MENTAL DEFECTIVES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20024, 14 August 1928, Page 12

MENTAL DEFECTIVES.

[CLASSES ON THE REGISTER

BV THE HON. W. H. TRIGGS, M.L.C. (Chairman of (he Committee of Inquiry into Mental Defectives, 1921.)

SCOPE OF PROPOSED DEFINITION HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT.

No. 11. I have mentioned < that the -Mental Defectives , Bill provides that "epileptics" may be placed on the register. The Committee of Inquiry restricted the class to ha registered to persons "afflicted with epilepsy associated with automatism, or other condition rendering them especially liable to dangerous, immoral or other anti-social manifestations, and in the case of juvenile epileptics the mere frequency of fits rendering (hem unsuitable for attendance at ordinary schools." Probably, in practice, the Eugenics Board would observe these restrictions. Qf the danger to the community of the class of epileptics defined by the committee there ; s not the slightest doubt. Some of the most shocking crimes of murder and outrage have been perpetrated by epileptics while in a state of automatism —that is to say, they were absolutely unconscious of what they were doing at tiie time, and remembered nothing about it N In what is known as "psychic epilepsy," tho patient may be to all appearance a normal person, may have none of tho ordinary symptoms associated with epilepsy—may never fall down in a fit, for example—but may be seized with ungovernable attacks of passion without warning and without any apparent reason, and may in that condition commit any act of violence and remember nothing of it afterwards. Clearly such persons should, for their own sakes, as well as for the sako of society, be under careful treatment and supei'vision, and there is a general concensus of medical opinion that they ought not to marry Social Defectives.

The class of social defectives to be included in the register has proved to be extremely difficult to define in strict legal language, although they are easy to distinguish in practice, and it is most important they should bo included, as they constitute perhaps the most dangerous menace of all from a social point of view. In the English Act they are called "moral defectives," and defined as: "Persons who from an early ago display some permanent mental defect, coupled with strong vicious or criminal propensities on which punishment has little or no deterrent effect." Dr. Gray's definition is: "Persons in whose case there exists mental deficiency, associated with, or manifested by, anti-social conduct, and who require State supervision and control for their own protection, or for the protection of others." The essential point is that they cannot be placed on the register unless, in the opinion of the expert on the clinic and of the skilled psychiatrist on the board, they are mental defectives, dangerous to themselves or others, if not placed under supervision or control, and likely, by reason of their mental defect, to transmit anti-social tendencies to their off-spring. Feeble-mindedness and Crime.

It has already been shown that every mental defective is a potential criminal. Goddard, in his remarkable work on "Feeble-mindedness: Its Causes and Consequences," says that environment will not of itself enable all people to escape criminality. Those who are born without sufficient intelligence to know right from wrong, or those, if they know it, who have not sufficient will-power and judgment to make themselves do the right and flee the wrong, will ever be a fertile source of criminality. He estimates that 50 per cent, of the inmates of" American prisons are feeble-minded. He adds: "Even if a much smaller percentage is defective it is'sufficient for our argument that without question one point of attack for the solution of the problem of crime is the problem of feeble-mindedness." He reminds us how many of the crimes that are committed seem foolish and silly. Many of the "unaccountable" crimes, both" large and small, are accounted for once it is recognised that the criminal may be mentally defective. He goes on to add:—"The hereditary criminal passes out with the advent of feeble-mindedness into the problem. ... It is hereditary feeble-mindedness, not hereditary criminality, that accounts for the condition. We have seen only the end-product and fail to recognise the character of the raw material." One of the most valuable features of the new bill is that it provides that the controller of prisons shall furnish information to the board concerning any prisoner who appears to be mentally defective so that he may bo examined by a psychiatrist; and also that "if any magistrate or justice is of opinion that any person brought before him, charged with an offence, is a mentally defective person, lie shall forthwith advise the chairman of the board of such opinion and the names and circumstances of the person concerned " -Degenerate Ofispririg. I now come to the much-debated question of heredity and environment. The committeo of inquiry went very carefully into this question, heard scientific witnesses on the subject, and the report states pretty fully the arguments on both sides. The best modern work on the subject is "Heredity," by Professor J. Arthur Thomson, M.A., L.L.D., -regius professor of natural history at the Aberdeen University, published in 1926. He is much too cautious and conservative in his views from the pjint of view of the eugenists. But he says (p. 520), referring to the multiplication of the relatively unfit under modern conditions, that it is impossible to .ignore the seriousness of the outlook.- He agrees that a laissezfaire attitude, as human society is constituted, is quite untenable. He says:— "Everyone agrees that there should be no breeding from epileptics, paralytics, lunatics, and so on," and he considers, there is "much to be said for restricting the reproduction of undesirables who fall back on the. State for support, for some sort of marriage tests, for developing u social prejudice against reproduction among the victims of markedly bad inheritance, for a fuller and deeper recognition of woman's rights both as to mating and maternity, for eugenic devices such as Gaiton has suggested, and so on." The committee of inquiry stressed the importance of environment in improving the physical and moral condition of individuals, but had no hesitation in coming to the conclusion that "it has been proved beyond question that if two feeble-minded persons marry they will most probably produce abundant offspring of whom all may be subnormal and a large proportion will become a burden on the State; that if one such person is mated "with a healthy individual an undue proportion of their children are likely to prove degenerate and defective, and the unsoundness will continue to make its appearance iji succeeding generations " Goddard, from an intensive study 'of a Lvige number of cases, passing through ■Vmeland framing School, comes to a similar conclusion and states that even the. apparently normal children born of ot .?' hom r °" C sound stock the other feeble-minded, will be capable ot transmitting feeble-mindedness.