Report of the Departmental Committee on Sterilisation.

  • Great Britain. Board of Control. Committee on Sterilisation.
Date:
1934
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Report of the Departmental Committee on Sterilisation. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    135/142 (page 133)
    133 Classification Pleger described his classification as follows :— {a) Debile.—^Those wbo could get along in the Special School, were capable of independent mechanical work but could not originate anything. (b) Mild Imbeciles.—^Those who could do such work as cleaning, if under supervision. (c) Severe Imbeciles.-—-Those who could articulate, feed and dress them¬ selves without help, but could not be used for any occupation. {d) Idiots.—Children who could not express themselves by speech but only by inarticulate sounds : could not feed or dress themselves, etc. П.—^Denmark Jens C. Smith, The Causes of Mental Deficiency in the Light of Investigations on 66 Pairs of Twins, Denmark, 1930. 6,700 cases of mental deficiency have been recorded in Denmark by the Danish Anthropological Committee. Of this number, 122 cases were found to be twins or triplet births. In 67 cases it was possible to obtain information as to their mental condition. In one of these cases the author could not determine whether the twins were uniovular or binovular. Of the remainder, 50 pairs were binovular, 3 pairs were probably uniovular, 13 pairs were uniovular. Smith found that both partners were mentally defective in 8 per cent, of the cases of the 50 binovular twins and in 80 per cent, of the cases of uniovular twins. In the case of uniovular twins it was found that both partners belonged usually, though not invariably, to the same grade. III.—United States of America (a) Dayton, N. A., Investigation of the Travelling School Clinics of th^ W. E. Fernald and Wrentham State Schools, 1921-1923. 3,553 cases of mental deficiency were examined. In 1,404 cases no information about the parents was obtainable. Of the remainder, 262 cases had one or both parents feeble-minded, and in 142 cases one or both parents were insane or epileptic. Of 1,000 cases at the Wrentham Institution :—In 420 cases no information as to parents was obtainable. Of the remainder ;—In 350 cases the parents were normal ; in 160 cases one or both parents were feeble-minded ; in 50 cases one or both parents were or had been insane ; in 20 cases one or both parents were epileptic. (b) Moorrees, V., The Immediate Heredity of Primary Aments committed to a Public Institution. A Study of the Parents of 45 Cases at the New York City Children's Hospital, Randall's Island. 1924. There were excluded all cases of secondary amentia, epileptics, or subjects with a history of convulsions, and abandoned children whose parents could not be traced.