Plan To Check Insanity

Apropos of the reported discovery by Dr. Arthur Macdonald of Washington of the cause of the increase in insanity. which has been cabled to London, an article by W. J. Corbet, which appears In the January issue of the Westminster Review, comes pat:

"From year to year, from decade to decade, from generation to generation," says Mr. Corbet, "in spite of every effort made to stop the ravages of the disease, the insane continue to increase in great numbers. The leaven spreads annually, with cumulative force apparently, under the influence of the natural law of reproduction. The questlon has to be faced, How long will it take before the whole mass is leavened?"

The lunacy returns show an appalling increase during the last generation and a half. The number of registered lunatics in the United Kingdom In 1859 was 47,992; in 1902 the number had increased to 148,631, of these 110,713 being in England alone, where the yearly increase works out about 2,000 victims.

The official view is that the increase is more apparent than real, that the case is rather one of accumulation- that if there is an increase is not out of proportion to the increase of population. Mr. Corbet repels this view wlth Idnignation and scorn. The present system, he declares, is sadly wanting, and he maintains that the marriage of a person who is or has been insane should be prevented by law. He thinks, moreover, that the question is so important that an international conference of qualified persons should be called to consider it.