You will pardon a little digression, which, after all, leads to this subject from another and a practical standpoint.
TWO COLONY BUILDINGS
In North Carolina there are not less than 4,000 white insane; of this number 1,500 are in two hospitals, leaving 2,500 uncared for by the State. To properly house all these people means the expenditure of a million dollars, and the annual cost of maintaining them will be $500,000. It is well then to consider carefully how this burden on the taxpayers may be lightened. Without discussing the question of the increase of insanity, there can be no doubt that there is an increased demand to have these persons cared for and properly so. All insane persons are dangerous in some degree to their neighbors, more so to themselves. Insanity is the cause of many suicides, while sexual crimes, arson, assault, impostures, are often committed by those mentally deranged.
PEACH ORCHARD AND GARDEN, SEEN FROM A COLONY PORCH
Too often families are ruined by some insane member, the bread winner having to devote his whole time to the control of wife or child, or a crime is committed and every energy and the savings of a lifetime must be devoted to the cost of courts. Whole communities are frequently terrorized by an insane person and the lives of the women and children made miserable.
Only a few recover at once or die, they live on for years not only imbecile and helpless themselves, but a burden on the family and community, a severe drain which must tend to weaken the general welfare of the State.
There are sufficient reasons for you as physicians, men of standing in your respective communities, not only to make yourselves familiar with the disease in order that you may prescribe intelligently for those suffering from it, but to use your influence, which is great, to see that proper provision is made for them by the public.
