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As a result of the enumeration in May, 1875, we have a total of 3,637 insane persons in Massachusetts at that time. This is in the proportion of one lunatic in every 454 of the entire population, or 22 to every 10,000. This ratio is in marked excess of that found by census enumeration in some foreign countries. In England and Wales, by the census of 1871, the proportion was one in 574; in Ireland, by the census of 1861, it was one in 821; in France, in 1856, it was one in 1,028; in Sweden, in 1855, it was one in 938. These comparative statistics, while they show that the burden of lunacy is relatively excessive in Massachusetts, serve also to confirm our view that the number of insane reported is a very close approximation to exactness.

The data which we have aft hand, and the means for verifying them, are unsatisfactory for the determination of the inter question whether lunacy is increasing in this State . Every enumeration is admitted to be defective in greater or less measure, but it is difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain the degree of deficiency. The following is a statement of the relation of lunacy to population according to the latest Statistics based upon enumeration: --

There is good reason for believing that of the above, the first and the last are the most reliable, and furnish the closest approaches to correctness. If this be granted, it is evident that while the actual number of the insane is increasing, the relative number, when population is regarded, is not becoming alarmingly greater, as some would have it appear.

Of the 3,637 lunatics in Massachusetts in 1875, 2,272, very nearly two-thirds of the whole number, were inmates of public or private institutions for the insane, distributed as follows: --

The remaining 1,365 persons insane were either cared for at home by their friends, or, as paupers, were dependent on public support in town almshouses and private families.

These 1,365 lunatics, not in hospitals, were distributed in the various counties as is shown in the subjoined table: --

Here, again, as in other classes of the infirm in the general population, we see the influence of migration in increasing the relative amount of lunacy in the country sections.

In the matter of sex distribution, we find an excess of female lunatics; there were 1,704 males and 1,933 females, or 89 of the former to every 100 of the latter. The proportion in each case to population is: for males, one lunatic in every 466; for females, one in every 443.

The ages of the insane, so far as they are reported, are distributed as shown in the next table: --

It is a well recognized fact among those skilled in the treatment of mental disease, that the curability of a case depends to a considerable degree upon its recentness, the chronic insane being especially intractable. Among the mat concerning which data were gathered in the census was the duration of the disease in cases of lunacy. As the result of the inquiry, we have information upon this point concern 3,128 of the 3,637 cases. In these 3,128 instances, the duration of the disease is returned in 144 cases as less than one year; these most recent cases are only 4.6 per cent of the whole number described. Of cases under five years' duration, there were 1,184, -- 37.8 per cent. The remaining 1,944 -- 62 2 per cent of the whole -- are returned as of more than five years' duration.