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312 INSANITY, PAST AND PRESENT.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Qp Insanity, Like Other Diseases, Change...
portion as tlieii stated would be one in every 759 , a great increase as compared with . Madrid and St . Petersburgh , yet small in
reference to those capitals where freedom of thought is permitted , and whose inhabitants are actively engaged in the pursuit of knowledge
and of commercial enterprise . Were a return now made , Naples would most likely stand on the same level as TurinMilanand
, , other Italian towns , the agitation produced by the stirring events of the last few years having shown its influence in the statistics of
insanity . About one in every 300 persons is the average given . It could not be expected that such a government as Naples had
would show much enlightenment on the treatment of insanity , consequently no one will be _surjorised to learn that the asylums were
altogether deficient . Those of Aversa , Verona , and Brescia are cited as instances of the "want of proper treatment ; the last-named
is singular as being under the control of nuns of the order of St . Euphemia . But many will be surprised to learn that the asylum
at Venice might serve as a model for imitation . Knowing * the _jDresent social position of that once fair city , we feel astonished that
such moral enlightenment can exist with so much j ) olitical degradation . Most of our readers are familiar with the gloomy picture
drawn by Shelley , in his " Julian and Maddelo , " of the Asylum in the Isola di S . Servolo , which , when he saw it , was
" A windowless , deformed , and dreary pile . " This was written in 1818 . In 1835 the patients were placed
under the care of the Padre Ospitaliere di San Giovanni , twelve in number , who devote their energies exclusively to them . There are
above three hundred inmates , who are morally as well as medically treated . They are encouraged to employ themselves by being
remunerated for work done , they are diverted by wholesome recreation and amusement , and instructed in religion , so that now only part of
the poet ' s description remains true , for" Even at this hour ,
W Those hich calls ho ma the y cross iacs the , each water one hear from the his be cell ll , To vespers . "
And very solemn it is at the dawn of day or fall of night to listen to the echoes floating upon the waterand learn that not even tlie
, demented are debarred from rendering praise and adoration to their Maker .
It has been often disputed which of the two great European capitalsLondon and Parisis most remarkable for the _develoxDment
of insanit , y among the inhabitants , . Unquestionably they both have the unenviable notoriety of there being more insane in _j > roportion to
population than in" any other city . By the return made at the last census , the population of Paris was computed at nine hundred
thousand ; of these , four thousand were stated to be of unsound
mind , giving the proportion of one in every 250 of the inhabitants .
312 Insanity, Past And Present.
312 INSANITY , PAST AND PRESENT .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Jan. 1, 1861, page 312, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01011861/page/24/
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