Mental diseases: a public health problemMay, James Vance
Science
Mental diseases: a public health problem
May, James Vance
Mental health services; Psychology, Pathological
It has been shown that the special field covered by the Boston
Psychopathic Hospital consists of temporary care cases. The principal
psychoses represented by 12,252 admissions of that class were as
follows: alcoholic psychoses, 9.25 per cent; dementia praecox, 25.0 per
cent; senile psychoses, 3.16 per cent; general paresis, 6.06 per cent;
manic-depressive psychoses, 10.14 per cent; arteriosclerosis, 3.23 per
cent; epilepsy, 1.85 per cent; and without psychoses, 20.63 per cent.
This latter class (without psychosis) is looked upon by some as
constituting the most important field of a psychopathic hospital. It
is exceedingly interesting to note the conditions which bring such
individuals to the institution. An analysis of 1,430 cases shows
the principal mental types represented to be as follows:—mental
deficiency, thirty-four per cent; psychopathic personality, 15.17 per
cent; hysteria, neurasthenia and other psychoneuroses, 11.2 per cent;
epilepsy, 8.04 per cent; alcoholism, 6.08 per cent; conduct disorders,
4.2 per cent; syphilis, 2.03 per cent; organic brain diseases, 1.68
per cent; neurosyphilis, 1.26 per cent; drug addictions, 1.4 per cent;
somatic conditions, 1.19 per cent, etc.
No less interesting and instructive is a study of the voluntary cases.
An analysis of 1,807 admissions of this type shows the following
distribution of psychoses: alcoholic psychoses, 5.64 per cent; dementia
praecox, 18.43 per cent; manic-depressive, 6.81 per cent; involution
melancholia, .99 per cent; senile psychoses, 1.11 per cent; general
paresis, 7.9 per cent; epilepsy, 1.05 per cent; psychoneuroses, 3.59
per cent; and without psychosis, 34.64 per cent.
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