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IS CIVILIZATION IN DANGER?

NE can hear the cohorts of professional prohibitionists and Anti-Saloon Leaguers replying in a shrill chorus, “Yes, civilization is in great danger and chiefly from the drink peril." Mentally balanced writers, who take a pessimistic view of our times, may assert strongly that our civilization is endangered, but they at least take a survey of history and refer to the multitude of causes that play upon humanity for good or ill, while our extremist friends. know but a single general cause of the world's ailments. This is, of course, stupid, not to use a harsher phrase.

Yet it so happens that able authors in trying to prove the dangers to our civilization make an appeal not only to history but to statements of fact. And the facts they sometimes endeavor to establish relate to social phenomena which uninformed prohibitionists and others of the like habitually regard as originating almost exclusively in the abuse of drink. Thus, the argument that civilization is imperiled by the liquor traffic gets a semblance of support in important quarters.

Quite recently the well-known English writers, Mr. and Mrs. Whetham, have been much troubled by premonitions of a decaying civilization, and, in proof, they do not merely have recourse to philosophical reasoning. Among other things, they point to the figures published by the Poor Law and Lunacy Commissioners and the penal authorities, saying that in England there is "no diminution of pauperism and a constant and sustained increase of crime and mental defect." They self-evidently set up this claim on the basis of statistics, and if it should be found valid some unthinking writers will be sure to explain further that these alleged bad English conditions have their root and origin in intemperance.

Of course, notable authors like Mr. and Mrs. Whetham and other thinkers who may share their views, do not find an explanation of the alleged increase of crimes, lunacy, etc., in the abuse of intoxicants. In fact, they do not meddle at all with the causes of these ills, and are too well informed to seek out a single cause.

On the other hand, if crime and lunacy and mental defect have become rampant in England and elsewhere, the prohibition host will rise up and explain that the bottom cause is the inordinate consumption of alcohol beverages. But if it can be shown that conditions of pauperism, crime and lunacy not only fail to give special cause for alarm, but show actual improvement notwithstanding an increasing consumption of intoxicants, then it is evident that current assertions fall flat and that the opponents must seek new weapons for their armory.

Let us first cite what the well-known scientist Joseph M'Cabe has to say on the subject of English and European conditions in the respects under consideration, supplementing his statistical proofs with some more recent ones drawn from official sources. Then we

shall examine the same matters so far as they relate to the United States.

In the Hibbert Journal for April, 1912, Mr. Joseph M'Cabe has the following to say of arguments of Mr. and Mrs. Whetham: "At last the authors come to the statements of fact. They point to figures published by our Poor Law and Lunacy Commissioners and our penal authorities; they say that there is 'no diminution of pauperism and a constant and sustained increase of crime and lunacy and mental defect.' Here undoubtedly we have supposed facts which justify pessimism. And here precisely I join issue, and say that the idea is not founded on a serious comparative study of statistics, and is almost wholly incorrect.

"The highest authorities on the subject have repeatedly pointed out that if there is any increase of mental disease in modern civilization, especially in England, it is very slight, and is due to plain environmental causes. It is not proved that there is any increase of mental disease in England out of proportion to the growth of population; if there is an increase, as there probably is, it is only what the increase of city life naturally implies.

"The fact on which emphasis is usually laid is that the census returns show that, while the 'feeble-minded' were 336 to the 100,000 of the population of the United Kingdom in 1881, the proportion had arisen in 1901 to 429 in 100,000. In quoting these figures, however, it is rarely mentioned that the heading in the census-paper was changed in 1901 from 'idiots' to 'feeble-minded,' which would make a considerable difference to domestic classifiers.

It should further be noticed that the increase was considerably greater in Ireland (355 to 561 per 100,000) than in England and Wales (325 per 100,000): a point which throws greater stress upon environment. But the serious social student relies rather on the figures published by the Lunacy Commissioners, which return the total number of 'lunatics' as in 1908, 126,000 in the whole of England and Wales, or 356.7 per 100,000 of the population-less than four in a thousand.

"Here again there is, superficially, an ominous increase. In twenty years (1889 to 1908) the number had doubled, and the proportion increased from 296.5 to 356.7. Apart, however, from the fact that in 1876 the imperial authorities made a grant of four shillings per pauper lunatic to the local authorities, and this had led to an increasing disposition to relieve the rates of removing feeble-minded paupers to the milder category of lunatics, we have many considerations to take into account. Chief of these are increased stringency in the registration of lunatics and the gradual improvement of public asylums, and education of the community in their real significance. Essayists and lecturers sometimes argue as if we had a full record of lunacy for many years back, whereas there is even now hardly any country in the world with reliable and ample records of mentally diseased except England. Taking Europe generally, the social phenomenon of modern times, in this field, is increased registration of lunatics and more conscientious discharge of public duty in regard to them. The swelling of the figures is largely a social gain.

