| Description Of Item | From the collection of Thomas Laycock. Article is titled ‘Illegitimacy as a Cause of Idiocy’ by Aurthur Mitchell A.M., M.D., Deputy-Commissioner in Lunacy for Scotland, etc.
Published in the Medical Times and Gazette, 1 March 1862, pages 210-212.
Mitchell shares research conducted across the 294 parishes within the ‘counties of Ross, Aberdeen, Kincardine, Perth, Clackmann, Fife, Kinross, and Wigton’ – comparing how many ‘idiots’ within these areas were born out of wedlock. Between the years of 1858-1859 Mitchell outlined that of the 703 ‘idiots and imbeciles’ he visited in these counties, he could find the information surrounding the marriage circumstances of the birth of 632 of these patients - of which 17.1 per cent were illegitimate. He argues that ‘illegitimacy is in itself an important cause of idiocy.’ Mitchell explains this finding based on the statistics he has gathered, by outlining the circumstances often associated with illegitimate pregnancy and birth: ‘the great majority of natural children [those born out of wedlock] of our country are exposed early in life to pinching, misery, neglect and ill-usage that they are not unfrequently conceived when one or both parents are intoxicated; that they are liable to injury in utero from attempts at abortion, or concealment of pregnancy; that their mothers during pregnancy are exposed to over-work, and during lactation both to over-work and under-feeding; that the parents are often immoral and vicious, and transmit a depraved mental and nervous constitution to their children; and that, in some cases at least, grief and anxiety of mind may interfere with the nourishment of the child in the womb.’
Another article follows on from the main one, titled ‘Clinical Midwifery’ by Francis H Ramsbotham M.D. (continued from 156), which outlines several cases of ‘unavoidable haemorrhage’ during childbirth.
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