In 1908, referring to Ireland, L. Paul-Dubois wrote: "In the following phenomenon we have another grave sign of racial decadence: I mean the marked increase of mental disease during the last fifty years. In 1851 Ireland had 5,074 lunatics and 4,906 imbeciles making a total of 9,980 persons of unsound mind, or 1.52 per 1,000 of the population. In 1901 she has 19,834 lunatics and 5,126 imbeciles, or a total of no less than 25,050, say 5.61 per 1,000, whereas in England there are only 4.07, and in Scotland 4.53 per 1,000. Attempts have been made to discover local or special causes for the sad prevalance of mental disease. Some have specified alcohol, or the over-use of tea, especially tea that has been left to stew, according to the custom of the Irish peasant. Others denounce the dullness of life in the pastoral districts, the isolation, the physical inaction and intellectual void amid which the peasants drag out their lives on the cattle-breeding latifundia. And here, indeed, we have a fact worth noting, namely, that it is in the district more especially devoted to grazing, namely, Munster, that the percentage of the mentally unsound reaches its highest level (6.57 per 1,000). The counties in Ireland most subject to the scourge are Waterford, Meath, Clare, Kilkenny, King's County (Offaly), Tipperary, Wexford, all of them cattle-grazing districts. On the other hand, it is the towns, Belfast, Dublin, and Londonderry, in which the smallest proportion of mental disease is to be found. But such subsidiary causes as these cannot overshadow the true fundamental and essential cause, namely, the degeneration of the race caused by extreme poverty and emigration."

Fascinating piece! Does anyone know what the criteria was for imbecile? I know I've read various old newspaper accounts in the US where the term was used as was "dim-witted" but I wonder if it was used loosely or some type of description met it. Margaret