Mental Disease and Defect 



9 



been included a few cases of hydrocephalus and cretinism, l)ecause 

 these individuals, while presenting a different pathological con- 

 dition, involve the same social difficulties. 



The social problems connected with the presence of the mental 

 defective ^'in our midst'' are generally known and discussed by the 

 public today. Articles have api^eared in late years in most of 

 the leading magazines and newspapers on the subject and various 

 methods of care advocated. 



Better care for the feeble-minded is a live issue — a burning, paramount 

 issue, if we judge by importance rather than by the prospect of any early 

 satisfactory outcome, in every American state and in every nation of both 

 hemispheres. It is more important than illiteracy or Americanization.^ 



Since it has been demonstrated that feeblemindedness is 

 hereditary, that feeble-minded parents can have only feeble- 

 minded children, people have begun to realize the necessity for 

 prevention of procreation among them. They have come to 

 believe in "a conscious improvement of the human race by the 

 application of the laws of heredity to the human being". ^ Sterili- 

 zation and segregation are the methods most generally indorsed, 

 segregation perhaps meeting with more general favor. In 1916, 

 thirty-four states maintained public institutions for the care of 

 the feeble-minded, the oldest being that of Massachusetts, estab- 

 lished and opened in 1848, and eight states had passed steriliza- 

 tion laws, Indiana being first in 1908. 



As a social menace, mental defect has come to be recognized 

 by relief agencies as one of the underlying causes of poverty. 



The practical definition of a feeble-minded person is one who, though 

 capable of providing a living with his hands, is unable, by reason of mental 

 defect, to make his living in competition with his more intelligent fellows. 

 When we realize that the feeble-minded citizen is by definition a pauper, 

 and when we further consider that the condition breeds as true as the 

 spots on a dog, we can vaguely picture to ourselves the tremendous social 

 saving in preventing their propagation and the incalculable social waste 

 attending our neglect to catch this social opportunity at its flood tide.^ 



School authorities are studying retardation and seeing the 

 effect of the presence of subnormal children with normal ones and 

 the consequent lowering of standards. 



1 "Arousing Interest in the Feeble-minded", Survey, April 26, 1919, p. 158. 



2 Professor Scott Nearing. 



3 Robert W. Kelso, Secretary State Board of Charity of Massachusetts, "Feeble- 

 mindedness as an Element in Poverty", Boston Medical and Surgical Jouiiial, 

 Vol. CLXXVII, p. 487, October 4, 1917. 



