know also that science, and even public opinion, now accept as indicative of lunacy affections formerly classed under a different category. Lunacy, also, is now less concealed as a discreditable visitation. Emigration has not taken its proportion of lunatics. But, insanity being in great measure a disease of intellect—one connected with the development of the human mind—it is highly presumable that, in this age of excitement and rapid advancement in arts and sciences, mental affections may be more prevalent than before. In a northern district of Ireland, during the two months of religious revivalism, there were more cases of insanity than in the whole preceding year.