In memory of Edouard Seguin / [G.E. Shuttleworth].

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

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: In memory of Edouard Seguin / [G.E. Shuttleworth]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    possible to change this condition. No means are known by which a larger amount of reason and intelligence, even for the briefest period, can be bestowed upon the unhappy idiot.” Providentially this pessimism was not allowed to prevail ; and whilst Guggenbuhl on the Abendberg, and Saegert in Berlin, were independently working out plans for benefiting the cretin and the imbecile, it was Seguin who, in the wards of the Bicetre at Paris, was most conspicuously demonstrating the means of which Esquirol had despaired. There is little doubt that to Seguin, who commenced his labours in 1837, is due the credit of priority in the work of the reclamation of idiots, although with characteristic modesty he himself avers that “ at certain times and eras the whole race of man, as regards the discovery of truth, seems to arrive at once at a certain point, so that it is hard to say who is the discoverer.” Step by step the work pro¬ gressed, and gradually it earned recognition at the hands of the leaders of medical opinion. Thus in 1843 we find the illustrious Voisin, in a paper read before the Royal Academy of Medicine in Paris, referring in terms of warm appreciation to Seguin’s studies and successes. “ While we are speaking ” (says he) “ of the men who have occupied themselves with idiots, we should not fail to mention here, with some distinction, M. Seguin, whom M. Ferrus and myself were so very fortunate as to recommend to the esteem and favour of the Council-General of Hospitals, and who was therefore appointed director of our idiot-asylum at Bicetre. Endowed with an energetic character, full of capacity, a good observer, and with his whole time at command, he has all the qualifications for this special work, and, at the same time, rendering a service to science and humanity. Already in 1838, and since, he has published the results of his efforts on behalf of a certain number of pupils, whose condition he has favourably modified. His studies, during a later period, are entirely unique, and 1 trust that their publication by him will not be long delayed ; and I do not doubt that the time is not far distant when he will be entitled by his psychological contributions to take a distinguished rank among his cotemporaries.” Voisin’s prognostications were fully realised by the publication in 1846 of Seguin’s magnum opus, entitled “ Traitement Moral, Hygiene et Education des Idiots, et des autres enfants arrieres.” Defining idiocy as “ an infirmity of the nervous system, which has for its effect the abstraction of the whole or part of the organs and the faculties of the child from the normal