S TATISTICS on the prevalence of mental disease cannot prove any theory of causation, but they suggest where to look for cause and they can disprove erroneous ideas. Comparative statistics for different countries are even more valuable since they allow detection of cultural variation in the manifestation of illnesses and in their identification.
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References
1.
This has been done for Italy in the article by Professor U. DeGiacomo. then Director of the Provincial Psychiatric Hospital of Genoa, "Questioni Psichiatriche di attualita', la nomenclatura ufficiale delle malattie mentali ," Neuropsychiatria, 1953, IX, 1-2, 87-98.
2.
Such a contention is made, for example, by Dr. Ignacy A. Listwan, "Paranoid states: social and cultural aspects," Medical Journal of Australia , May 12th, 1956, and reprinted in World Mental Health, November 1959, 11, 171.
3.
The major work in cross-cultural comparison of mental illnesses is compiled in Opler, Marvin K. (ed.), Culture and Mental Disorder: Cross-Cultural Studies. New York: Macmillan, 1959.
