On the treatment of children mentally deficient : an address / by G.E. Shuttleworth.

  • Shuttleworth, G. E. (George Edward), 1842-1928.
Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the treatment of children mentally deficient : an address / by G.E. Shuttleworth. 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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    Pure Oral System. No. 2. TRANSACTIONS OF THE SOCIETY. Dec.. 1895 LECTURE DELIVERED AT The Second General Meeting of the Union, BY G. E. SHUTTLEWORTH, B.A., M.D., &e. The Rev. Dr. W. STAINER, in the Chair, On Thursday, December 12th, 1895. The Treatment of Children Mentally Deficient. In an unwary moment I consented to the suggestion, flatteringly made to me, to deliver to the “ Union of Teachers of the Deaf on the Pure Oral System ” an address on “ The Treatment of Children Mentally Deficient.” I fear that in the hastily-prepared remarks which I now have the honour to submit to you there will be but little worthy of your attention ; but as your Honorary Secretary urged, with kind persistence, that my special experience in a line of work analogous to, though different from, your own, might be of some interest, I venture to fulfil my pledge to the best of my ability. Casting backwards a glance on the early history of efforts to improve the imbecile, we find that those who had been connected with institutions for the Deaf and Dumb took a prominent part in the preliminary stages of that work. The story of the “ Sauvage de l’Aveyron ” is a case in point, and as this case is often referred to as having led to the investi- gation of the needs of the mentally deficient class, I shall quote from S6guin (himself the pioneer in the training of idiots) a few picturesque sentences. “ In 1801 ” (says he) “ the citizen, M. Bonaterre, discovered in the forest of Aveyron, France, a wild boy. This naked boy was marked with numerous scars: nimble as a deer, he subsisted on roots and nuts, which he cracked like a monkey, laughing at the falling snow, and rolling