Annual report of the directors and superintendent of the Connecticut School for Imbeciles, at Lakeville Conn., to the general assembly, May session, 1872

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ANNUAL REPORT

OF THE

DIRECTORS .AND SUPERINTENDENT

tnnnettitut itynol for �mhetilts,

LAKEVILLE, CONN.,

GENERAL ASSEMBLY,

PRESS OF CASE, LOCKWOOD & BRAINARD. 1872.

OFFICERS OF THE INSTITUTION.

fl\_ESIDENT. GEORGE COFFING.

yrcE fR._ESIDENTS.

ALEX. H. HOLLEY, WILLIAM H. BARNUM,

S. S. ROBBINS, H. M. KNIGHT, C. B. MERRIMAN, G. M. BARTHOLOMEW, JAMES E. ENGLISH, G. B. BURRALL, THOMAS SMITH. })!RECTO�. v"1LLIAM P. BURRALL, H. M. WELCH, JOSEPH E. SHEFFIELD, JAMES B. HOSMER, WM. A. BUCKINGHAM, MARSHALL JEWSLL. :PXECUTIVE _J:OMMITTEE. A. H. HOLLEY, WILLIAM H. BARNUM, S. S. ROBBINS, WILLIAM P. BURRALL, G. B. BURRALL. G. B. BURRALL, Treasurer.

H. M. KNIGHT, Secretary and Superintendent. WILLIAM H. WALTON, Auditor.

12-DIRECTORS'

REPORT.

To the Honorable General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, to· be holden at New Haven on the first Wednesday of May, 1872.

IN compliance with the requirements of the " Charter of the Connecticut School for Imbeciles," the following annual report is respectfully submitted.

In. response to our request last year, for an appropriation by "the Legislature, of twenty thoµsand dollars ($20,000) to enable us to enlarge our buildings, and erect school-rooms, the _Committee on Humane Institutions reported a resolution in favor of and recommending the appropriation, which the Senate passed, but the House changed to the following:

" General Assembly, May Session, 1871, Resolved by this Assembly,

" That the sum of ten thousand dollars be, and the same is hereby appropriated to the " Connecticut School for Imbeciles," at Lakeville, Conn., and the Comptroller of Public Accounts ·is hereby directed to draw his order upon the Treasurer of this State in favor of the treasurer of said School for said sum. "That Ex-Gov. A. H, Holly, Edward W. Seymour, and H. M. Knight are hereby appointed a committee to superintend the expenditure of the aforesaid sum in the construction of enlargements and additions to the present building occupied by said School."

This resolution was so amended a:;, to take effect only " Whenever a sum of five thousand dollars shall have been subscribed by parties satisfactory to the gentlemen named iu the resolution," and then passed.

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The Executive Committee issued a circular in August last, asking for subscriptions to this_ end, but no sufficient response was made to comply with the terms of the resolution. No progress has been made in that airection during the year.

We respectfully ask the General Assembly to take into care­ ful consideration the needs and claims of this class, and decide whether enlarged accommodations shall be provided for it at this institution or elsewhere.

It has become evident that to secure the blessings of insti­ tution life to a few only, of the hundreds within the State, is but a partial performance of the duty of the State to these most unfortunate and needy persons.

The Board, in commending the operations ofthe institution at Lakeville, during the past year, desire to call the attention of your honorable body to this subject as presented to us in the report of the Superintendent herewith enclosed.

It is plain that an appropriation of twenty or twenty-five thousand dollars to be expended at Lakeville, will make larger provision for the wants of the needy children of this class, than the same amount can, if expended any where else ; and the expense of superintendence will be no p;reater for a lai·ge institution than for a small one.

Plans have been furnished by a competent architect, show­ ing that accommodations for fifty more inmates, together with gymnasium and school-rooms, can be erected in connection with the present buildings for the sum of twenty thousand dollars.

In behalf of the Board of Trustees,

GEORGE COFFING, President.

MAY 1st, 1872.

///If-SUPERINTENDENT'S REPORT.

To the IJirectors.

GENTLEMEN :-I herewith respectfully submit my report of this institution for the year past, which records, briefly, the history and operations of the fourteenth year of its existence. There have been connected with the school during the year fifty-five pupils.

'I"he present number is forty-eight.

Twenty are beneficiaries of the State to the amount of $3 per week.

I cannot, as I have been able in several of my reports here­ tofore, announce exemption from severe sickness. During the autumn and early winter there were twelve cases of diph­ theria in the household, and two children died. One, with a large head, sank under the disease without manifesting any recuperative energy, and the other died from croup ; the bronchial tubes becoming filled with the false membrane.

