Idiocy, Idiots

IDIOCY, IDIOTS. - The idiots, or "cerebropathic mental defectives" (S. de Sanctis), belong to the group of the most severe or major mental defectives (v.), together with imbeciles (v.); their condition is linked to a failure of development of the encephalon, due to toxic (alcoholism) or circulatory or mechanical or infectious causes (syphilis or other viruses with a neurotropic tendency), which acted upon the brain during the course of its development, in the intrauterine period or at the moment of birth or in the earliest stages of extrauterine life; from this arise very severe disturbances of function, psychic, combined with neurological symptoms, particularly motor ones (strabismus, paresis, paralysis, etc.).

The severe forms of idiocy lead to the complete absence of every manifestation of higher psychic life, whether cognitive or affective, so that the individual, incapable of communicating with others by means of speech, whether understanding it or expressing his own thought through it, and of providing for his own existence, comes to find himself at a level lower than that of a beast.

In some milder varieties of idiocy a rudimentary form of comprehension and of language may develop, capable of expressing the most elementary needs and the sketch of some state of twilight consciousness, while the intelligence always remains inferior to that of a six-year-old child; in such cases the application of certain Sacraments may be justified. The temperament of idiots, according to the degree of mental poverty, oscillates from complete insensibility to the most reckless, aggressive irascibility, so as at times to reach suicide and brutal assaults; puberty is late, the sexual manifestations, usually very weak, in some cases instead assume the most shameless and perverted forms, owing to the complete lack of moral inhibition.

Physical characteristics, linked to abnormal cranial development and to neurological lesions, accompany the mental picture (macrocephaly due to hydrocephalus, microcephaly, sloping forehead, strabismus, prognathism, paralysis, etc.), denouncing, even to simple external appearance, the idiocy of the subject.

Idiocy may manifest itself under different syndromes, in relation to the varying neurological symptomatology; from this side, therefore, within the common exponent of frenasthenic psychic disturbances, the pictures of "infantile cerebral paralysis", of "hypertrophic tuberous sclerosis", of "familial amaurotic idiocy", of "sporadic myxedematous cretinism", etc., take on different clinical aspects.

In relation to the severe anatomical cause, a sequel of previous encephalic lesions, idiots are not susceptible of cure or improvement; although perhaps it may be possible, in the less severe cases, through hospitalization and the work of suitable institutions (v. MINORATI PSICHICI), to achieve a very limited development of that glimmer of mental activity that may eventually be present.

Giuseppe de Ninno