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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    PREFACE Twenty years have passed away since the publication of any treatise on the treatment of idiots.* This period has been appropriately filled by the practical labor of founding schools and endowing public institutions for these children. The preceding period had been occupied by the framing of the physiological method of education; and the next period will be devoted to new studies on the subject. This present time seems therefore particularly favorable for the writing of a book embodying: ist, Our present knowl- edge on idiocy; 2d, The method of treating idiots; 3d, The practice of the same; and 4th, An outline of the direction to be given to the scientific efforts of the friends of idiots, and of the apostles of universal education. Deprived of language by voluntary change of nationality! and engaged in the fulfilment of private duties, we did not take our share in the treatment of idiots in this Republic; but we were never distant from the subject and we reentered it as soon as circumstances permitted. We accepted the hospitalities of the New York Institution as one of our means of study. The superintendents of all the schools for idiots, and one of their trustees, tendered their assistance in the shape of liberal subscriptions; William Wood undertook the publishing, though knowing that it could not be of pecuniary advantage; and Dr. E. C. Seguin revised the work with the double object in view of saving its language from our Gallicisms and from common-place corrections; cheerless task for any one but for a tender and dutiful son, in doing which, he has fathered the last-born of the mind of his father. Unhappily, towards the close of the work, it became necessary, on account of his health, to leave for Europe, so that the defects left therein will be ours. New York, May, 1866. * While these pages are passing through the press we are apprised of the publication o£ the treatises of Drs. Down, Duncan, and Millard, to which we are happy to give a place in our bibliographic list.