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September 1932

THE FREQUENCY OF MONGOLOID IMBECILITY: THE QUESTION OF RACE AND THE APPARENT INFLUENCE OF SEX

Author Affiliations

ST. LOUIS
From the Washington University School of Medicine and the St. Louis Children's Hospital.

Am J Dis Child. 1932;44(3):503-508. doi:10.1001/archpedi.1932.01950100020003
Abstract

As related in the text, the terms mongolian imbecility, Tartar imbecility, Malay imbecility, Negro and American imbecility were introduced by Langdon Down on the assumption that certain types of imbecility were patterned on the physical traits of certain races. The propriety of this idea is, however, no longer in favor, and all these terms have been discarded, with the exception of mongolian imbecility, which is still used universally. It is of more than passing interest, however, to note that this disease has not the slightest relation to any race, a point elaborated somewhat in the present paper.

It may also be observed that it is perhaps as objectionable to speak of a mongolian imbecile as of an American imbecile, which many of us I believe would resent. Further, were we to chance on one of the subjects of this disease in China, as Tumpeer did in Chicago, and call him

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