Nevertheless, it is estimated that
they number no less than 75,000 men, women, and children, out of a total
population of 783,000, or about ten per cent. Oregon, it is thought, is
no exception to other states. Yet under our present conditions, these
people are actually encouraged to increase and multiply and replenish
the earth.
Concerning the importance of the Oregon survey, we may quote Surgeon
General H. C. Cumming: "the prevention and correction of mental
defectives is one of the great public health problems of to-day. It
enters into many phases of our work and its influence continually crops
up unexpectedly. For instance, work of the Public Health Service in
connection with juvenile courts shows that a marked proportion of
juvenile delinquency is traceable to some degree of mental deficiency
in the offender. For years Public Health officials have concerned
themselves only with the disorders of physical health; but now they are
realizing the significance of mental health also. The work in Oregon
constitutes the first state-wide survey which even begins to disclose
the enormous drain on a state, caused by mental defects. One of the
objects of the work was to obtain for the people of Oregon an idea
of the problem that confronted them and the heavy annual loss, both
economic and industrial, that it entailed. Another was to enable the
legislators to devise a program that would stop much of the loss,
restore to health and bring to lives of industrial usefulness, many of
those now down and out, and above all, to save hundreds of children from
growing up to lives of misery.
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