Idiocy : and its treatment by the physiological method / by Edward Seguin.

  • Seguin, Edward, 1812-1880.
Date:
[1907]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Idiocy : and its treatment by the physiological method / by Edward Seguin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    as far back as the third month of gestation; arrest of develop- ment of the inter-auricular septum leaves the human heart homologous with the heart of fishes; similar early arrest of nutrition of the encephalon leaves its circumvolutions un- finished at the low types of the orang-outang, the calf, or even lower. After the time at which deficiency of nutrition has stopped the ascending evolutions of the embryo at one of its low types, it sometimes continues its deleterious action of altering, or entirely destroying the foetus also. For instance, it may destroy one of two foetuses for the nutrition of the other, leaving next to the spared one an acephalus, or only a few fragments of an organized being; or it may partially destroy an encephalon at any stage of development, even after birth, by the intervening of hydrocephalus; or it may give rise to some embryonic malady, destructive of a set of organs or of functions. Though deficiency of nutrition may aflfect the whole being, it strikes by preference one set of organs, such as those of speech, of hearing, of local contractility. De- ficiency of nutrition happens in two ways: slowly, when induced by depressing influences; or at once, when brought on by a shock. Hence the first leaves the child a prey to maladies of embryonic origin, or at best at a low point of vitality; the other leaves him well provided for by anterior nutrition, but torpid, or a prey to automatism, epilepsy, etc. It is true that we ignore most of the influences which pro- duce deficiency of nutrition in utero, but the fact itself cannot be denied. Impressions will sometimes reach the foetus in its recess, cut off its legs or arms, or inflict large flesh-wounds before birth; inexplicable as well as indisputable facts, from which we surmise that idiocy holds unknown though certain relations to maternal impressions as modificators of placental nutrition. Farther, ignorance stops us. On the threshold of the investigation, instead of knowing all the causes of de- ficiency of nutrition, we are delayed by the necessity of study- ing the circumstances in which it appears, and so often produces idiocy. The circumstances which favor the production of idiocy are endemic, hereditary, parental, or accidental. Idiocy is endemic only as connected with some forms of cretinism. It is considered hereditary where there have been cases of