A third pupil, an epileptic, has died within a few weeks ; after a long and most painful illness. For sixty-eight days and nights some one was in constant attendance upon this boy, and I take this public method to thank my assistants for the patient and unremitting kindness and devotion which all have manifested towards our sick.

The disease, diphtheria, proved to be an epidemic in this region. There were many cases in the village, and in the surrounding towns. Although our children are feeble, with a low standard of general health, I do not know that their peculiar condition invited the disease.

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The School has been prosperous. Twenty-one pupils read from books. Ten others from cards.

Twenty are in articulation classes. Fifteen recite geography from the maps.

Seventeen practice writing.

Thirteen correspond with friends. Twenty-one sing.

Seventeen study arithmetic, but only four can do more than add, subtract, multiply and divide. Several can do little sums in the fundamental rules, who can do nothing more, and several can only add and subtract, while others are learning to count.

Eleven girls sew very well, and a few can do fancy work with worsteds.

Tw.enty dance, and join in light gymnastics, but our very limited room prevents our making indoor physical exercise such a prominent feature in our work as is desirable. During the dry weather of summer, our heautiful and ample grounds make up in great degree for our lack of play rooms, and here­ tofore, when there has been snow upon the ground, coasting has furnished us exhilarating and health-giving exercise in the winter. During the last winter the ground has been bare and hard, and the children have been necessarily kept within doors much of the time. While we have had occasion to complain of want of room for several years, we have felt our need in this respect during the last year in greater degree than ever before.

There have been forty-six applications for admission during the year.

Sixteen have been admitted.

We have now on hand sixty-three applications. Six pupils have been dismissed, and three have died.

The income of the institution for the year ending April 1st, was $10,622.50.

Amount paid for salaries, $1,240. Amount paid for wages, $1,260.

Average number in ·household, sixty-seven.

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Imbecility implies an original lack in the physical, ·mental, or moral system, or is the result of disease.

As there may be various forms of imbecility, so there may be various causes, producing these conditions. The manifest­ ation� are not uniform, but are as numerous as the conditions are diverse. There n,re grades, fr_{om the point just below}

average mentality, to that of exti-eme vacuity. Therefore, in our training, these various grades or conditions must be recognized, and all means and surroundings adapted accord­ ingly.

While segregation, or proper classification is thus seen to be necessary, it will also be easily understood that contact is an essential fcatme in all attempts at development and educa­ tion. Many sluggish chilllren fail to acquire speech, for ex­ ample, because mentality is not sufficient to gain it as children of healthy minds and bodies do, by imitation.

N cvertheless, articulation will be successfully taught in

classes.

I think our labors, and the labors of those who have the care of the insane are more nearly akin than has been commonly supposed. We not only have to do with lack of development, but we deal with diseased bodies and brains, from which often, if not usually, the lack results. We deal with hereditary transmissions and tendencies; with mental derangement; with many of the phenomena of insanity. We have in all of our institutions, some mixed cases.

Imbeciles are quite subject to epilepsy, with all its sad con­ comitants, its period of fury, its paroxysmal insanity.

But there is a class of imbeciles, who, without epilepsy, are imbject to sudden bursts of ill temper and violence, as marked as those of the maniac.

In the treatment of these cases, we are deprived of many of the helps which are availaule in the treatment of the insane. The latter, it may be, before the period of attack, had a well balanced and well disciplined mind, capable of self-restraint, and in the habit of practising that virtue. Our children come to us without any such aids. Impulse governs them, in nearly

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the same degree, naturally, that the disturbing cause does the insane person.

In our work, general physical improvement, patient, long­ protracted, mental and moral traiuing are necessary, before we can in the least avail ourselves, in these cases, of such helps as are found at hand, in the treatment of many of the insane.

The class I have been describing in the paragraph above, is not ihe larger one.

The majority of imbecile children and youth are gentle, kindly in disposition, and easily although slowly influenced.

Love is the key-note, in all endeavors to benefit our pupils, but the respouse comes much more quickly and surely with these latter, than with the former.

Of course the plain conclusion is, that classes of such diver­ sity must be widely separated. For the best interests of our pupils, and to promote a healthy growth of our school, we need ample room.

I am well aware that quite a large portion of the community is ignorant of the extent to which idiocy prevails. Few, out­ side the small circle of those engaged in this special work, realize the amount of misery and suffering occasioned by it. Those who, with limited acquaintance with institutions such as ours, regard them only as schools for rudimental instruction in the branches of education commonly taught in the public schools, most certainly fail to apprehend the broader relations and wider scope which they bear to society in general.

There are as many idiotic, imbecile, and feeble-minded, as there are insane, in Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, Kentucky, and Illinois, and so far as I know, in every state or country where a careful census has been taken• Why, in the name of common humanity, should not the one class receive all the parental and financial aid from the state that the other does ?

