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TABLE II.
Predisposition, as connected with collateral Relatives.

Descendants.

Thus, of 1841 patients, 323, of whom 187 were males, and 136 females, are recorded as having one relative or more, insane; this is equivalent to 17 1/2 per cent. The percentage in each sex, taken separately, is as follows: men, 17.16; women, 18.11.

It is not to be presumed, however, that this is even a a -sic- near approximation to the number actually having rela-tives of disordered mental powers. During the first few years of the existence of the Asylum, there appears to have been but little attention paid to this particular sub-ject, and hence the records thereupon are imperfect. There are other important obstacles in the way to a cor-rect knowledge of the full extent of which the heredi-tary predisposition prevails among the patients admitted into a public institution. These obstacles may, by perse-verence, be measurably overcome.

Insanity being a disordered manifestation of the mind, dependant upon some disease of the body, either functional or organic, is subject to the same laws as many or most other maladies to which the human race is subject. Like consumption, gout, diseases of the liver and of the heart, it may attack any person whatever, but is certainly somewhat more likely to prevail among those whose ancestors have suffered from it.

Of the men included in the foregoing table, 118 inheri-ted the predisposition from direct ancestors, and 33 of these had other relatives insane. The remaining 58 had collateral relatives insane, but no direct ancestors. Of the 52 who had insane parents, it was the father in 27 cases, and the mother in 25. In one of these, both father and mother had been deranged. It is also stated, that two of those included under the term hereditary, had ancestors, both paternal and maternal, who were subject to the malady, and one who had a daughter insane.

Of the women, the predisposition was transmitted from direct ancestors in 89; of whom 67 also had other rela-tives insane. In the remaining 42, the disease is stated to have appeared only in persons collaterally connected, and in five cases in their children alone. There are 18 cases in which it is mentioned that the father was insane. In one case the father and mother were both deranged. In the case where it is mentioned that the whole family were insane, it is said that all her father's family, which consisted of twelve children, have been insane, and that their insanity did not in a single instance, make its appear-ance before the age of twenty-one years. Two of her brothers, while insane, committed suicide. None of the third generation have yet been attacked with insanity, although several of them have passed the age at which it made its appearance in the second.

In the following schedule are arranged those instances in which more than one member of a family have been inmates of this institution

In one of the cases of three brothers, their father was insane, and one of their sisters has been admitted as a patient since the period at which these statistics close.

In one of the cases of two brothers, it is stated that they had several other brothers and sisters insane. In one of the other cases of two brothers, the family consisted of but four brothers, and they all laboured under the same disease.

In one case of a woman admitted previously to 1844, her son has been received since that time.

In one instance in which a young man was the only member of the family admitted into the Asylum, it is stated that his father and two of his father's brothers were deranged, and all of them, as well as himself, had hernia.

It is obvious that the foregoing statistics are not sufficiently full or definite to be adopted as accurate data from which to estimate the proportion of the insane in whom an inherent predisposition exists, the comparative number in whom it is transmitted from the father's or the mother's side, or any of the other important questions involved in the subject.

In some persons, although none of their family either in a direct line or an immediately collateral branch may have ever suffered from mental disease, there is a nat-ural idiosyncrasy or peculiarity of constitution which facilitates the invasion of insanity. This peculiarity probably exists in the intimate structure of the nervous sys-tem, although Dr. Rush appears to have thought it to be in the blood. In which system of organs soever it may be, it is probably very similar in its nature to that which constitutes the hereditary predisposition, and in this way the latter springs up in families among whose members it has never before appeared.