An appeal on behalf of the idiotic and imbecile children of Ireland / by George H. Kidd.

  • Kidd, George H.
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An appeal on behalf of the idiotic and imbecile children of Ireland / by George H. Kidd. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    view has been taken by Dr. Wise,“ who, at the beginning of the present year, published a pamphlet drawing attention to the neglected condition of the idiotic and imbecile children of his neighbourhood. d.^he asylums of Iiaigland and Scotland have, however, been left to the care of the humane and benevolent; and it seems evident that it anything is to be done in Treland for the relief of the most afflicted of our fellow-beings, it must be by the private contributions of those who have been blessed with the means and dispositions to aid in the work. In a pamphlet recently published by INIr. C. Brady, he gives an account of a visit he had made, in company with Mr. Piin and Dr. Wharton, to the English and Scotch institutions, and ably advo- cates the claims of the feeble-minded and idiotic for strenuous^ efforts for the amelioration of their condition and in the pages of The Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science (Feb., 1865) I have myself appealed to my professional brethren for their a,id and support. I now venture to appeal to the public at large, with the hope that, by laying before them a brief account of some of the institutions that have been establislicd elsewhere; of the means adopted in them for developing, training, and educating the mental and physical powers of the idiotic and imbecile; and some instances of the beneficial results that have been obtained, it will no longer be allowed to remain as a reproach to Irishmen that we have been out-run by other nations in this work of benevolence. ^ According to the last census there are 7,033 idiots in Ireland, of Avhom, on the day on which the census was taken, 403 were in asylums for lunatics, 21 in prisons, 034 in workhouses, 5,675 at large, either wanderers, mendicants, or under the care of^ their friends Dr. AVise has obtained further returns from the Registrar- General for Ireland, showing that in 1861 there were 470 idiots returned as being under ten years of age, 618 between ten and fifteen years, and 805 between fifteen and twenty years, ^ total of 1,893 at an educationable age. It is stated that 1,0JJ ^ idiots had received a certain amount of education, and it may be fairly assumed that these belonged to the higher classes; but, even deducting these from the 7,033, we have some six thousand idiots in Ireland for whom nothing has been done to ameliorate then • Observations on the Claims of Infirm and Imbecile Children on Public Attention. By Thomas A. Wise, M.D., &c. Cork : Bradford. 1865. f The Training of Idiotic and Peeble-minded Cliildren. By Cheyne Brady, Esq., M.R.I.A. Dublin : Hodges and Smith. 1864.