Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IX.djvu/178

 170 IDIOCY or there is an inability to walk at all. The power of prehension is wanting or imperfect, while spasmodic, mechanical, or automatic mo- tions are common. The touch is dull, less fre- quently over-sensitive. The taste and smell are oftener indifferent than abnormal. The hearing is passive and limited, sometimes only certain sounds or classes of sounds being hee/1- ed, while at others, though the organs are per- fect, no sounds are attended to, and the patient becomes practically deaf and consequently mute, from inattention of the will or absence of any desire to hear. The sight is sometimes fixed and vacant, sometimes wandering, and the child may be practically blind from ina- bility of the will to control the vision or from indifference of the mind to the image on the retina. Speech is sometimes wholly wanting ; otherwise, more or less imperfect. Idiocy is most frequently complicated with epilepsy and chorea, less frequently with paralysis and contractures, and less frequently still with deafness and blindness ; the degree of men- tal infirmity diminishing in the same order. Perhaps the great feature of idiocy is the in- action or absence of the will, though there is a vis inertia, by some called a negative will, which opposes itself to every attempt to draw the idiot from his indifference and isolation, or from the external trifles upon which he ex- pends the little energy he has. When the dis- ease is not complicated with epilepsy, &c., the idiot is harmless and mild ; he has no hallu- cinations or delusions; he does not perceive wrongly, but only imperfectly or not at all. In some cases, even when the general condition is very low, an extraordinary power in a par- ticular direction, as in music or calculation, is manifested. Idiocy, which is congenital or has its origin in the earlier years, is to be distin- guished from dementia, or the loss of the men- tal powers resulting from disease or the disor- ganization of the brain in adults. The latter, though resembling idiocy in its apparent re- sults, is incapable of amelioration. The term imbecility is commonly employed to denote a mild form of idiocy, but by Dr. Seguin it is used to designate an arrest of the mental development in youth (which may result in dementia), when vices, habits, and tendencies have been formed to complicate the disease. The causes assigned for idiocy are numerous, and not all of them well ascertained. Inter- marriage of near relatives, intemperance in eating or drinking, and especially sexual con- gress leading to conception while one or both parties are intoxicated, excess of sexual in- dulgence or solitary vice, grief, fright, or sud- den and alarming sickness on the part of the mother during gestation, the habitual use of water impregnated with magnesian salts, bad and insufficient food, impure air, hereditary insanity, and scrofulous or syphilitic taint, are the most commonly alleged causes of congenital idiocy. The effect on women of the excite- ments and anxieties of modern life, and of a false system of education, is stated as the cause of a progressive increase of idiocy noticed by most persons engaged in the treatment of idiots. Convulsions, epileptic fits, hydrocephalus, and other diseases of the brain, smallpox, scarlatina, and measles, blows on the head, or the transla- tion of scrofulous or other eruptive diseases to the brain, are the usual influences which arrest mental development in children. The condi- tion of the mother during lactation likewise has an important bearing on this question. While among some nations idiots have been regarded with a certain awe as under the special protection of the Deity, until a com- paratively recent period they were not deemed capable of improvement, and their condition was generally forlorn. They were suffered to grow up in neglect at home, or were thrown into the almshouses, insane asylums, or houses of correction, and often treated with cruelty. No attempt is known to have been made to im- prove their condition till the 17th century. When St. Vincent de Paul took charge of the priory of St. Lazarus, he gathered a few idiots, and, fitting up a room in the priory for their accommodation, took charge of them in per- son, and attempted to instruct them. His la- bors, though continued for many years, seem not to have been very successful. The next effort was made by the eminent philosopher and surgeon Itard, the friend and disciple of Condillac. In 1799 a wild boy (" the sav- age of Aveyron "), found in the forests of Aveyron, was brought to Itard, who hoped to find in his instruction the means of solving " the metaphysical problem of determining what might be the degree of intelligence and the nature of the ideas in a lad who, deprived from birth of all education, should have lived entirely separated from the individuals of his kind." For more than a year he followed a psychological method, but subsequently adopted a system founded on physiology, and labored to develop the intellectual faculties of his sub- ject by .means of sensations. The young savage proved to be an idiot of low grade, and hence unfit for the philosophical experiment ; but the attempt to instruct him had satisfied Itard that it was possible to elevate the mental condi- tion of idiots. His immense practice, and the severe suffering induced by the malady which finally caused his death, prevented him from devoting much time to the subject ; but he had gathered many facts, and these he committed to his pupil, Dr. Seguin, who entered upon the work as a labor of love, and devoted several years to a thorough research into the causes and philosophy of idiocy, and the best methods of treating it. Meantime others had become interested in the subject. In 1818, and for several years subsequently, the effort was made to instruct idiot children at the American asy- lum for the deaf and dumb in Hartford, Conn. ; the measure of success was not large, but their physical condition was improved, and some of them were taught to converse in the sign Ian-