Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T18:23:36.616Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mental Defect

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2018

L. S. Penrose
L. S. Penrose*
Affiliation:
The Ontario Hospital, London, Ontario
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

A scrutiny of the papers published during the years 1940-42 and, indeed those published in 1939 and 1943, reveals an increasing trend towards clinical inquiry. Few articles are to be found in which it is assumed that mental deficiency is itself a simple concept, about which little remains to be discovered, and writers are now more cautious in suggesting the best methods of control and treatment than they were wont to be ten or twenty years ago. It is even realized that there are no fully satisfactory methods of describing what is meant by mental defect. Kuhlmann (1941) gives this definition: “Mental deficiency is a mental condition resulting from a subnormal rate of development of some or all mental functions.” The specific functions which are weak or strong in a given case are determined by tests and other observations. As Doll (1941) points out, there seems to be no escape from basing the diagnosis of mental deficiency upon a variety of different criteria, the main symptom still being social incompetence. Standards of social behaviour at different ages have been incorporated by Doll (1942) in the Vineland Social Maturity Scale; he recommends its use in classifying cases for training. The problem of deciding what constitutes mental defect is acutely brought out when differences in education or culture have to be considered. Sparling (1941), for example, showed that American Indian children, whose mean Binet I.Q. was on the borderline between normality and defect, had a mean I.Q. of 108 on the Porteous Maze test. In New York State, Malzberg (1943) found that even allowing for educational differences, mental defect was commoner among negroes than among whites. Nevertheless, as shown by Zubin and Scholz (1941), recognized mental defect (judged by the number of admissions to institutions) is commoner among whites than among negroes in the Southern States. This effect is partly due to the fact that more attention is paid to problems of mental defect in predominantly white than in predominantly coloured populations. Conversely, prisons contain unduly high proportions of coloured inmates according to both North American and South African statistics (Penrose, 1943). The question as to how far mental defect is a contributory factor in cases of crime has received attention from Frankel (1939), who reported that 15 per cent. of 1,000 murderers came into this category, and that the mean mental age for 722 of such criminals was 11 years. Among 309 adolescent delinquents, Stefanescu-Goanga (1939) found 99, of 32 per cent., mentally defective; 47 per cent. of the children committed for homicide were in this category, and 34 per cent. of those committed for theft. Selling (1942) has investigated the degrees of intelligence in offenders under Road Traffic Acts, and finds that although uncomplicated defect is compatible with safe driving, many accidents are caused by emotionally unstable cases with subnormal intellectual capacity, and that such people should not be allowed to drive motor vehicles.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Mental Science , Volume 90 , Issue 378 , January 1944 , pp. 399 - 409
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1944 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, E. W. (1940), Proc. Roy. Soc. Med., 35, 729.Google Scholar
Angilillio, P. F. (1942), Modern Language J., 26, 266.Google Scholar
Atwell, C. R., Bloomberg, W., and Wells, F. L. (1941), New Eng. Med. J., 224, 898.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bell, J., and Carmichael, E. A. (1939), Treasury of Human Inheritance, 5, part 3.Google Scholar
Bell, J. (1940), Annals of Eugenics, 10, 370.Google Scholar
Benda, C. E. (1939), Arch. Neurol. Psychiat., 41, 83; 41, 243; and 42, 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Idem (1940), Am. J. Ment. Def., 46, 42.Google Scholar
Idem (1941), Am. J. Psychiat., 97, 1135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Idem (1942), Am. J. Ment. Def., 47, 40.Google Scholar
Idem and Bixby, E. M. (1939), Am. J. Dis. Child., 58, 1240.Google Scholar
