Charlotte News
The increase of mental defectivism is startling even to who who are accustomed to dealing immediately with it and who, therefore, might naturally be expected to grow callous as to its expansion in this land.
One of the more informative papers read at the recent convention of the Medical Society of North Carolina, held at Pinehurst, was presented by Dr. Paul V. Anderson, dealing with this subject, and he gave some outline of the increase of mental diseases staggering in its content.
Dr. Anderson philosophizes that the development of insanity runs in proportion to the development of civilization. The higher the latter goes, the more pronounced it mental decrepitude, and that is a conclusion generally shared and accepted.
Dr. Anderson, sketching the magnitude of the problem of mental defectives in this country, said that there are 250,000 patients in hospital for mental diseases in American and each year 50,000 are admitted to such institutions, while many cases of serious mental mal-adjustments never teach the hospitals at all.
Over one-eighth of the total expenditures of some states is for the insane—one-sixth in other states.
The expenditures for the insane in some states exceed the amount for any other purpose except education.
The cost of maintenance of persons in hospitals for mental diseases throughout this country is about $75,000,000 annually.
The economic loss to the United States each year on account of mental diseases is over $200,000,000.
The number of hospital beds occupied by patients with mental disease exceeds the number in use in all general hospitals in this country.
Doctor Anderson said in his address that Colonel Hodges, director of the Virginia State Chamber of Commerce, recently made the statement that the commonwealth of Virginia is spending nearly $3 million annually in the care of the insane, defectives, delinquents and dependents. In fact, the goes so far as to say that nearly 10 per cent of the total population in Virginia is receiving public charity while more than 25,000 are actually institutional cases.
From 8 page of The Concord Daily Tribune, Saturday, July 11, 1925
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073201/1925-07-11/ed-1/seq-8/
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