La pazzia nei comuni della provincia di Roma

[1]

La pazzia nei comuni della provincia di Roma. Proporzione di 1 a 10.000 abitanti. Ventennio 1881-1900. – Roma: Istituto Cartografico Italiano, [1905]. – Cartogramma: 37 x 35 cm.

In: Studi sulla pazzia nella provincia di Roma: confronti internazionali / Augusto Giannelli. - Roma: L. Cecchini, 1905. – 497 pp.,[23] c. di tav.; 25 cm.
BPR F 56

Dr. Giannelli, who at the time of publication was a head physician at the S. Maria della Pietà Insane Asylum and subsequently the director, devotes a considerable part of the work to “historical memories”, with a detailed analysis of the hospital’s history starting from its foundations. He tells of the evolution of the facilities over time and the changes made to the buildings and in the administrative organization, also covering the institutions and their internal regulations, the personnel treating the patients and the treatment of the inmates.
He recalls the names of the founders of the religious institution for the “poor madmen” and the popes who took care of them, from Pius IV to Pius IX, who added Villa Barberini and Villa Gabrielli on the Janiculum to the asylum.

The work contains a rich collection of valuable documents up to the end of the 19^th century, from the Papal Bull of 1561 by which Pius IV approved the setting up and statutes of the “Company of Poor Strangers”, which also welcomed the mentally ill, up to the Royal Decree by which Umberto I appointed the Province of Rome to administer the S. Maria della Pietà Hospital.
Much of the work consists of an impressive statistical compilation, with tables and graphs, on the trends and distribution of mental illness throughout the province.
Based on documents from the treatment archives of the hospital, the author examines data on admissions over 74 years (1811-12 and 1829-900); by comparing the various types of pathology with relation to parameters regarding gender, age, education, race, profession and climatic and environmental factors, the author provides the statistical rates for each municipality in the province, comparing them with figures from the other European countries.
The data show a continuous, constant increase of insanity in the province, with an irregular distribution, with the minimum rate in the Civitavecchia area and the maximum rate in the Rome area, with a considerably higher rate of occurrence by type of illness.