New facts and remarks concerning idiocy : being a lecture delivered before the New York Medical Journal Association, October 15, 1869 / by Edward Seguin.
- Edward Constant Seguin
- Date:
- 1870
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: New facts and remarks concerning idiocy : being a lecture delivered before the New York Medical Journal Association, October 15, 1869 / by Edward Seguin. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Brandeis University Libraries, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Robert D. Farber University Archives & Special Collections Department, Brandeis University.
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![lated points of diagnosis, pathology, therapeutics, and even normal physiology. But these limited observations are limited only in regard to the point to be enlightened. In every other respect, to be valuable, they must be as thorough as the most extensive monographs ; otherwise some important elements of judgment would escape. For instance, if one has prosecuted for months the development of a missing function, as if he had given years of attention to a general training, it is equally im- portant, in either case, that he keeps notes complete of the gen- eral disabilities, of subsequent general progress, and eventually of the anatomical and histological condition of the different nerve tissues at least. For these and other reasons, the typical cases destined to serve as sample material for the philosophical history of idiocy have to be chosen as early as possible, and worked eventually through several generations of observers. Otherwise there is treatment, but no observation, and, therefore, no experience. Idiots are improved, the knowledge of idiocy is not; and, for fear .that constant familiarity with the sight of idiots, in all their modalities, or modes of being, would blunt the senses of the standard man in the mind of the observer, we consider it paramount that any investigation made on idiocy upon idiots be conducted pari passu upon normal subjects with the strictest similarity ; at play, at school, on the sick list, or on the cold slab, when possible ; everywhere, near the abnormal, the nor- mal ; next to the shadow, the light. This study and parallelism lead us to new inquiries : 1. What Causes Produce Idiocy and Collateral Affections]— Though no general question is so identified with the former researches relating to individual idiots, yet it has not received, so far as we know, that authoritative solution that would pre- vent much evil and produce much more good. It is evidently one of those questions that could not be answered by indirect prospecting, and must be inquired into with the direct object in view of eradicating idiocy itself from our midst, if possible. But is not everything good possible to men ? And why did they conglomerate in families, tribes, and nations, and why do they try to unify now in one humanity, but to extend to larger](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20997656_0029.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
