The paralytic type of idiocy and imbecility / by T. Telford-Smith.

  • Telford-Smith, Telford.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The paralytic type of idiocy and imbecility / by T. Telford-Smith. 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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    have been born with the lesion. The chief point to notice, however, is that the di-and para-plegia have their onset in early infancy, at or soon after birth; while the onset of the hemiplegia occurs, as a rule, during the first three years of life. That some of the cases which in early childhood were of a hemiplegic type, and in which severe or frequent epileptic attacks supervene, become, as time goes on, more or less dip- legic seems very probable: TABLE SHOWING AGE AT ONSET. Hemi. Di. Para. Total Congenital 6 J'!r 7 First year 6 I 2 io 28 Second year 5 4 i 10 Third year .c . . . 2 i 3 Age not recorded '1' ' *3 23 14 . 5° Among the subjects of these palsies we find every degree of mental defect, ranging from profound idiocy through the higher grades of imbecility to mere backwardness. The degree of paralysis, however, is not always an index of the mental capacity, many of. the most crippled cases being fairly close to the normal in intelligence. The accompanying table gives a broad classification into the two groups of idiot and imbecile. IDIOTS. IMBECILES. M. F. M. F. Total. Hemiplegia. . . . • ■ 5 2 4 2 13 Diplegia 4 2 *3 4 23 Paraplegia 7 2 14 11 11 20 8 22 28 50 In- nine of the cases, choreiform, ataxic and athetoid spasms of a severe character occur. Five of these have well marked double athetosis, while four have exaggerated choreiform and inco-ordinate move- ments, which are very marked and extreme on any voluntary