Benjacar, E. (1940), Mental Health, 1, 107.Google Scholar
Bixby, E. M. (1940), Am. J. Ment. Def., 45, 201.Google Scholar
Idem (1941), ibid., 46, 183.Google Scholar
Idem and Benda, C. E. (1942), ibid., 47, 158.Google Scholar
Brown, F. W. (1942), Proc. Roy. Soc. Med., 35, 785.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brugger, C. (1941), Proc. Seventh Int. Genet. Congress, 82.Google Scholar
Idem (1942), Schweiz. Arch. f. Neurol. u. Psychiat., 49, 62.Google Scholar
Buck, J. N. (1941), Am. J. Ment. Def., 45, 559.Google Scholar
Burlingame, L. L. (1940), Heredity and Social Problems. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Craig, W. McK., Wagner, M. P., arid Kernohan, J. W. (1941), Arch. Neurol. Psychiat., 46, 36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cummins, H. (1936), Anat. Rec. (Supp.), 64, 11.Google Scholar
Cutler, M., Little, J. W., and Strauss, A. A. (1940), Am. J. Ment. Def., 45, 59.Google Scholar
Dayton, N. A., and Truden, B. (1940), ibid., 45, 190.Google Scholar
Dennie, C. C., and Pakula, S. F. (1940), Congenital Syphilis. Philadelphia: Lee & Fibiger.Google Scholar
Doll, E. A. (1941), Am. J. Ment. Def., 46, 214.Google Scholar
Idem (1942), ibid., 47, 49.Google Scholar
Duff, P. B. E., and Dingee, R. W. (1941), ibid., 46, 21.Google Scholar
Dwybadd, G. (1941), ibid., 45, 391.Google Scholar
Einhorn, N. H., Moore, J. R., Osborn, H. W., and Rowntree, L. G. (1941), Am. J. Dis. Child., 61, 776.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellis, R. W. B., Sheldon, W., and Capon, N. B. (1936), Quart. J. Med., 5, 119.Google Scholar
Esher, F. J. S. (1941), Lancet, 2, 188.Google Scholar
Farrell, M. J., Maloney, J. D., and Yakovlev, (1942), Arch. Neurol. and Psychiat., 48, 456.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferriman, D. (1941), Proc. Seventh Int. Genet. Congress, 120.Google Scholar
Ford, N., and Frumkin, S. (1942), Am. J. Dis. Child., 68, 847.Google Scholar
Frankel, E. (1939), J. Crim. Law and Criminol., 24, 672.Google Scholar
Frets, G. P. (1940), Genetica, 22, 297.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goddard, H. H. (1942), Science, 96, 574.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldstein, L., and Murphy, D. P. (1929), Am. J. Roentgenol. and Rod. Therapy, 22, 322.Google Scholar
Gordon, R. M., and Roberts, J. A. F. (1938), Arch. Dis. Child., 13, 79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hadley, R. V. (1940), Am. J. Ment. Def., 45, 243.Google Scholar
Halda ne, J. B. S. (1941), New Paths in Genetics. London: G. Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Idem (1941), J. Genet., 41, 141.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halperin, S. L., and Curtis, G. M. (1942), Am. J. Ment. Def., 46, 298 and 459.Google Scholar
Hawks, C. C. (1941), ibid., 46, 129.Google Scholar
Hebb, D. O. (1942), Proc. Am. Phil. Soc., 85, 275.Google Scholar
Idem and Penfield, W. (1940), Arch. Neurol. and Psychiat., 44, 421.Google Scholar
Hecker, A. O., Plesset, M. R., and Grana, P. C. (1942), Am. J. Psychiat., 99, 33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hess, L. (1943), J. Ment. Dis., 97, 423.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Himwich, H. E., and Fazekas, J. F. (1940), Arch. Neurol. and Psychiat., 44, 1213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hobbs, G. E. (1941), Am. J. Psychiat., 98, 447.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodgson, G. A. (1941), Lancet, ii, 791.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horseield, E. (1942), Am. J. Ment. Def., 46, 533.Google Scholar
Humphreys, E. J. (1940), Psychiat. Quart., 14, 231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Idem, Vassaf, E., Menzel, A., and Howe, S. A. L. (1943), Am. J. Ment. Def., 47, 450.Google Scholar
Ironside, R. (1940), J. Neurol. Psychiat., 3 (n.s.), 329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Idem and Hill, D. (1941), J. Ment. Sci., 87, 631.Google Scholar
Jervis, G. A. (1941), Am. J. Dis. Child., 61, 327.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Idem (1942a), Arch. Neurol. Psychiat., 47, 943.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Idem (1942b), Am. J. Ment. Def., 46, 459.Google Scholar
Idem (1943), ibid., 47, 364.Google Scholar
