In Italy, in twenty-five asylums in Turin, Genoa, Milan, Brescia, Verona, Venice, Parma, Modena, Bologna, Ferrara, Florence, Sienna, Lucca, and Rome, Mr. Brierre only found 3441 patients. The population of these parts of Italy amounting to about 16,789,000 inhabitants, which gives one lunatic to 4879 persons. Scott, who accompanied Lord Macartney's embassy to China, observed that very few insane persons were to be found there. Humboldt states that madness is rare amongst the natives of South America. Carr made the same remark in Russia. In Spain and Italy, religious melancholy, and that most vexatious species of insanity called _erotomania_, are the more common. In the savage tribes of Africa and America insanity is very rare. Dr. Winterbotham affirms, that among the Africans near Sierra Leone, mania is a disease which seldom if ever occurs. Idiotism was likewise a rare phenomenon among them. Among the negro slaves in the West Indies it is scarcely known, and during three years' residence in the Bahamas, only one case of monomania fell under my observation. Amongst the native races of America it scarcely exists. From these observations we may conclude, with Esquirol, that insanity belongs almost exclusively to civilized races of men, that it scarcely exists among savages, and is rare in barbarous countries. To what circumstance are we to attribute this exemption? Possibly it may be attributed to simplicity in living, which predisposes to less disease and morbid varieties of organization, and to the absence of that refined education which exposes man to the artificial wants and miseries of high civilization. It is moreover probable that the constant occupation which the existence of the savage requires to satisfy his absolute necessities, does not leave him leisure time to ponder over gloomy ideas and fictitious sufferings. In addition to these circumstances, Dr. Pritchard has justly remarked, that we might also conjecture that congenital predisposition is wanting in the offspring of uncivilized races. The same author admits the probability of the brain receiving a different development in the progeny of cultivated races, or of those whose mental faculties have been awakened. Various professions have been supposed to exercise much influence on the intellectual faculties. The following observations at the Salpetriere during one year may tend to illustrate this subject: Field labourers 43 Servants 51 Needlework women 85 Cooks 16 Shopkeepers 21 Pedlars 16 Shoemakers 8 House-painters and varnishers 5 Housekeepers 192 Women of the town 33 In Mr. Esquirol's establishment: