The percentage of the foreign born as shown by the first admissions to the Massachusetts state hospitals during the last eleven years was as follows:—
| 1910 | 44.88 | per | cent |
| 1911 | 44.65 | " | " |
| 1912 | 44.40 | " | " |
| 1913 | 45.30 | " | " |
| 1914 | 45.75 | " | " |
| 1915 | 45.59 | " | " |
| 1916 | 43.87 | " | " |
| 1917 | 43.40 | " | " |
| 1918 | 43.07 | " | " |
| 1919 | 43.38 | " | " |
| 1920 | 42.18 | " | " |
The percentage of aliens as shown by the first admissions to Massachusetts hospitals was 26.40 per cent in 1918, 27.54 in 1919 and 22.73 per cent in 1920.
Studies of the population of the New York state hospitals show that the aliens have for a period of several years constituted nearly thirty per cent of the entire number. The influence which immigration may have had in determining the relative frequency of various psychoses in our institutions is an exceedingly interesting question. In speaking of the susceptibility of certain races to special types of disease, Salmon[74] says, "This is particularly true of mental diseases, for if racial characteristics profoundly affect political, social and religious ideals we must look for a similar influence upon the individual makeup which so largely determines trends in mental disease. All those who are familiar with mental diseases among the Japanese in California testify to the remarkable tendency to suicide in that race, not only in depressed conditions but in conditions in which suicidal tendencies, in other races, are not frequent. This is in accordance with the general attitude of the Japanese toward self-destruction. The strong tendency to delusional trends of a persecutory nature in West Indian negroes, the frequency with which we find hidden sexual complexes among the Hebrews and the remarkable prevalence of mutism among Poles, even in psychoses in which mutism is not a common symptom, are familiar examples of the influence of racial traits upon mental diseases." As the result of a special study of this subject Salmon has reached the following conclusions: "1. The psychoses more prevalent among Hebrews than in the native stock are manic depressive psychosis, dementia praecox, the psychoneuroses, and psychoses associated with constitutional inferiority. 2. The absence of alcoholic psychoses among Hebrews is the most striking clinical fact in connection with immigration. In 1909 there were but 3 patients with alcoholic psychoses in 448 Hebrews admitted to all the New York state hospitals. 3. The very high prevalence of general paresis among Italians bears a direct relation to the high prevalence of venereal diseases among Italians in New York.... 4. Italians show a freedom from alcoholic psychoses second only to Hebrews. 5. Italians exceed the native born in the prevalence of epileptic psychoses, infective exhaustive psychoses and dementia praecox.... 7. From the data available, alcoholic psychoses are found to be more prevalent among Slavs than among any other races of the new immigration, but not as prevalent as among the native-born. 8. General paresis is nearly twice as prevalent among Slavs as in the native-born, but not so prevalent as among the Italians. Dementia praecox is more prevalent among the Slavs than among the native-born."
The racial representation as shown by statistics of first admissions is fairly constant in New York state, at least, as is shown by the following table of percentages:—
| Race | 1916 | 1917 | 1918 | 1919 | 1920 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| African | 3.1 | 3.3 | 3.9 | 3.7 | 3.8 |
| English | 7.6 | 5.7 | 5.1 | 4.9 | 5.1 |
| German | 14.3 | 13.5 | 12.5 | 11.7 | 11.7 |
| Hebrew | 12.2 | 11.6 | 12.2 | 11.7 | 10.5 |
| Irish | 19.8 | 19.5 | 17.3 | 16.7 | 16.5 |
| Italian | 6.3 | 6.9 | 7.1 | 8.1 | 8.5 |
| Magyar | .8 | .9 | 1.0 | .7 | .8 |
| Scandinavian | 1.9 | 2.2 | 2.2 | 2.1 | 2.0 |
| Slavonic | 5.7 | 5.8 | 5.7 | 5.4 | 6.0 |
| Mixed | 12.4 | 16.0 | 23.6 | 23.3 | 24.1 |
| Others | 5.7 | 5.6 | 4.4 | 4.9 | 6.2 |
| Unascertained | 10.2 | 9.0 | 5.0 | 6.9 | 4.8 |
The 1916 report of the Commission on Mental Diseases shows the following analysis of the nativity of the 34,300 first admissions to the Massachusetts state hospitals covering a period of thirteen years (1904-1916):—
| Birthplace | Number |
|---|---|
| United States | 18,757 |
| Africa | 7 |
| Armenia | 68 |
| Austria | 319 |
| Azores | 187 |
| Canada | 3,315 |
| England | 1,359 |
| Finland | 250 |
| Germany | 486 |
| Greece | 129 |
| Ireland | 5,033 |
| Italy | 719 |
| Nova Scotia | 136 |
| Poland | 190 |
| Russia | 1,139 |
| Scotland | 381 |
| Sweden | 539 |
| Turkey | 100 |
It should be borne in mind that these statistics represent birthplace and not race. An analysis of the above figures shows that 54.68 per cent were born in the United States and 44.42 per cent in other countries. Of the other countries represented, 3.96 per cent were born in England, 3.32 per cent in Russia, 9.63 in Canada and 14.67 per cent in Ireland.