Idem, Block, R. J., Bolling, D., and Kanze, E. (1940), J. Biol. Chem., 134, 105 and 567.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kallman, F. J., Barrera, S. E., and Metzger, H. (1940), Am. J. Ment. Def., 46, 25.Google Scholar
Kallman, F. J., Barrera, S. E., Koch, P. H., and Kellet, D. M. (1941), ibid., 46, 514.Google Scholar
Kanner, L. (1942), Am. J. Psychiat., 99, 17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kennedy, F. (1942), ibid., 99, 13.Google Scholar
Kephart, N. C. (1939), Proc. Am. Assoc. Ment. Def., 44, 216.Google Scholar
Kondritzer, A. A. (1940), Proc. Soc. Exp. Biol. Med., 44, 404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuhlmann, F. (1941), Am. J. Ment. Def., 46, 206.Google Scholar
Maas, O. (1937), Brain, 60, 498.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Idem and Paterson, A. S. (1943), ibid., 66, 55.Google Scholar
McKaye, L. (1936), Am. J. Dis. Child., 52, 141.Google Scholar
Malzberg, B. (1943), Am. J. Ment. Def., 47, 326.Google Scholar
Maxfield, F. N. (1941), ibid., 45, 358.Google Scholar
Moskowitz, H. (1941), ibid., 45, 540.Google Scholar
Muller, H. J. (1941), Cold Spring Harbor Symposia, 9, 290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Munro, T. A. (1940), Proc. Seventh Int. Genet. Congress, 223.Google Scholar
Murphy, D. P. (1939), Congenital Malformations. Univ. of Pennsylvania Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Idem and Bowes, A. D. (1939), Am. J. Obst. and Gynec., 37, 460.Google Scholar
Murphy, D. P., Shirlock, M. E., and Doll, E. A. (1942), Am. J. Roentgen. and Rod. Therapy, 48, 356.Google Scholar
Myers, C. S. (1942), Lancet, ii, 591.Google Scholar
Norman, R. M., and Wood, N. (1941), J. Neurol. and Psychiat., 4 (n.s.), 175.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nugent, M. (1940), Am. J. Ment. Def., 45, 104.Google Scholar
Nussey, and Miller, (1939), Brit. Med. J., i, 822.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Penrose, L. S. (1943), Am. J. Ment. Def., 47, 462.Google Scholar
Idem (1939), J. Ment. Sci., 85, 1141.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Idem (1940), Trans. Roy. Soc. Can., 34, Sect. (5), 93.Google Scholar
Idem (1941), ibid., 85, Sect. (5), 81.Google Scholar
Idem and Pugh, C. E. M. (1933), J. Ment. Sci., 85, 1151.Google Scholar
Preda, G., and Mates, E. (1939), Bull. Soc. Psychol. Med., 6, 33.Google Scholar
Price, B., and Halperin, S. L. (1940), Am. J. Ment. Def., 45, 134.Google Scholar
Pugh, C. E. M. (1940), J. Ment. Sci., 86, 244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ravin, A., and Waring, J. J. (1939), Am. J. Med. Sci., 197, 59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, J. A. F. (1937), Brit. Med. J., 2, 1213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Idem (1940a), Annals of Eugenics, 10, 293.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Idem (1940b), Introduction to Medical Genetics. London.Google Scholar
Ross, J., Hawke, W. A., and Brown, A. (1941), Arch. Dis. Child., 16, 71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rudolf, G. de M. (1941), Brit. J. Med. Psychol., 18, 338.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Selling, L. S. (1042), Am. J. Psychiat., 98, 834.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shafar, J. (1941), Brit. J. Radiol., 14, 396.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sirkin, J., and Lyons, W. F. (1941), Am. J. Ment. Def., 46, 74.Google Scholar
Snyder, L. H. (1940), Principles of Heredity (2nd ed.). New York: D. C. Heath & Co.Google Scholar
Sparling, M. E. (1941), Am. J. Ment. Def., 46, 60.Google Scholar
Stefanescu-Goanga, F. (1939), Rev. Psihol., 2, 221.Google Scholar
Stewart, R. M. (1941), J. Ment. Sci., 87, 600.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Idem (1942), Proc. Roy. Soc. Med., 36, 25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sutherland, J. A. (1941), Lancet, ii, 366.Google Scholar
Van Epps, C., and Kerr, M. D. (1940), Radiology, 35, 160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Werner, H., and Strauss, A. A. (1941), J. Abn. Soc. Psychol., 36, 236.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitnall, S. E., and Norman, R. M. (1940), Brit. J. Ophth., 24, 229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolff, C., and Rollin, H. (1942), J. Ment. Sci., 88, 415.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zubin, J., and Scholz, G. C. (1941), Am. J. Ment. Def., 45, 540.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.