Some may think the statement above is incorrect. In 1856, when an investigation was made, eighty-eight towns, having a population of 186,831, reported 514 idiots and imbeciles; and �s these tow:q.s were located in every county of the state, it is

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fair to presume that they did not contain more than an aver­ age proportion. .Assuming the average to be the same throughout the state, the whole number in Connecticut was more than 1,000.

Thirty per cent. of the whole number whose ages were given, were under twenty years of age .

The Illinois State Board of Public Charities has recently published the statement that the names of 1,738 idiotic per­ sons in that state have been reported by physicians; and taking the statistics received as a basis, estimate that the actual num­ ber of such persons in Illinois is 2,900, or one in 867 of the population of the state, which is a larger nnmber than that of the insane.

The Secretary of that Board says, " It is safe to say that the proportion of idiots in Illinois,· (and probably in other communities,) is at least as large as that of the insane."

Similar results or conclusions have been reached in every stl'tte or civilized country wherever thorough and careful inves­ tigations have been made.

When it was announced that we had about 300 in Connec­ ticut who were of proper age to draw the public money, that is, under sixteen years of age, great surprise was occasioned by the statement.

Massachusetts, while taking a very complete census of in­ sanity, had incidentally taken a partial and imperfect census of her idiocy, but had not arrived at the conclusion that her affliction in this respect could be so great as thus declared by the commissioners of Connecticut. The judgment of the best informed now place the ratio in Massachusetts where it was placed in our own state, in 1856.

CAUSATION.

Keeping in mind the fact that dementia is not idiocy ; that the latter condition is by no means loss of mind, but rather the prime want of mind, or protracted infancy, we can readily see that the cause of the condition must be antecedent to any personal history of the child. In dementia, there may be :t transmitted influence sufficient to cause the condition, but it

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may come on, and often does, from bad personal habits, over­ taxation, dissipation, &c., &c.

On the other hand, idiocy is usually the result of accident, grief, fr_{ight of the mother, or of hereditary. taint.}

It is impressed upon my mind more and more each year, that one of the saddest results of ·our high civilization is the departure fr_{om those simple, natural laws, which should gov­}

ern us, and the heavy penalty paid is the imperfect fatherhood and motherhood of this generation.

Hereditary taint, transmitted influence, is, after all, in my judgment, the great cause of idiocy, in its various forms, from the mildest to the severest. Accidental cause furnish a cer­ tain proportion. Many who have paid but little attention to statistics upon this subject, suppose consanguinity to be the greatest cause of imbecility.

So far as all of the tables to which I have been able to gain access prove any thing, they prove the contrary. That con­ sanguinity exercises a sad influence upon offapring, and the race, cannot be doubted, but the forms which the transmitted evil influence assumes are very varied.

Among these may be mentioned scrofula, tubercular affec­ tions, physical degenerations, monstrosities, epilepsy, retarded or imperfect dentition, defects of sight, blindness, mutism, and idiocy. To this list ought to be added sterility, frequent mis­ carriages, and giving birth to children who do not live beyond the period of infancy.

As this subject is one of great importance, and is just now exciting much thought and investigation, I shall treat it by quoting from published statements bearing upon this topic. The proposition is that idiocy is but one of the variGd forms of evil resulting from marriages of consanguinity, and one of the least frequent. An eminent author says that without doubt the most frequent evil consequence is deaf-mutism.

Dr. S. M. Bemiss of Louisville, in 1857, obserrnd the issue of twenty-seven intermarriages, and fonnd two children that were blind, and six who were afflicted with various defects of v1s10n. Dr. Liebreich of Berlin observed fifty-nine cases of pigmentary retinitis, and found that twenty-seven of them

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were born of ·intermarriages. " Of these fifty-nine cases, retinitis coincided with deaf-mutism in eighteen, and in two with idiocy." Trousseau remarks that" this coincidence)s all the more· striking that pigmentary retinitis is very rare," and Liebreich says " that both diseases simultaneously attack children belonging to families in which they show themselves together, but never separately."

M. Boudin* says, " the proportion of individuals who are deaf and dumb from birth, increases with the degree of rela­ tionship between the parents. If we assume the risk of giving birth to a <!eaf and dumb child in an ordinary union at one, that risk will be equal to eighteen in marriage between cousin­ germans, to thirty-seYen in marriages between uncles and nieces, and to seventy in marriages between nephews and aunts."

