THE GROWTH OF INSANITY

Evening Star, Issue 12875, 26 July 1906, Page 8

THE GROWTH OF INSANITY

The extraordinary increase of lunacy in London—to be correct, of certified lunacy—is rapidly adding to the burden of the ratepayers and the debt of the capital. When the London County Council came into existence the debt on London’s, lunatic asylums was £630,0 CX). To-day it has increased three times over, and by 1811 it will have more than quadrupled unless the Government come to the rescue of the ratepayers and amend the lunacy laws. Indeed, the County Council are now engaged in preparing plans for a' new lunatic asylum, which will cost - £600,000, and will commence within a few weeks to spend £BB,OOO on additional buildings at old asylums. At the present moment there are 120,000 certified lunatics in this country, and of this number 91 per cent, are classified as paupers. In ten years, whilst the population has increased by 10.8 per cent., the insane have increased by 24.2 per cent., much of this increase being made up by a transference of aged and childish paupers from workhouses to asylums, and by the increasing number of cases of insanity due to abuse of alcoholic liquors. That it'is a waste of the ratepayers’ money to transfer these harmless old paupers to lunatic asylums is proved by the fact that over 3 per cent, die within a. week of transfer, and 43 per cent, within six months. Hie greater proportion of these poor old people ought, in the opinion of the Lunacy Commissioners, to be treated in workhouses, where the cost of mainteuSnce is so much lower. As an instance of the abuse of the present system of certification, it may be mentioned that in the Essex and West Ham Asylums 55 and 60 per cent, of the cases transferred were reported as suitable for the workhouse. —New Asylums Not Needed.— These are but instances of the general manufacture of lunacy cases, none of which need skilled attention or the services of expensive medical experts, as is the case when persons are treated in a modern lunatic <asylum. The cases from Loudon arc equally striking, and were is possible to so amend the law as to provide workhouse and infirmary treatment for harmless and aged imbeciles—for_that is all’ they are—and for cases of delirium tremens, the new asylum projected by the London County Council would not be needed, nor the buildings which are about to be erected. When it is remembered that the cost of pauper lunatics averages £2B a year for each'patient, it is obvious that a great saving might be effected, No le&s than one-fourth—roughly speaking, 4,500 persons—are in the London County asylums directly and indirectly through undue indulgence in alcoholic liquors. “ Drink,” said Mr Chamberlain on a memorable occasion, “is the curse of the country. It ruins fortunes, injures health, and destroys the life of one in twenty of tho population.’’ An analysis of persons suffering from alcoholic exco-s admired to the ‘insane wards” of St. Pancnis Workhouse some time ago showed that in one year the drunken lunatics numbered 213, of whom 50 were sent to asylums and 17 to licensed houses of detention. These co t the ratepayers over £I,OOO. The Local Govemmenb Board have been urged over and over again, in tho interests of the ratepayers, to take up this question of the drunkard lunatic. Since 1873 the number of insane in England has more thaa doubled. that .year there were 58,000 cei titled lunatics ; to-day the number is 120,000. In 1876 intemperance in drink accounted for 30 per cent, of the cases When this year’s figures are produced they will be found to be about 33 per cent.., the percentage standing nearly at that figure last year. —The Factor of Drink.— That the drink factor is a serious matter for the ratepayers is proved by the fact that while the number of lunatics in London County asylums is increasing by 614 a year tile average number of drunkard lunatics admitted during the past three years has been 716 annually, representing some 2,148 drunkard lunatics dealt with at the expense of the _ra_tes in workhouses and asylums. These <l6 cases have cost the ratepayers each year £19,500, while it is computed that, allowing for a three week.;’ detention of the remaining 1,400 dealt with in workhouses only, the total cost on maintenance alone for drunkard lunatics is over £23,000 a year, and if we add the capital cost, which stands at £250 per bed, for the 716 cases, we have a permanent charge of £179,000 as a provision for dealing with the victims of intemperance. Nor is this all. There is a growing tendency on the part of the Lunacy Commissioners to compel the County councils to build the most scientific and expensivelvfiited hospitals for the insane— commonly known as lunatic asylums—and to have them .staffed .by specialists in surgical, medical, and nursing departments. At the present time there is a great outcry against this, but the remedy will not be found, according to the Commissioners, in dumping all. and sundry who may be certified as lunatics into asylums,: which should be maintained only for the dangerous cases or those which offer, chances of recovery under skilled medical- treatment. The greatest authority . on asylum construction—Mr G. T. Hine, the architect of Claybury and other lunatic asylums, which are models for the world—in a, letter to Mr Willis Bund, of the Worcestershire County Council, says:— The continual growth of lunacy, which has now reached an annual increase of more than 3,000 cases in England and Wales alone, representing a capital outlay of nearly a million of money, makes it des.rable that means should be devised for housing the insane at a moderate ■ cost; otherwi e, with the rapidlygrowing debt of the country, it‘will be impossible to build isolation hospitals or do anything-to promote-the welfare of the useful and deserving classes, educat onally or socially. When, therefore, we consider the costly finish and fittings of the pre-sent-day asylum, the question presents - itself: Is if fair that such 1 large sums of public money should be spent in the excessive protection and prolongation of Ufa of a close who can never be of any use to their fellow-men, and-who are little coni fort to tbedr fnends or joy to Themselves?

Should it not suffice to provide them with accommodation as good as they have had in their own homes, with reasonable protection and. comforts, but without unduly prolonging-their lives by the excessive care and luxury so generally insisted upon in the modem asylum. - Sp alarming xs tEeJmcrease of insanity in Yorkshire that; thfe ;' : !\Vest Riding County Council are about to present a memorial to the Government, praying that a Royal Commission should be appointed to inquire into the causes of such increase, what steps should bo taken to, .arrest it, and generally in relation to the Subject.- - ■ _ -