THE MENTALLY AFFLICTED.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9008, 15 August 1907, Page 2

THE MENTALLY AFFLICTED.

I CAUSES OF INSANITY. I rFr.oii ot:r Correspondent.] ! *" WELLINGTON, August 10. The table attached to the annual report of the Inspector General of Mental Hospitals, showing tho causes of insanity of the patients admitted during the year, always affords interesting reading. " Congenital and hereditary " was the cause assigned in ho less than 165 cases, and senility accounted for sixty-five. In eighty-four cases alcoholism is set down as the cause, and twenty-six were confined as the result of a dissolute life, which may mean almost anything. In seventeen cases (two of which were females) syphilis was tlie cause assigned. Influenza claimed sixteen victims, twelve being females, and seventeen males and nineteen females were put under restraint because of what is called " worry ;" fifty had had a previous attack, and in fifty-nine cases the cause is unknown. These are the larger figures, but some of the smaller ones speak with equal elo- j quence. one (a man) was confined through " adversity," another (a woman) on account of "disappointment;" one male and two females succumbed to "love troubles;" one poor woman's mental illness is ascribed to melancholia, and the woman was overthrown by neuralgia. In one case (a man) overwork was the cause, and three men and three women were the victims of overstudy. Two cases (males) were ascribed to religion, and in the case of ono female seduction was the cause, while nine men fell victim., to a solitary life. »__■___■■—■__■___________