Dr. Auguste Voisin read a paper at the Academy of Sciences of Paris, in 1865, to show " that this question is far from being settled, and that marriages of consanguinity do not al ways exert a baleful influence on the issue of such unions." The author says, "there are at present in the com­ mune of Batz, forty-six instances of marriages contracted by individuals already near relatives; five by cousin-germans, thirty-one by issue of cousin-germans, and ten by cousins of the fourth degree. From the five marriages between cousin-ger­ mans, twenty-three children were born, none of whom pre­ sented any congenital deformity; two of them died of acci­ dental diseases. Thirty-one marriages between cousins, the issue of first cousins, produced one hundred and twenty chil­ dren, none of whom is affected with congenital disease or deformity; twenty-four have died of acute diseases."

Ten marriages between cousins of the fourth degree gave birth to twenty-nine children, all in good health except those who died of acute diseases. Only two couples of the forty-six have been unfruitful, (the man and wife are relatives of the third degree.) The forty-four remaining couples have had 17 4 children, of whom twenty-nine have died.

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In the report of the Connecticut Commissioners on Idiocyi

in the table of causes in one hundred cases, we find consan­ guinity given in but four instances. Of the whole number reported in the state, but twenty were reported as of consan­ guine parentage. In the· same tables, we find in answer to the question, " A.re the parents or near relatives consumptive, scrofulous, or subject to eruptive diseases ? " that in one hun­ dred cases, thirty-four were so. In answer to the question, "A.ny cases of insanity, epilepsy, idiocy, blindness or deaf­ ness, or any other mental or bodily infirmity in parents or rel­ atives? " twenty-nine were �eported so diseased.

In table No. VI. of the Illinois State Board of Public Char­ ities, published in December, 1870, we find in the reports of 1,738 idiots, consanguineous marriage mentioned in only forty-four instances. Hereditary causes are mentioned in seventy-four instances.

I am the more satisfied to give these published statements and views of competent observers, from the fact that I meet the thought among the people everywhere, that intermarriage is the great cause of idiocy and imbecility, and that aside from the avoidance of that one cause, nothing can be done by so9i­ ety to prevent this evil. I desire it should take its praper place as a cause, and be neither over-estimated or under­ valued.

It is claimed by the medical profession that neurotic dis­ eases are upon the increase. 'l'his undoubtedly is a fact, and can only be accounted for by the habits of living, the condi­ tions and occupations of a people. It probably is not as a whole dependent upon climate or locality.

'l'he whirl of business, the excitement of gain, the strain of scholarship, late hours, alcohol and dissipation undermine the constitution, whilst the fashionable follies of high life have an enervating influence upon the human system, lasting as life

. itself, and equal in sad consequences to that resulting from squalor and a struggle for bread.

Society needs to slow its pace, and pay far i:iore attention to the art of living well.

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Elementary physiology and psychology with hygiene should be taught at !tome and in the school, and youth instructed that the nobility of the body, implanted by God, "being made a little lower than the angels," should be preserved.

Whatever may be the cause, these unfortunates are not themselves" degraded.by any crime or fault of their own, but, by some provision of Divine administration permitted so to be." I somewhat fear that the doctrine that all disease is a penalty for some form of individual sin, has been too broadly taught. Since sin originally entered the world, dise::tse has been in it. But disease attacks not the human family alone. Animals sicken and die. Vegetable nature suffers from disease.

When the disciples, seeing a blind man, asked our Saviour, "Who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus replied, "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents : but that the works of God should be made mani­ fest in him."

The insane, the imbecile, and all classes of unfortunate humanity, perform their part in the Creator's plan of govern­ ing and developing the race, by binding with cords of depend­ ence, charity and love, the sick to the healthy, the weak to the strong, those who cannot help themselves to those who are able to help themselves and others.

I cannot help asking again, if it must remain the settled policy of the friends of the imbecile, and of the State, that this small institution shall continue, in its present condition and size, to be the only provision for the wants of this entire class in Connecticut ?

Trusting in Him whose blessing gives success, we hope for

·years of increas�d usefulness. LAKEVILLE, MAY 1st, 1872.

H.

M.

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ADMISSION OF PUPILS.

Feeble-minded children, who are so peculiar or deficient in

intellect_ as to be incapable of being educated at any ordinary

school, may be admitted by the Superintendent.

The parents, or next friends of those_. in whose behalf appli­ cations are made for admission as pupils, are expected to make answer in writing, to such questions as the Superintendent may prescribe .

.All pupils will be expected to come provided with a good supply of neat and substantial clothing, of dark color, and plainly marked with the child's full name.

There will be a vacation during the month of August, at which period all pupils must be removed by the parents or guardians, unless otherwise directed by the Superintendent.

In cases of indigence, applications may be addressed to his Excellency the Governor, for aid from the State appropriation . .Application for the admission of pupils, and all general cor­ respondence, should_ be directed to H. M. Knight, M.D., Lakeville, Conn.

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