STATEMENT OF THE NEW YORK COMMITTEE.

In presenting his Paper, Dr. Beard made the following introductory remarks:

"In the absence of Mr. Dorman B. Eaton, of New York, a member of our Committee, I have a double duty to perform,-at once to state very briefly what has been done by this Committee, and then to give our plan for the future. I shall speak of our object the formation of a National Association for the Protection of the Insane and the Prevention of Insanity; but, first of all, a word in regard to Dr. Shaw's asylum, which I visited a short time since. I wish to speak in the highest possible terms of that institution. It is a noteworthy fact that the King's County Asylum had a terrible reputation; but this young man took hold of it and turned it from evil to good in a short time. Rev. Dr. Storrs, of Brooklyn, said it was the meanest asylum under Heaven. That was not strictly true, then, but it is true now that it is one of the best asylums in the world.

The Committee, of which I am a member, was appointed last winter by George William Curtis, Esq., who was the chairman of the Cooper Institute meeting which voted such a committee, for the purpose of introducing into this country, so far as possible, the English system of central governmental supervision, that has been referred to this morning and afternoon. Correspondents in England with whom I was acquainted, taking them all as they came, wrote to me recommending the principle of supervision as it has been carried on in England for years. The opinion of all these men, most of whom have charge of asylums, and who were under the central Board of Lunacy Commissioners, to whom they must report, is unanimous that their supervision was a good thing, and that they would not go back to the old system before such a commission was formed. I speak of this because there has been, in some quarters, an opposition. A bill was introduced in the New York Legislature by our Committee, the object of which was to form a Lunacy Commission there by extending the powers of the State Board of Charities. The bill was defeated by a small majority, largely through the influence of a superintendent of one of the State asylums in New York."

WHY WE NEED A NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE PROTEC

TION OF THE INSANE.

BY GEORGE M. BEARD, A. M., M. D., OF NEW YORK.

While passing, the other evening, through a collection of flowers at an exhibition in New York, I observed a crowd looking at some geraniums. One who professed to be skilled in these matters, told me that the object of attention was a double white geranium which had only been developed within the last ten or fifteen years; if it existed before that time it had not been known in this country, at least to horticulture.

Diseases, like flowers, are developing, with each decade, new phases, presenting unheard of manifestations, the friction of our civilization. These new diseases, or new phases of old diseases, require new methods of attacking them. The increase of diseases of the nervous system (to which insanity in its different forms belongs) is a phenomenal and unprecedented fact in history; neither in the ancient nor the modern civilization have we any analogue or comparison to the rise and multiplication of mental diseases, during the past half century, in Europe and in America. The five distinguished characteristics of civilization during the past half century-steam power, the periodical press, the telegraph, the sciences, and the mental activity of woman (and to these one of my critics, in the London Journal of Science, adds a sixth, that is, the competitive examinations)- are not only all modern, but peculiar to this century, or, if they existed before, it was in embryo only. The competitive examinations of the Greeks were for skill and excellence in muscular feats, and in their great processions, it is said, the places of glory were awarded to those who were victorious in the games that required physical strength and training. The general worship of the intellect is all modern. For all these supreme advantages we must pay the full price, part of which is insanity and the nervous diseases of the family to which insanity belongs, and societies like this that is now to be organized.

Not only have new forms of insanity arisen, but the actual number of the insane and the relative numbers to the population, are much greater than fifty years ago; both in quantity and in quality

there has been an evolution. New York is a great city, but the prospective insane population of this country must, in time, be far greater than that of New York at present. The armies that on both sides fought the war of the rebellion were enormous, but the army of the insane of the future is more likely to be greater than smaller. This continent is to be the home of five hundred millions, if not double that number, and unless forces, that we cannot now suspect, much less control, appear to our rescue, one out of every three hundred of this republic will be insane. At the time of the Declaration of Independence there was in these colonies a population of three millions; it is not wild to surmise that in the coming centuries there should be half of three millions insane in this republic.

