The individuals who have been admitted as inmates of the Hospital are from fifty-one trades or occupations, exclusive of females. It is difficult to estimate the comparative number from each distinct occupation with the individuals who pursue these employments in the community; nothing of any great importance can yet be gathered from the facts here presented. It would seem, that when we find on the list thirty-nine merchants, fourteen printers, sixteen blacksmiths, ten tailors, thirty-one carpenters, twenty-five teachers, and only four painters, four cabinet makers, three tanners, two inn keepers, five bricklayers, three physicians, and one hatter, that the per cents of those following these last occupations must be decidedly less than those of the former; but the records of all the institutions in the Commonwealth must be consulted, before any definite information can be obtained.

Those employments which have the greatest stability and the least excitement are most conducive to health; and those occupations which lead people to congregate, which are quite profitable when employment is had, but in which employment is not steady, tend greatly to irregularity of life, licentious habits, and consequent disease.

On the whole, no inference can be drawn from the table that any one occupation, in itself considered, has any particular tendency to produce insanity.

Exemption from this, as from many other diseases, is best secured by a calm dispassionate course of life, strict temperance in diet and drink, steady industry, and a cheerful temper.

The Hospital has been remarkably exempt from acute febrile diseases and inflammations; we have had a few cases of erysepelas, one of which proved fatal; a few cases of scarlet fever, all of which recovered. No epidemic has ever visited us; and to-day, while this sheet is being written, there is but a single individual who is not able to take regular meals with a comfortable appetite. Ninety deaths, in the whole, have occurred, of twelve hundred patients who have now been in the Hospital; of these, more than eighty have been the result of chronic disease.

Many cases of marasmus were far advanced before they came to the Hospital; and the consumptions, epilepsies, and other chronic diseases had their origin before insanity commenced.

In the Hanwell institution for the insane, near London, with eleven hundred and eighty-three patients, in five years, they had three hundred and twenty-six deaths. In our institution, with eleven hundred and ninety-six patients at the close of the year, thirteen more than the foreign institution, we have had ninety deaths, less by two hundred and thirty-six.

TABLE 11.

Showing the duration of Insanity, the ages and civil state of patients admitted from December 1st, 1933, to November 30th, 1840.

By the table it will be seen that the number of admissions, of duration less than one year, has been, the past year, seventyfive; which is about the average for the last four years. A majority of the cases are old, having existed more than one year.

At the close of the year, there remained twenty-eight cases only that are called recent, or of less duration than one year, -a less proportional number than we have had since 1836, when only eleven recent cases remained.

The number of single persons who were never married, that have been in the Hospital from the commencement has been six hundred and thirty-three; the number married, at the time of their residence, four hundred and forty-five; the number of widows seventy-five, and widowers forty-three.

TABLE 12.

Showing the condition of old and permanent residents who have been

Of the 667 patients that have been in the Hospital since the chapel was opened, 579 have attended religious worship more or less, and 88 have not attended.

It is now about eight years since individuals, now in the Hospital, became permanent residents. Taking the first one hundred and one, that remained on our records at the close of the year, it will be seen by the table, that seventy-three have improved in health and habits, of whom thirty-four are males, and thirty-nine are females; of these, forty-two have manifested decided improvement in mind, although they have not recovered, of whom nineteen are males, and twenty-three are females; thirty-eight have remained nearly stationary, or have gradually grown worse, of whom twenty-five are males, and thirteen are females. It is proper to remark that most of these thirtyeight are, in all respects, comfortable; many labor regularly about the establishment, and nearly all observe the decencies of life; the habits of many of them were never bad.

In the month of November, 1837, we opened a chapel for religious worship on the Sabbath. Since that time, there have been in the Hospital, six hundred and sixty-seven patients, of whom five hundred and seventy-nine have attended the religious meetings more or less, and eighty-eight have not attended: a much greater proportion, it is believed, than attend to such solemnities in the community at large. Of the one hundred old cases recorded in the table, nearly ninety per cent. have attended chapel more or less, and many very constantly.

TABLE 13.

Showing the comparative Curability of Insanity, treated at different periods of disease.