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Show HEALTH ; ADVICE - By Dr. Morris Fishbein Editor. Jcornal o hSa Amerieae Medical Medi-cal Asexiatioa ThU la tha flrat In a series to " which Dr. Fishbein discusses va-rioua va-rioua forms of mental defectiveness. defective-ness. Mental disease constitutes one of the hcavlestbuidens which the well people of the country carry on behalf of ths sick. Definition of ths mental defee. tlve is not a definition of mentality, men-tality, but of ths social capacity of the person concerned. We Judge ths defectiveness of the Individual, In-dividual, from ths mental point of view, by his inability to get along with other people. It has been well established that dull people of low intelligence ars likely to have children of low intelligence. Some 75 per cent of people with lessened intelligence are derived from such stock. Of course, an occasional case of Idiocy may develop even In a family in which the parents and ths grandparents ars found to be of a high order of Intelligence. This merely means that normal people can carry, over several generations, a certain amount of ' defective strain. More than a million people in the United States are seriously handicapped as wage earners. The list includes 35.000 blind adults, 45,000 hard of hearing and speechless and between 300,000 and 400,000 mentally incapacitated. incapaci-tated. Through occupational therapy, ths blind and the hard of bearing are able to sarn small sums, but little has been dons for ths mentally men-tally handicapped. It has been estimated that they represent an economic loss to the United States of (300.000,000 annually. There are many typea of mental men-tal defect, some of them ' associated associ-ated with physical disturbances. There are some children in whom the brain has been injured at birth; others in whose brains Jluid has accumulated. A condition known of hydrocephalus. Children Chil-dren born with brains much smaller than normal are called microcephalic. Some children are born with a mental disturbance in ths form of idiocy; In others, ths glands fall to develop and function properly. Mental defectivea may be divided di-vided into those whose brains have not developed properly and those who have complete abnormality abnor-mality of mental behavior; for example, insanity. People sometimes believe that one may go Insane as a result of shock. Ws realize today that shock does not cause ths Insanity, Insan-ity, but it may be ths precipitat- 1 ing factor. Most people manage to adjust themselves to serious disturbances, but some people find it difficult to make auch adjustments. adjust-ments. Mental training in childhood child-hood is an important factor in determining mental reactions in adult life. |