FEEBLE=MINDED.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 8 July 1924, Page 5

FEEBLE=MINDED.

SPECIAL HOSPITALS NEEDED. SEXUAL OFFENCES. (BY TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION.) DUNEDIN, July 7. Giving evidence before the Mental Defectives Commission, Dr. Marshall MacDonald stated that it was* impossible to. consider the disposal of the feeble-minded without entertaining the question of re-organisation of the machinery for dealing with the insane, because he thought in this Dominion it was ineffective and inadequate. Most mental hospitals were unsuited for the purpose. They were overcrowded and medically understaffed. There should be special hospitals with specially trained physicians and nurses for the treatment- of such cases as acute melancholia, which w*as essentially curable. The witness emphasised .the importance of training medical graduates in mental diseases. Tn Sydney there was a physician who received £I2OO annually, and could take his students into three mental hospitals. In the Dominion the training in mental diseases, was limited to one week at Seacliff, where the students saw' eases of gross and advanced. disease, receiving practically no training in early diagnosis and early treatment. This was one reason why many early mental cases drifted to hopeless insanity. He thought the Government should establish a chair of mental diseases at the Otago Medical School.

Regarding offenders against women and children, he advocated segregation, but did not favour a compulsory operation. About 400 mentally deficient children were born annually in the Dominion. One-fourth were low grade imbeciles, and lie would recommend sterilisation in such cases. The most effective way of dealing with higher grade imbeciles would be by having special schools like Otekaike. Many more such schools were necessary with a form of village, colonies for segregation. He did not regard alcohol in itself as a common cause of insanity, though in the case of an alcoholic mother taking liquor during pregnancy, it must have an evil influence on the germ cell of the child.

The. witness said he was utterly opposed to the teaching of the sex question in schools. He considered it not unlikely that the result would do more harm to the teachers than good to the children.