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INCREASE OF INSANITY

267

TABLE A.-STATISTICS OF PERSONS ADMITTED AS INSANE TO THE INFIRMARY OF THE PREFECTURE OF POLICE IN PARIS, 1886-89.

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If we examine the progress of insanity in the department of the Seine during seventeen years, from 1872-88, according to the statistics furnished by the Prefecture, we come to the results given in Table B.

TABLE B.-STATISTICS OF INSANITY IN THE SEINE
DEPARTMENT, 1872-88.

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During the period 1872-88 the number of insane persons in the most important and populous department of France, according to the returns given by the Prefecture, has risen from 3,084 to 4,449, or more than 44 per cent. The number of men regis

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DIAGRAM SHOWING PROGRESS OF THE RATE OF INSANITY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF THE SEINE, 1872-88

(AFTER GARNIER).

DIFFERENT MORBID FORMS

269 tered as insane has increased from 1,695 to 2,549, the number of women from 1,389 to 1,900. The diagram on the opposite page shows more clearly than any figures the constancy of this increase in the rate of insanity. If we consider only short periods, the increase does not manifest itself so clearly; but when we consider the whole of this period of seventeen years—a very short epoch in the life of a nation-we observe the results in all their terrible eloquence. An increase of 45 per cent. in the insanityrate during seventeen years is indeed alarming.

Having noted this increase, let us observe some of its details. What are the forms of insanity which have been registered, and what share has each form in the increase of the whole ? If we turn to Table A, giving the number of persons admitted to the infirmary of the Police Prefecture in Paris during the years 1886-88, we find 4,831 men and 3,308 women. Table C shows

TABLE C.-RELATIVE FREQUENCY OF THE DIFFERENT MORBID FORMS AMONG THE MEN.

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the proportion of the different forms of insanity among the two

sexes.

Thus we find, among the men, that alcoholism occupies the first place by a very large majority-1,813 cases out of a total of 4,831, or about 38 per cent. Alcoholism, although it only occupies the fourth rank among the women, nevertheless counts 376 cases among the latter sex out of a total of 3,308, or about 11 per cent., which is a very considerable proportion for the female sex. The growth of alcoholic insanity is as constant as the growth of insanity in general. Table C shows us an aggregate of 1,813 cases of men and 376 cases of women during the three years 1886-88. The figures in Table D show us the proportion which each of these years contributes to this aggregate.

TABLE D.-GROWTH OF ALCOHOLIC INSANITY-STATISTICS OF THE INFIRMARY OF THE POLICE PREFECTURE IN PARIS.

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Let us now consider a longer period-from 1874-88-grouping the years into periods of three. We shall see that each triennial period presents a regular increase in the number of persons who become insane from alcoholic excess. (See Table E, opposite.)

An examination of these figures shows us that the annual triennial average has increased from 367-83 for the period 1874-76 to 729-66 for the period 1886-88-an increase of nearly 100 per cent.; that is to say that the annual triennial average has all but doubled in the course of fifteen years. The diagram on p. 272 helps us still more vividly to understand the meaning of these figures. It shows us that, in spite of slight fluctuations which are inseparable from the evolution of any social phenomenon, the increase of alcoholic insanity during the period under

INCREASE OF ALCOHOLIC INSANITY

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consideration has been truly alarming. Table E shows us that the increase in the annual triennial average holds good for both sexes; it is even more accentuated for the female sex than for the male sex, the former having increased its average from 52.66 to 125-33, and the latter from 314.66 to 604.33.

We are thus justified in concluding that the increase in the total rate of insanity is very largely due to the increase in the consumption of alcohol. M. Duprat, in a recent work on the

TABLE E.-GROWTH OF ALCOHOLIC INSANITY FROM 1874-88-STATISTICS OF THE INFIRMARY OF THE POLICE PREFECTURE IN PARIS.

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social causes of insanity, has reached the same conclusion; and remarks that if the proportional number of insane persons varies slightly every year, this annual variation is due to the constant increase in the number of persons afflicted by alcoholic insanity and general progressive paralysis. At the other end of the scale the category of senile dementia remains practically identical from year to year.1

1 G. L. Duprat, Les Causes Sociales de la Folie, p. 49. Paris, Alcan, 1900.

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