198 REPORT—1850. 
PuysIOLoGy. 
Suggestions regarding the expediency of ascertaining the extent to which In- 
Jantile Idiocy prevails in the United Kingdom generally, and of inquiring 
into the Causes of its Prevalence in certain Districts, with a view to the 
adoption of some means of deliverance from it. By Joun CoLDSTREAM, 
In all civilized countries there has been, within the last sixty or seventy years, a 
great and most satisfactory progress in the increase of efticient means for the treat- 
ment and care-taking of the insane and fatuous. Few applications of the results of 
modern science have been productive of so much social good, as those which have 
issued in the improved construction of lunatic asylums, and the treatment of their 
inmates. Still something is wanting to complete the agency which has been so suc- 
cessfully brought to bear upon these important objects. Hitherto but little provision 
has been made for the proper treatment of congenital or infantile idiocy. But, seeing 
that we are now able, from experience, to affirm that this widely-spread malady is, in 
many instances, susceptible of great mitigation, and even of cure, when early and 
properly treated, it becomes imperative upon the public authorities to provide adequate 
means for affording to those affected with it the best chance of relief. The success 
obtained by Dr. Guggenbiihl at his establishment for the cure of young cretins, on the 
Abendberg in Switzerland (commended to the attention of Members of the British 
Association in 1845 by the late Dr. Twining), as well as that accorded to the labours of 
other physicians in Paris and Boston (Massachussetts), and latterly, the experience of 
the asylum for idiots at Highgate, all conspire to prove that attempts to rescue the 
fatuous from their deep degradation are very likely to be crowned with success. 
It must be regarded as essential to the satisfactory commencement of a general 
scheme for the amelioration of idiocy, that exact information should be obtained re- 
garding the numbers of children aftected with the disease throughout the kingdom. 
No means exist at present for enabling us to determine these numbers. A special 
inquiry, conducted under the authority and at the expense of government (like any 
other survey for a national purpose), would alone suffice to bring out the statistical 
information sought for. Such an inquiry would, of course, require much delicacy of 
management. Regard must be had to the natural feelings of parents, otherwise the 
agents would often fail to obtain an accurate statement of the facts. In making the 
first move, any government commission that may be charged with the inquiry should 
assume the attitude of conveying information to the people on a subject which they 
must be presumed to be generally ignorant of. ‘The commission would announce 
that it had been appointed for the purpose of making known the encouraging fact 
that some forms of idiocy, hitherto regarded as incurable, are amenable to proper 
treatment; and further, with a view to the future provision of some general system 
of means of treating those so affected, it had been charged to inquire into the extent 
of the disease in the several districts of the kingdom, the forms of it most prevalent, 
and the causes which seem to lead to it, particularly in so far as these may appear to 
be connected with some peculiarities in certain localities. An address to the nation 
at large, fully explanatory of these views and objects, might be followed up by the 
circulation, through each town and neighbourhood visited by the agents of the com- 
missioners, of a shorter circular having the same object, and in addition, announcing 
the readiness of the appointed officers to visit whatever cases may be mentioned in 
the schedules, one of which would be left at each house and subsequently called for. 
It is not to be expected, that however kindly and courteously all this might be carried 
on, returns would be obtained of al/ the existing imbecile and idiot children in the 
land. But it is almost certain that but few parents would withhold the information 
sought for, if only they were assured that benefit to their offspring might result from 
the use of means (to which the inquiry would be announced as preparatory), and if 
they were given to understand that no names of parties having affected children 
would be published. At all events, it may be presumed no more thorough system of 
inquiry could be adopted in this country with due regard to the liberty of the subject. 
__ 4\s to the measures which ought to follow upon the completion of the proposed 
inquiry, these would naturally take their shape in part from the results of the 
