"(2)
Speaking for Bradford, England, Dr. Helen U. Campbell touches another
significant and interesting point usually neglected by the advocates of
mothers' pensions, milk-stations, and maternity-education programs.
"We are also confronted with the problem of the actually mentally
deficient, of the more or less feeble-minded, and the deranged,
epileptic... or otherwise mentally abnormal mother," writes this
authority. "The `bad mothering' of these cases is quite unimprovable
at an infant welfare center, and a very definite if not relatively very
large percentage of our infants are suffering severely as a result of
dependence upon such `mothering."'(3)
Thus we are brought face to face with another problem of infant
mortality. Are we to check the infant mortality rate among the
feeble-minded and aid the unfortunate offspring to grow up, a menace to
the civilized community even when not actually certifiable as mentally
defective or not obviously imbecile?
Other figures and studies indicate the close relationship between
feeble-mindedness and the spread of venereal scourges. We are informed
that in Michigan, 75 per cent. of the prostitute class is infected with
some form of venereal disease, and that 75 per cent. of the infected
are mentally defective,--morons, imbeciles, or "border-line" cases
most dangerous to the community at large. At least 25 per cent. of the
inmates of our prisons, according to Dr. Fernald, are mentally defective
and belong either to the feeble-minded or to the defective-delinquent
class.
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