PREVALENCE.—It would be idle to attempt to say what proportion of the population was insane at any time or in any country of the world until the most recent years. In Massachusetts in 1820 there were under custody in the one insane asylum in the State 50 patients, or 9.55 in each 100,000 of the population. This number had increased to 11.34 to every 100,000 people in 1830, 61.99 in 1840, 84.97 in 1850, 97.90 in 1855, 122.17 in 1860, 121.24 in 1865, 134.83 in 1870, 138.50 in 1875, and 177.67 in 1880, in six State, one county, one city, one corporate, and six private asylums. The number of the insane in asylums had increased sixty times, and the rate proportionately to the population had augmented more than eighteen times. In the United States, even after due allowance for the fact that the enumeration of the insane was quite complete for the first time in 1880, the following table shows a recent large increase in their numbers. Of the 91,997 insane reported in 1880, there were 40,942 in lunatic hospitals, 9302 in almshouses without special departments for the insane, and 417 in jails. There are no statistics of the insanity prevalent among the 265,565 Indians living in tribal relations by the enumeration of 1883. {111} CENSUS OF THE UNITED STATES. _Population_. -----+------------+------------+-----------+------------+----------- Year.| Total. | Native. | Foreign. | White. | Colored. -----+------------+------------+-----------+------------+----------- 1860 | 31,443,321 | 27,304,624 | 4,138,697 | 26,922,537 | 4,441,830 1870 | 38,558,371 | 32,991,142 | 5,567,229 | 33,589,377 | 4,880,009 | | | | | [2] 1880 | 50,155,783 | 43,475,840 | 6,679,943 | 43,402,970 | 6,580,793 | | | | | [3] | | _Insane_. | | 1860 | 24,042 | 17,399 | 5,784 | 23,276 | 766 1870 | 37,432 | 26,205 | 11,227 | 35,610 | 1,774 1880 | 91,997 | 65,651 | 26,346 | 85,840 | 5,998 | | | | | | | _Idiotic_. | | 1860 | 18,930 | 17,685 | 1,125 | 16,952 | 1,978 1870 | 24,527 | 22,882 | 1,645 | 21,324 | 3,188 1880 | 76,895 | 72,888 | 4,007 | 67,316 | 9,490 | | | | | [4] -----+------------+------------+-----------+------------+----------- [Footnote 2: Unknown, 55.] [Footnote 3: Unknown, 148.] [Footnote 4: Unknown, 1.] INSANE AND IDIOTIC POPULATION IN THE UNITED STATES BY THE CENSUS OF 1880.[5]