The physical features of idiocy in relation to classification and prognosis / by G.E. Shuttleworth.

  • Shuttleworth, G. E. (George Edward), 1842-1928.
Date:
[1881]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The physical features of idiocy in relation to classification and prognosis / by G.E. Shuttleworth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    3 THE PHYSICAL FEATURES OF IDIOCY,1 IN RELA- TION TO CLASSIFICATION AND PROGNOSIS. By G. E. Shuttleworth, B.A., M.D., &c., Medical Superin- tendent, Royal Albert Asylum, Lancaster. In the official Nomenclature of Diseases, Idiocy and Imbecility are classed as congenital varieties of disorders of the intellect, and ranged under the general heading of diseases of the nervous system. To the busy practitioner such a description may seem to afford almost as much information as may suffice f<?r his infrequent dealings with a somewhat recondite subject. It will be my endeavour in this paper to show that some know- ledge of the salient features of these infirmities will be of prac- tical as well as of pathological interest, and with this object I propose to call attention more especially to the physical characters which are associated with the principal types into which idiots and imbeciles may be divided. As in insanity, so also with regard to idiocy, the basis of all improvement in treatment has been a more precise comprehen- sion of the physiological and pathological conditions underlying the abnormal mental phenomena. So long as the manifestations of mind were regarded as matters apart from the domain of physical science, there was but little prospect of progress in modes of amelioration of patients suffering from disordered or defective intellect. It was not, indeed, until physiology had furnished a key to the mysteries of nervous action—mysteries in which it may even now be said that those most advanced are still but novices—that the essential nature of idiocy could be understood. More than this, idiocy is in many, if not in most, cases not merely an affair of the nervous system, but a profound affection of the whole organism. We shall find, consequently, abnormali- ties of structure and function showing themselves in the several systems of animal and vegetative life, as well as in the brain, spinal cord, and nerves. To a considerable extent, indeed, the Tlie substance of a paper read before the Manchester Medical Society, December 1881.