It has been generally imagined that women are more subject to mental alienation than men; this, however, is by no means proved by observation in other countries, as will appear by the following calculation: Men. Women. 1756 Marseilles 50 49 1786 Paris 500 509 1786-1794 Bedlam 4992 882 1807 St. Luke's 110 153 1802 Paris 1 to 2 ---- Berlin 1 to 2 ---- Vienna 117 94 ---- Pennsylvania 2 to 1 1807-1812 Various Madhouses in France 488 700 1802-1814 Mr. Esquirol's establishment 191 144 ---- ---- Total 6452 6536 In the Lunatic Asylum of Hanwell I have now under my care 265 males, and 351 females. It has long been a current opinion that madness is a more common disease in our country than any where else. This may possibly arise from the greater number of our eccentric countrymen that are widely scattered over the globe; and whenever an individual is observed whose manners and conduct are totally at variance with the habits of any other member of the community, he is generally considered an Englishman. Voltaire came to the sweeping conclusion that one half of the nation was scrofulous, and the other moiety insane. However, it would appear that insanity is on the increase; for in the report of the commissioners for licensing lunatic establishments we find the following statement: "Insanity appears to have been _considerably_ on the increase; for if we compare the sums of two distant lustra, the one beginning with 1775, and the other ending with 1809, the proportion of patients returned as having been received into lunatic asylums during the latter period, is to that of the former nearly as one hundred and twenty-nine to one hundred." Dr. Burrows has endeavoured to impugn the correctness of this statement by proving that suicide is more frequent in other countries; now, unless Dr. Burrows can prove that suicide is always an act of insanity, which will by no means be admitted, his observation can bear no weight. It is but too true that in melancholy madness we often observe a prevailing propensity to self-destruction. Dr. Abercrombie's views on this subject are so luminous that I shall transcribe them.