INHERITANCE OF MENTAL DEFECT 63 



and control of a whole new class of citizens, the feeble- 

 minded. 



The investigation was conducted on expert lines ; 

 medical investigators were appointed, and particulars 

 were obtained of the manner in which foreign countries 

 and the colonies were dealing with the question, pressing 

 alike wherever our Western civilization has taken hold. 

 The Commissioners divided their " material " into nine 

 classes. 



Firstly, persons of unsound mind, a term equivalent 

 to the word lunatic, indicating disorder of mind rather 

 than any obvious congenital defect or malformation. 

 These are the persons for whom the asylums were 

 originally planned, and the Commissioners state that 

 they are still the only class of mentally defective people 

 adequately provided for by the State on account of their 

 mental defect. The other eight classes contain all 

 degrees of mental infirmity, from idiots who are in- 

 capable of shielding themselves from common physical 

 dangers, to the feeble-minded, who can earn a living 

 in favourable and carefully guarded circumstances ; from 

 moral imbeciles, on whom training and punishment has 

 little or no deterrent effect, to the more hopeless 

 inebriates, who drink, not from deliberate choice, but 

 from lack of self-control and power of will. 



The Commissioners estimated that the number of 

 those persons who, while not ccrtifiably insane, are 

 suffering from mental defect, is about 150,000, to 

 which must be added the population of our lunatic 

 asylums, public and private, of our idiot asylums, 

 and from the point of view of the sociologist, of 

 those persons also who, having passed through the 



