Feeble-minded
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The term feeble-minded was used from the late 19th century in Europe, the United States and Australasia for disorders later referred to as illnesses or
At the time, mental deficiency encompassed all degrees of educational and social deficiency. Within the concept of mental deficiency, researchers established a hierarchy, ranging from idiocy, at the most severe end of the scale; to imbecility, at the median point; and to feeble-mindedness at the highest end of functioning. The last was conceived of as a form of high-grade mental deficiency.[1]
The development of the ranking system of mental deficiency has been attributed to Sir Charles Trevelyan in 1876, and was associated with the rise of eugenics.[2] The term and hierarchy had been used in that sense at least 10 years previously.[3]
History
The earliest recorded use of the term in the English language dates from 1534, when it appears in one of the first English translations of the New Testament, the Tyndale Bible. A biblical commandment to "Comforte the feble mynded" is included in 1 Thessalonians.[4]
A London
Definition
The British government's Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-Minded (1904–1908), in its Report in 1908 defined the feeble-minded as:
[P]ersons who may be capable of earning a living under favourable circumstances, but are incapable from mental defect, existing from birth or from an early age: (1) of competing on equal terms with their normal fellows, or (2) of managing themselves and their affairs with ordinary prudence.[3]
Despite being
, to be a relatively precise psychiatric classification.The
In the first half of the 20th century, a diagnosis of "feeble-mindedness, in any of its grades" was a common criterion for many states in the United States, which embraced eugenics as a progressive measure, to mandate the compulsory sterilization of such patients. In the 1927 US Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes closed the 8–1 majority opinion upholding the sterilization of Carrie Buck, with the phrase, "Three generations of imbeciles are enough."[6] Buck, her mother and daughter were all classified as feeble-minded.
Representation in other media
Jack London published a short story, "Told in the Drooling Ward" (1914), which describes inmates at a California institution for the "feeble-minded". He narrates the story from the point of view of a self-styled "high-grade feeb". The California Home for the Care and Training of Feeble-minded Children, later the Sonoma Developmental Center, was located near the Jack London Ranch in Glen Ellen, California.
See also
References
- PMID 11623581.
- ISBN 0-19-820692-5.
- ^ ISBN 0-203-45303-4.
- ^ Bible (1534). William Tyndale (trans.); George Joye (revised). Thessalonians. Quoted in: "feeble, adj. and n.". OED Online. November 2010. Oxford University Press. 16 March 2011 <http://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/68950>.
- ^ The Times, 8 November 1834; "A precious exposure of the dignity and integrity of Statesmen is about to be made this day by Mr. EVANS"
- ^ "Buck v. Bell 274 U.S. 200 (1927)". Justia Law. Retrieved 4 April 2017.
External links
- Jack London. The Turtles of Tasman at Project Gutenberg, contains the story "Told in the Drooling Ward".