AMONG all the diseases that afflict our fallen world, none is so dreadful as insanity. The wretched maniac not only suffers the waste and collapse of his physical organism, but is often tortured with the greatest conceivable agonies of mind. We can trace this disease back to the early ages. The Israelites were threatened with madness if they disobeyed the Divine command.—Deut. xxviii. 28. David feigned madness when he visited Achish. Nebuchadnezzar lost his reason; and Jesus of Nazareth wrought many miracles on the insane. The causes of insanity are various. Nearly one-third of all the insanity in the world is hereditary. The exciting causes from whence much of it springs are both physical and moral. In France the largest number of cases by far are said to result from moral excitement, but in England and the United States, from physical. Insanity, to a great degree, is an evil attending high civilization. Dr. Livingstone found but one or two instances of it among all the African tribes he visited, but one of the Bakwains, who was to accompany him to Europe, became insane from the throng of new ideas that entered his mind, and committed suicide. Insanity was a rare thing in China under a galling despotism, but since the rebellion it is said to have much increased. In India and Japan there are few lunatics. In Italy, Austria, and Spain, less than in the more enlightened countries of Europe. In France one in a thousand is insane, in England one in seven hundred and eighty-three, in Scotland one in five hundred and sixty-three, in the United States one in seven hundred and fifty. These facts do not argue in favor of ignorance and despotism, but of a more serious attention and conformity to the established conditions of life and healthy activity.

The Bloomingdale Asylum for the Insane is a branch of the New York Hospital. The old South Hospital, erected in 1806, was for fifteen years wholly devoted to the insane. The Legislature assisted in the organization of this branch of the hospital from the first, and in 1816 increased the annual appropriation to $22,500, on condition that the treatment of the various forms and degrees of insanity should be continued.

The propriety of removing the insane to a more quiet retreat than could be afforded in a great city was early felt by the "governors" and a committee to select a suitable location was appointed. The purchase of the present site and grounds, consisting of forty-five acres, was early recommended. Some considered the land at Bloomingdale too remote from the city, and the attention of the committee was called to several other sites; but, after examining each, they adhered to their original recommendation, saying that within forty years from that time it would be rather wished that the establishment were at a greater distance from the centre of population, a prediction that has been literally fulfilled. The Hospital at that early day was managed by a board of liberal and large-minded governors, who, without established precedents to guide them in their difficult undertaking, founded an institution for the insane, which, in its appointments and treatment, was far in advance of any in this, or in any other country. The Institution is situated on One Hundred and Seventeenth street, between Tenth and Eleventh avenues, seven miles north of the City Hall. The main edifice, capable of accommodating seventy-five patients, was completed and ready for the reception of inmates in June, 1821, and was at that time the finest building of its kind in the world. The "governors" resolved to give the Asylum the appearance of a palace rather than a jail, and contracted to have the walls of marble, but failing to obtain this, hewn brown stone was substituted. The ceilings are high, the stories furnished with ample corridors, the window frames are of iron, ingeniously concealed, the apartments spacious and exquisitely furnished with every comfort of the best-regulated home. Books, papers, pictures, music, indeed, everything calculated to awaken lofty and pleasant sentiments, are collected and grouped together in the happiest manner in this building. Lectures and exhibitions are at times added. The inmates are not closely confined here, as only the quiet and convalescent remain in this building.