. The science and practice of medicine in relation to mind : the pathology of nerve centres and the jurisprudence of insanity, being a course of lectures delivered in Guy's Hospital. r and levator palate in commonwith other muscles, and you must be careful notto let this point mislead 3ou in your diagnosis. Etiology. When we attempt to solve the problem of thecause of idiocy and imbecility, we are at once metwith difficulties which are all but insuperable. The causes which get most credit for producingidiocy are marriages of consanguinity, hereditarypredisposition, drunkenness in parents, frig
. The science and practice of medicine in relation to mind : the pathology of nerve centres and the jurisprudence of insanity, being a course of lectures delivered in Guy's Hospital. r and levator palate in commonwith other muscles, and you must be careful notto let this point mislead 3ou in your diagnosis. Etiology. When we attempt to solve the problem of thecause of idiocy and imbecility, we are at once metwith difficulties which are all but insuperable. The causes which get most credit for producingidiocy are marriages of consanguinity, hereditarypredisposition, drunkenness in parents, frights tothe mother during her pregnancy, and syphilis. If we vStart with syphilis as a cause, the evidenceis rather against the probability of its influencethan in favour of it. From the able researches ofMr. Jonathan Hutchinson, of the London Hospital,we have an excellent help to diagnosis in questionsof the transmissions of syphilitic influence, fromcertain conditions of the teeth, and a chronic in-flammation of the cornea. You are perhapsfamiliar with syphilitic teeth, but I hand rounddrawings,* copied from some of Mr. Hutchinsonsexamples which cannot fail to strike you. The. • I am indebted to Mr. Hutchinson, for the woodcut in-serted above. 342 IDIOCY AND IMBECILITY. principal are the notched incisor teeth which yousee in the drawing, and which, when you notice inyour patient, you may accept as positive evidenceof inherited syphihs. In investigating the question of syphihs as acause, Dr. Down writes that he found very fewinstances of syphihtic teeth amongst the numbershe examined, and when he did find them he alwaysfound confirmatory evidence of inherited syphilisin an associated keratitis or chronic inflammationof the cornea; and Dr. Down has thereby beenled to the conclusion that syphilis is by no meansan important factor in the production of congenitalmental disease. The evidence of fright to the mother during herpregnancy seems to be confirmed by so fewauthentic instan
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