Causes of Insanity

We copy the following articles from late London papers :—

INSANITY — The following Table of the Causes of Insanity, as they occurred in the county, and city of Cork Lunatic Asylum, commencing the 1st of January, 1798, and ending the 30th of June, 1818, is from a work recently published by Dr Halloran. There were Insane Patients, caused by

Males. Females;

Terror of the Rebellion 61 47
Jealousy 20 25
Pride 4 9
Grief 6 34
Fever 3 5
Epilepsy 33 24
Religious Zeal 11 9
Loss of Property 51 33
Excess in Drinking 103 57
Disappointment 10 37
Consumption 6 2
Injury on the Head 19 2
Hereditary 41 38
Palsy 6 7
Unknown Causes 195 328

This melancholy list contains mournful evidence of the large share which the abuse of spirituous liquors has, in sending many a wretch to the maniac's cell.

The following observations, extracted from the same work on Insanity, hold out an impressive and awful warning:— "The habit of daily intoxication, if persisted in for a few months, seldom fails to create the most irresistible impatience to meet the periodical return of that hour which would appear to excuse indulgence, and to constitute the moments most essential to instant happiness. This, for a time, is satisfied by the unrestrained enjoyment of the favorite beverage within post meridian hours. By degrees, however, this periodical habit undergoes an exacerbation twice in twenty-four hours, till at length all restraint, is set aside ; the natural inclination for food ceases to return, unless when provoked by such condiments as are suited only to a deprived appetite. The countenance now bespeaks a dreary waste both of mind and body. The temper, which hitherto partook of the grateful endearments of social intercourse, becomes dark, irritable, and suspicious. Insatiable thirst affords a pretext for incessant returns to the only means now left to relieve it—till, finally, nature, worn down by this excessive abuse, struggles to sustain the unequal contest, by the intervention of a febrile paroxysm. Where the mischief has extended itself so far, by repeated paroxysms, as to induce a peculiar action of the liver, there can remain but faint expectation of meeting the disease with the hope of subduing its inveteracy. The residue of existence seems composed of the memory of what had been—the lucid interval no longer cheers the vacant eye, torpid indifference as to passing events immediately prevails. It is scarcely to be expected that these unhappy beings can long continue a burthen to themselves, or to those who might otherwise have had an interest in their longevity. Maniacs of this class are particularly liable to sudden strokes of apoplexy and palsy, and frequently to effusions of water into the cavities of the thorax, accompanied with oedemateus and infarcous swellings of the extremities. Upon the latter conclusive evidence of immediate dissolution, it generally happens that the maniscal delirium gives way, and is succeeded by a perfect consciousness both of the previous and present circumstance, as well as of the importance of the change which is about to take place."

Hobart Town Gazette and Southern Reporter 2 October 1819,