"Experts, both in England and Germany, are almost entirely agreed that these considerations-together with the modern recognition of milder forms of mental disease and the inclusion of certain paralytic and puerperal patients-make it quite impossible to say positively that there has been an increase of lunacy beyond the increase of population, and that in any case the increase must be slight. I would add that a careful examination of the figures plainly connects this increase with environmental causes rather than heredity. In the kingdom of Prussia, for instance, the proportion of lunatics rose from 22.4 per 10,000 in 1871 to 26 per 10,000 in 1895; but in the Berlin circuit the increase was 12.2 to 28.17. In other words, the increase of city life and strain is an outstanding factor. The high increase in Ireland, on the other hand, points no less clearly to economic causes involving a lessening of vitality. It

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is also noteworthy that while our pauper lunatics have increased by 50 per cent. in twenty years (75,000 in 1889 to 115,000 in 1908) the patients in private asylumns and hospitals of mental disease— I recently delivered a scientific lecture in one to a hundred keenly interested 'patients' are now used even for lesser disorder. We see much significance in this. The class which is supposed to be lowering its standard by restricting its birth-rate is not deteriorating, according to this important positive test; the increase of lunacy is among the poor, with their harder economic conditions and their slower appreciation of the need to treat mental disease. Lastly, one must remember that the better care and conditions in our asylums have increased the longevity of patients.

"Professor Karl Pearson, the statistician of the eugenist movement, has at times held up to us the healthier standard of our colonials. It is interesting to notice that while the ratio of lunatics is 356.7 to the 100,000 in England and Wales, it is 354 in New Zealand, 360 in New South Wales, 378 in Queensland, and 396 in Victoria. The position of those who fancy that England is decaying relatively to the other powers in Europe is even worse. Broadly speaking, our figures of lunacy have increased by 50 per cent. in thirty years. In Germany the figures have increased by more than 20 per cent. in ten years and more than 100 per cent. in twenty years. In Holland they have increased by 60 per cent. in fifteen years; in Belgium, by 70 per cent. in twenty years. In France, the figures have increased by only 29 per cent. in twenty years! I must, however, add that I am merely protesting against a superficial appeal in the interest of a theory or creed. Lunacy statistics are exceedingly imperfect, and offer as yet little basis for deductions. It is enough to show that in the case of England, where the figures are the most reliable, this reliability and fulness could only be obtained by a very misleading growth of the figures, and the statement that there is a great increase of insanity is demonstrably false.

"Finally, let us set the problem in its true proportions. Less than four in one thousand of our people are afflicted with mental disease, including light and temporary forms, and certain forms of paralysis and puerperal disease. Of these fully one-half belong to families in which mental disease had been unknown; and one-half of the remainder have only collateral or remote indications of hereditary disease. To make a momentous business of a problem which involves one or two in every thousand of our population, and a

burden which amounts at the outside to a couple of million pounds a year for the nation, is somewhat disproportionate.'

Fortunately, it is possible to supplement the evidence in regard to insanity by later figures than those given by Mr. M'Cabe. The Inspectors of Lunatics for Ireland (it is well-known that this country shows an extremely high insanity rate) have recently issued a bluebook for the year ended December 31, 1912, which shows that the number of insane in asylum (total 24,655) gives an increase for the year of 261 as against 250 for its preceding year when the increase was 250. But the increase for 1911 was 61 less than the average increase for the ten preceding years, which was 322. In other words, the average rate of increase for the past five years was more than 5 per annum, whereas the average rate during the period 1880 to 1911 was more than 10 per annum.

In regard to the question of "alcohol as a cause of insanity," the report states that the facts indicate that there is practically no relationship between the distribution of insanity and that of drunkenness in Ireland. Chronic alcoholism is so small in Ireland that it can have no great influence on the insanity rate.

Another authoritative utterance on the question of insanity in England is by Dr. F. W. Mott, F.R.S., pathologist to the London County Asylums and physician to Charing Cross Hospital. In a paper read before the First International Eugenics Congress, held at London, in July, 1912, he has this to say on the supposed growth of insanity: "The great increase of insanity, in my opinion, is apparent rather than real." He then proceeds to give reasons which are substantially those recited by Mr. M'Cabe.

On the subject of intemperance as a cause of insanity, Dr. Mott makes the following statement: "While yielding to no one in desire to see temperate measures adopted for the control and regulation of the liquor traffic and the segregation of the chronic inebriate, who, in my judgment, is more dangerous to society than the lunatic; nevertheless, I am of opinion that there is no proof that certifiable insanity would diminish to anything like the extent that is fondly cherished by total abstainers if alcohol were abolished." Dr. Bevan Lewis and Dr. Sullivan, by careful analysis and tables, have shown that in the regional distribution of insanity it is difficult to trace any evidence of alcoholic influence such as might be expected if alcoholism really accounted for a sixth of the total cases of registered insanity. They have shown that