198 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECTIONS. 
females—I found under care fifty idiot and imbecile children— 
twenty-nine males and twenty-one females. Two families had 
four imbecile children each, four families had three each, and the 
were reported as feeble-minded. I have divided these fifty 
children into four groups 
The first of these I may dismiss at once with the statement that 
it contains six individuals—four male and two female—from three 
families ; that all, though under hospital care, are imbecile* in a 
ey 
families. No information was obtainable as to the cause of the 
imbecility, the consanguinity of parents, or the insanity or 
neurosis of relatives 
In the second group are three children—two boys and a girl— 
all imbeciles of a low grade. They belong to a family of ‘three 
boys and five girls—and the mother writes as follows :—‘ The 
cause in the first boy was my getting a sunstroke whilst pregnant ; 
the second boy was afflicted through my being thrown from a 
horse whilst pregnant ; and the girl from my helping my husband to 
falla tree whilst pregnant. All the otber children are sound in 
intellect. My husband and myself were in no way related, 
neither of us have been subject to fits, and, as far as I know, none 
of our people (my husband’s relatives or my own) were subject to 
insanity or weak in mind.” The letter is well written, and, apart 
from the fancies as to causation, strikes one as that of an intelli- 
gent woman. Some further inquiries served to establish the fact 
that no near relatives—that is, either brothers, sisters, father, or 
mother—of either parent had been insane. Little or nothing was 
of eight ; no known—certainly no 2 any tn influence, | 
and no marriage of near kin, and the group is as you will see, in 
these respects, exceptional. 
In the third group are twenty-six children—eleven males and 
: ona meaner imbecile or idiotic, and belonging to twelve 
Tanilies inw 
four—twenty ive males and nineteen females. Unhappily, some 
2 ag families are still increasing ; but, so far, we have 
as out of twenty-five males, and fifteen out of nineteen females, so 
* L use the term imbecile when the patients can speak, and idiot when 
‘Bama Se power, and are so a in the mental scale. 
ioey, of course, 
distinction is a useful and pence ical one. The degree of ——- oe 
