Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/58

 44 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

than among imbeciles ; in other words, that the excess of males is most marked in the graver forms of the disease." 1

A census of the insane in Prussia in 1880 showed that 9809 males, and 7827 females were born idiots. Koch's statistics of insanity show that in idiots there is almost always a majority of males, in the insane a majority of females. But the majority of male idiots is so much greater than the majority of female insane that when idiots and insane are classed together there remains a majority of males. 2 Insanity is, however, more frequently induced by external conditions, and less dependent on imperfect or arrested cerebral development. Mayr has shown from statistics of Bavaria that insanity is infrequent before the sixteenth year ; and even before the twentieth year the number of insane is not considerable. 3 In insanity the chances of recovery of the female are greater than those of the male, and mortality is higher among insane men than among insane women. There is practical agreement among pathologists on this point. 4 Campbell points out in detail 5 that the male sex is more liable than the female to gross lesions of the nervous system, a fact which he attributes to the greater variability of the male.

An excess of all other anatomical anomalies, except cleft palate, is reported among males. Manley reports that of 33 cases of harelip treated by him only 6 were females. 6 It appears also that supernumerary digits are more frequent in males. Wilder 7 has recorded 152 cases of individuals with supernumer- ary digits, of whom 86 were males, 39 females, and 27 of unknown sex. A similar relation, according to Bruce, exists in regard to supernumerary nipples. 8 Muscular abnormalities,

'A. MITCHELL, "Some Statistics of Idiocy," Edinburgh Medical Jour., Vol. XI, p. 639.

2 " Koch's Statistics of Insanity," Jour, of Men t. Set., Vol. XXVI, p. 435.

' MAYR, Die Verbreitung der Blindheit, der Taubstummhcit, des Blodsinns und de$ Irrsinns in Baiern, p. 100.

4 See CAMPBELL, loc. cit., p. 146 seq.

s CAM i 1 UK 1. 1., ibid., pp. 132-40.

6 J. H. MANI.KY, " Harelip," International Med. Jour., Vol. II, p. 209 seq.

7 Communications of the Massachusetts Med. Soc., Vol. II, No. 3, p. 9.

8 Of the 3956 individuals examined, 1645 were males, and of these 47 (2.857 per