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 King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    placed on the hack of the tongue within reach of the reflex actions ; of the pharynx. He was kept tied in a chair ; for, though unable ■ to design any motion, he would sometimes make involuntary bounds, : which would throw him on tlie floor. There are cases in which the want of power over the muscles observed in some idiots has been regarded as owing to the absence of what metaphysicians call the conative faculty or will; but it is not clear to me if those who hold to this explanation distinguish . nicely enough between the different mental processes required for ; the accomplishment of a voluntary act. We must first have ; knowledge, the knowledge of the object desired, and then the | desire put forth in overt exertion to obtain a known object, or to i change one state for another, which is quite different from the pain i and pleasure obtained, when by the exertion of the will the object i is gained. The quiescence of idiocy may be owing to the want of | knowledge requisite to form a definite desire, to the callousness of i feeling through which pleasurable emotions cannot be reached, as i well as to the want of will or desire to obtain by exertion a known i object. *: In the Eighth Annual Report of the Pennsylvania Training ; School for Feeble-minded Children, Dr Parrish describes this want i of volition observed by him in idiots, in terms which seem unequi- | vocal. “A boy,” he says, “ for example, who is hungry or cold, I whose instincts prompt him to seek food or fire, will do neither ' voluntarily, for want of the power to determine to do it; but will suffer for hours together the conflict between his natural cravings and his want of will to indulge them ; but, when once . moved from his seat by the touch of another, will seek, find, and i| appropriate what he needs. He will not play in the gymnasium, ,1 even when his muscles quiver with the native impulse to engage i in sport, for xoant of power to start, but when once moved and : directed is cheerful and happy. The want of volition is the ever--i present barrier to his improvement.” Sometimes the defective power,. wherever it lies, can be brought into exercise by careful training. • The teacher grasps the arms of the pupil, making him perform passive ^ exercises, until in time he is led to exert himself to continue them. Here it is either the passive movement of the limbs, which by exciting a pleasurable sensation puts into the mind of the idiot the desire of reproducing it by muscular efforts, or the enforced exercise which calls into activity the dormant powers of the will. In any case the usual order is reversed, in accordance with a principle indicated by Laplace,* in his Essay on Probabilities :—“ The principle of the connection of all the things which in an internal organ have had an existence either simultaneous or in regular succession, a I connection which by the return of one thing recalls the others.- To this fruitful principle are related a large number of phenomena * Essai Philosophique sur les Probabilit^s, par M. le Comte Laplace, Paris, 1816, p. 227. ^ ,