Eugenics as a Factor in the Prevention of Mental Disease

Eugenics as a Factor in the Prevention of Mental Disease
By HORATIO M. POLLOCK, Ph.D. Statistician, New York State Hospital Commission
THE NATIONAL COMMITTEE FOR MENTAL HYGIENE, Inc. 370 Seventh Avenue New York City 1921
The National Committee for Mental Hygiene
The National Committee for Mental Hygiene and its affiliated state societies and committees are organized to work for the conservation of mental health; to help prevent nervous and mental disorders and mental defect; to help raise the standards of care and treatment for those suffering from any of these disorders or mental defect; to secure and disseminate reliable information on these subjects and also on mental factors involved in problems related to industry, education, delinquency, dependency, and the like; to aid ex-service men disabled in the war, to coöperate with federal, state, and local agencies and with officials and with public and private agencies whose work is in any way related to that of a society or committee for mental hygiene. Though methods vary, these organizations seek to accomplish their purposes by means of education, encouraging psychiatric social service, conducting surveys, promoting legislation, and through coöperation with the many agencies whose work touches at one point or another the field of mental hygiene.
When one considers the large groups of people who may be benefited by organized work in mental hygiene, the importance of the movement at once becomes apparent. Such work is not only for the mentally disordered and those suffering from mental defect, but for all those who, through mental causes, are unable so to adjust themselves to their environment as to live happy and efficient lives.

HORATIO M. POLLOCK, Ph.D Statistician, New York State Hospital Commission
The burden of mental disease is each year becoming heavier. State hospitals for mental disease throughout the country are overcrowded, and the construction of new hospitals does not keep pace with the increase of patients. Fairly complete censuses show that the number of patients with mental disease under treatment in institutions increased from 74,028 in 1890 to 232,680 in 1920. The rate per 100,000 of population increased from 118.2 to 220.1. Careful estimates based on statistics of the New York State Hospital Commission indicate that approximately 1 out of 25 persons becomes insane at some period of life. The economic loss to the United States on account of mental disease, including loss of earnings as well as maintenance of patients, is now over $200,000,000 per year. Although much of the apparent increase in the prevalence of mental disease may be due to causes that do not involve weakened resistance to the stresses of life, the load born by the public is clearly becoming more oppressive.