"The first natural group is obviously “Idiocy”, including Imbecility under all its various forms and degrees, until we come down, or up rather, to the mere mild Dundrearyism of an effete and degenerate race. To this class must be referred a large number of cases of “moral idiocy and imbecility”, many of which at present get mixed up, by our present mode of classification, among the Insane, as Monomaniacs of various kinds. Such are many cases, familiar to all of you, of congenital moral perversion, instinctive cruelty, and destructiveness and theft. Many of our most noted Kleptomaniacs have had the tendency from childhood, and have been “moral imbeciles”. In fact, as far as a I know, all of them have been so ; when we meet with Kleptomania in cases of Insanity” it is only as one of many other symptoms, as when we find it associated, as often do, with General Paralysis. I would refer all those cases of Insanity, which are hut the development and aggravation of a congenital moral perversion, or want of balance, to the class of congenital moral imbeciles."
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David Skae
David Skae MD, FRCSEd (5 July 1814 – 18 April 1873) was a Scottish physician specialising in psychological medicine.
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