The sensory and mental deficiencies of idiots / by W.W. Ireland.

  • Ireland, William W. (William Wotherspoon), 1832-1909.
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The sensory and mental deficiencies of idiots / by W.W. Ireland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    Most idiots that pay any attention to sound have got some ear for music. Many can hum tunes correctly who cannot speak a word and cannot even understand speech. Sometimes we have cases who use the voice to imitate tunes, though they cannot be induced to use the voice to repeat words in order to communicate their feelings, desires, or thoughts, nor even to repeat words like a parrot. Such creatures sometimes show an extraordinary eagerness to listen to music. Some who can only repeat two or three words will employ them in various modulations to sing or chant a tune. In general idiots prefer easy music, but then their ear has seldom received much culture. Some sing very correctly, and have sweet voices. On the whole, it appears that in the mere taste for music idiots are little behind ordinary children. This is a subject of frequent remark amongst the parents of such children, who^are apt to ground hopes upon the special gift, which are seldom destined to be realized. If imbecile children are slow at learning to walk, they are still slower at learning to speak. The lower classes of idiots never learn to speak at all. Out of 103 cases of which I have notes, 36 were found mute on entry, and 67 could speak more or less. The average time at which they began to speak was 4 years and 3 months. Only 4 were noted as having begun to speak at 1 year. Sometimes they began to speak as late as 10 or 12. All these children could hear. It may be said of the greater number, that the reason why they could not speak was that they had no ideas to express. Speech is an endowment which demands the integrity of so many powers of the human mind that it is not surprising it should often fall into disuse in insanity. In idiocy, as we have already observed, the gift of speech bears a pretty well-marked relation to the number and complexity of ideas; but there is a certain class who may be styled idiotic aphasics who remain obstinately mute, though it is clear they have more intelli- gence than other children who talk volubly—sometimes, indeed, they have so much intelligence that people doubt whether they are imbecile at all. I have seen three or four such cases. They all appeared to me to be imbecile children. If they were not so, they could be educated, at a deaf and dumb school, to express themselves by signs and writing, and might be expected to surpass deaf mutes, having the great advantage of being able to hear and understand speech. Idiots who are able to speak generally confine tlieir remarks to the expression of simple wants and feelings. They prefer short words, and truncate the long ones. If asked to repeat several words, they often repeat only the last one or even the last syllable. The easiest abstract ideas are those where sensible qualities of matter are separated in the mind from the concrete objects to which they are attached, as in the notion of hardness or resistance, which is combined in the mind with that of shape or figure and colour, which also comprises two qualities, for the idea of