MADDENING PROFESSIONS.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 7920, 18 August 1917, Page 1 (Supplement)

MADDENING PROFESSIONS.

In view of the great increase of insanity during recent years, it is interesting to note the various classes of employment which are, more or less, productive of madness. A French scientist has recently been investigating this question, and his researches go to show that, apart from the terrible nerve strain of the war, the military and naval professions are the very wor t a 111111 can enter if he " ishes to go sane to the grave. Out of every 100,000 who enter the Armv and Navy 199 become confirmed lunatics. Tho liberal professions come in as a good second to the Army nnd Navy, the list being headed by artists, who are very closely followed b,v lawyers, and somewhat more distantly by the clergy, doctors of medicine, men of letters, and . civil servants. The number of people in these professions who become oecuj nnts of lunatic asylums is 177 to each 100,000.

The professional men are run very close by domestic, servants and l day-lab-ourers, of whom 159 out of each 100,000 are sent to the asylum. There is it big falling-off before we arrive at the next group, which is that of medianio', only 66 of whom go mad in each 100,000. And, curiouo to relate, and! contrary to all general belief, the group which is most highly favourable to sanity is that of commercial men, which sends rnlv 42 oer 100.000 (or 1 in every 2,380) of its ranks to confinement.