This augmentation of the numbers of the insane, and this development of novel symptoms and forms of insanity, are most notably seen among the English speaking people. Insanity is a part of the cost of liberty; it is a tax on our freedom, that so many must be deprived of their freedom. In the great despotisms there is little need of societies for the protection of the insane; where the sane are all oppresed, the number of the insane has never been very great. The Czardom of Russia oppresses its subjects, but does not make them crazy, and the Turks, with all their weaknesses, are mostly sane. England, the spawning ground of empires, sends out her children through all the earth, carrying with them the seeds both of liberty and nervous disease. Liberty implies responsibility; responsibility leads to worry, and worry is attended always with disappointment. Out of the throes and agonies and manipulations and calculations of the last month, two men have been nominated for the supreme office of this nation, to the disappointment of thousands upon thousands of candidates, their followers and friends. A solid despotism and established religion are partly redeemed by this that they keep the asylums empty; if we think for ourselves and govern ourselves, thousands must go down in the struggle. Nature knows nothing of disinterested benevolence; she never gives anything; she may often trust for a time, but sooner or later we have got to pay, principle and interest. As a philosopher has said, all progress is in waves a motion without any advance.

The peculiar helplessness of the insane is a third and selfasserting reason for the formation of organizations for their pro

tection. We have societies for the prevention of cruelty to children, but the insane are children without their naiveté, their innocence or their sweetness; we have societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, but insanity oftentimes reduces man below the grade and habits of the lowest animal; we have societies for relieving the condition of the poor, but insanity makes us poor, while poverty makes us insane; we have associations for the care of criminals and the amelioration of prisons, but the insane have oftentimes a worse than criminal's punishment, without his crime. We have health boards, local and national, for the warding off of fatal epidemics, but death, even at the hands of the foulest disease, is poetry compared with hopeless disease of the mind. Most of the evils of this world can be relieved, even when not cured, by money; as Richter puts it, "To a shower of gold most things are easily penetrable;" but the possession of money is sometimes the very temptation for the charge of insanity by interested heirs.

A fourth reason why this society should exist is, that it may help to bring about the principle of central governmental supervision of the insane, in or out of the asylums, through all the States of this Republic. More and more, each year, matters of minor import are becoming the objects of systematic official supervision; our banks, our insurance organizations, our churches and schools, our institutions of charity, are subordinate to some central authority, or authorities; only the insane, and they who care for them, are left wholly to themselves, in some States. Central governmental supervision, when carried out in this country, as for more than thirty years it has been carried out in Great Britain, will give assurance to the friends of sufferers, and to the people, that the insane in asylums, public and private, and at their homes, are treated wisely and kindly.

Central supervision will prevent outrageous cruelty, and the incarceration and imprisonment of the sane; central supervision will aid those who seek homes for unfortunates in finding precisely the institutions that they need; central supervision will help, among other forces, to elevate the standard of scientific study on all the great questions relating to insanity theoretical and practical; finally, central supervision will protect the officers and managers of asylums themselves, who now stand right in range of artillery which is directed upon them from every quarter,

and against the assaults of which they themselves are powerless. If asylums were perfect, they could not prove themselves such to the satisfaction either of the people or of the medical profession; if your friend is confined in any institution, and is treated judiciously and treated scientifically, you have no way of knowing that fact. In this most delicate of all questions we must walk by faith.

Another reason for the existence of such a society as this, is the necessity of raising the standard of thought and of treatment of the insane, both in and out of asylums. In no branch of science has there been, on the whole, progress more satisfactory, or more rapid, or more widely diffused, during the past twenty years, than in the study and management of diseases of the nervous system; and of this progress the insane everywhere ought to partake far more freely than they do now. You say that this advance should be led wholly, and controlled exclusively, by students of the nervous system, but this is a matter in which every boot-black has an interest. The questions of insanity are not exclusively confined to experts in the nervous system; politics come in, since the insane become wards of the State, and, in this country, politics means the people who make the laws, and men of science must partly work with and through the people, if they would advance this subject. Laws, among English-speaking people, are results more than causes; legislators are servants, waiting on the table of the nation, and give us what they are ordered; they do not have, and are not expected to have, any thoughts or suggestions beyond the will of their constituents. If any of the asylums are not as they should be, if too much money is given for the buildings and too little for the medical officers, if assistance is meagre and bad, if there is lack of accommodation, the people are the ones to be blamed; the people are the persons to be addressed, and, so far as public institutions are concerned, only the people can bring the remedy. These are questions of knowledge, of confidence, and of money; and the money will not come until it has been preceded both by knowledge and by confidence. You say "the asylums, the chiefs of asylums, and the national Association of Asylum Superintendents, should do this work," but this is not their business, and, were it so, they would be unequal to it. The force that makes the body grow comes from outside the body; the elements that make a civilization must come, in part, from outside the race