IS INSANITY INCREASING ? ............. part #2 Among the superintendents of asylums, who would be most likely to come to the conclusion that lunacy is increasing, it is interesting to find that out of the sixty-two who have replied to inquiries from the Commissioners, only ten have arrived at that opinion. Thirty were of a contrary opinion, and twenty-two were unable to arrive at any definite conclusion. The Commissioners, with the wider view of the facts necessarily possessed by them, are happily able to agree with the thirty. The Superintendent of the Cheshire County Asylum, near Macclesfield, accounts for an increased number of admissions to his asylum by a change in the policy of the Boards of Guardians, whereby the workhouses have been depleted of chronic cases and are being less used as places for treatment of recent cases. The Superintendent of the Cumberland and Westmorland Asylum also makes allowance for more strict reporting of the cases of insanity, for a change in the views of what constitutes insanity, and the operations of the four shilling grant to all who can be certified as insane, and then he comes to the conclusion that insanity cannot be said to be on the increase. One recognised cause of the apparent increase of lunacy is the fact that temporary attacks of alcoholic insanity, formerly treated in workhouses or at home, are now treated in asylums. The ugly, disagreeable fact, however, remains that, according to the census returns, there is onen person of unsound mind to ever 293 of the population of England and Wales. ======================================================