MENTAL DIFFERENCES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22949, 29 January 1938, Page 15

MENTAL DIFFERENCES

N£W MEDICAL RESEARCH ATTEMPT TO FIND CAUSES [by telegraph—OWN correspondent] WELLINGTON, Friday , "A total of 3000 children will be under observation in an effort to determine their mental inheritance and the causes of differences," stated Dr. H. T. Sharpe, of Bristol, who is visiting Wellington, when outlining work to be performed by the Burden Mental Research Trust, which operates under the auspices of the British Medical Association. The money has been provided by Mrs. It. G. Burden, of Bristol, who has donated £IO,OOO to provide for a study extending over at least five years.

"There will also be a record kept of 1000 defective patients admitted to the Stoke Park Colony, where they go for training. Finally there will be a collection formed of some hundreds of normal brains and defective brains, with a view to determining the physical differences between them, if any," Dr. Sharpe said. "This is the first really intensive medical study on ' such a scale of the differences between the normal and the defective person." "There will be comparisons of the general intelligence of members of the same family, and a special division will be the study of the brain as a physical thing—that is, the relationship between mentnl health and physical health," he added. "There are diseases in which no observed change in the structure of the brain takes placed Efforts will be made to track them down."