Recovery From Schizophrenia: Psychiatry And Political Economy

128 LABOR, POVERTY AND SCHIZOPHRENIAFigure 6.1 Annual expenditure in Colorado state psychiatric hospitals in constant (1967)dollars per 1,000 populationSource: Expenditure: “State of Colorado Budget Reports, 1923–24 to 1955–56;” inflationfactor: “Bureau of Labor Statistics Wholesale Price Index, All Commodities;” population ofColorado: Decennial US Census with interval year estimates.Note: Capital outlay is included.consistently well above the general trend. Before the 1930s, two other spikes ofincreased spending are evident during the recessions of 1914– 15 and 1920–22.Hospital spending was less than usual during the Second World War, but returnedto the general trend after the war. In this state of the union, at least, psychiatricfunding did not decrease during the Depression but, rather, increased at a fasterrate than usual in an effort to meet the increased demand for care.The same spending pattern held true for England and Wales during the decadesfollowing the late Victorian era, as Figure 6.2 shows. Here the rate of expenditureon “lunacy” and lunatic asylums increased during the nineteenth- and twentiethcenturyGreat Depressions, decreased slowly during the relatively fullemployment years after the turn of the century and after the Second World War,and dropped sharply during the two world wars.