Census catagory: health: blind, deaf, dumb, imbecile, idiot, or lunatic.

[KAllardyce]

Census category: health: blind, deaf, dumb, imbecile, idiot, or lunatic.

I have a family member described on census' as 'imbecile'. I wondered what that meant? I found that people could be described as either blind, deaf, dumb, imbecile, idiot/feeble minded, or lunatic. On her birth cert, they make no mention of anything being abnormal. Only she never works and never marries. It appears, she never has a child. Her family were quite wealthy, so maybe there was no reason for her to work. She never lived alone, always in her parental home. She died at 60 though. On her death cert, it says she died of congenital Brain Disease, and Broncal pneumonia four days. I don't understand how it could be congenital as I have not yet found any other family member with 'brain disease'. Considering this information, I can't think of what her 'brain disease' may have been. We thought it may have been the result of a difficult birth, but would it have been described as congenital if that was the case?

[stanmapstone]

This question has come up many times before on RootsChat e.g. http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,563315.0.html
The exact definitions of terms such as 'lunatic', 'imbecile', 'idiot' and 'feeble-minded' are extremely problematic. According to the 1881 Census Report;
No accurate line of demarcation can be drawn between the several conditions indicated by these terms. Speaking generally, however, the term idiot is applied in popular usage simply to those who suffer from congenital mental deficiency, and the term imbecile to persons who have fallen in later life into a state of chronic dementia. But it is certain that neither this nor any other definite distinction between the terms was rigorously observed in the schedules, and consequently no attempt has been made by us to separate imbeciles from idiots. The term lunatic also is used with some vagueness, and probably some persons suffering from congenital idiocy, and many more suffering from dementia, were returned under this name.
Considering that householders, who could be illiterate, were being asked to give information about medical disabilities without any definition of the terms being used the answers should be treated with caution. Also they would be unwilling to admit  that anyone in the family had medical disabilities.

Stan

[LizzieL]

I have found the sibling of an ancestor who was an inmate in an asylum on the 1881 census. He is described as "imbecile". In the same institution, the three categories: idiot, imbecile and lunatic are used for the other inmates, so the medical authorites must have had a clear definition of each and recognised the differences. My connection had been a soldier for 12 years but discharged due to being insane. The medical record said he had dementia caused by syphilitic poisoning.

[stanmapstone]

Just to add from the Report on the 1911 Census

The other reason why the returns regarding the number of mentally infirm persons are unsatisfactory is due to the risks arising from the confusion of terms. The terms themselves are not defined in the scheduled instruction. This was scarcely possible; but the term " lunatic " is intended for use in cases where the infirmity has been acquired during life, while the terms "imbecile " and "feeble-minded" are intended for use in cases where the infirmity has existed from birth, or from an early age, the former being applied to the more extreme cases, and the latter to the milder. An examination of the returns, however, provides ample evidence that these distinctions have not been uniformly made.
http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/index.jsp
See http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,366498.0.html

Stan

[KAllardyce]

Just as I think it is an interesting fact, I will share with you some information I gleamed when I wrote a dissertation about the asylum's The Retreat and Bootham Lunatic Asylum, in York. If you are looking into asylums, the significance, as you say, is often the family of the ill person. In the Retreat, the ground-breaking  Quaker institution, over a short period two young men were put into the institution as having 'a broken heart', one of who killed himself shortly into his visit. And woman was put in, 'because her husband had been lost at sea, then found [a few years] later'. The interesting thing in her case was, she seemingly had lost her mind, in their eyes, as he was found. You  can view all the patient files at York university archives. I know the period I was looking at was much earlier, but you would be shocked about what happened in those places!

I wondered 'imbecile', for example, was an euphemism for a set of mental illnesses (as this woman was quite recent, my great grandmother's aunt). Seemingly not.

[KAllardyce]

I have found the sibling of an ancestor who was an inmate in an asylum on the 1881 census. He is described as "imbecile." In the same institution, the three categories: idiot, imbecile and lunatic are used for the other inmates, so the medical authorites must have had a clear definition of each and recognised the differences. My connection had been a soldier for 12 years but discharged due to being insane. The medical record said he had dementia caused by syphilitic poisoning.

My person is over the same kind of period as yours is. Did it say what made the other people 'idiot,' 'imbecile' or 'lunatic'? Or symptoms? Maybe by knowing what made someone fall into the other categories, I can guess what made her fall into the category of being 'imbecile'?

[LizzieL]

In the 1881 census, most of the people described as "idiot" also had no occupation. In the 1891 census, for the same institution only 2 categories were used: idiot and lunatic. In 1901, again only 2 categories, "lunatic" and "idiot from birth". So it looks like at least in that asylum, the term idiot was used for those born with a mental disability and lunatic (and also imbecile in 1881) was used for those who had developed a problem later, having once had an occupation. But still the distinction between imbecile and lunatic isn't clear.

[stanmapstone]

When ‘feeble-minded’ was substituted for ‘idiot’ in the 1901 census the number of persons recorded  with mental disability rose markedly, because, apparently the former term was considered much less derogatory than the latter.

Some terms do have a formal definition in the UK although they are no longer used :
Term Idiot  IQ 0 to 25  Modern term Severe learning disability
Imbecile  25 to 50  Moderate learning disability
Feeble minded (moron)  50 to 70  Mild learning disability
Those with an IQ of less than 50 usually need care throughout life and are unlikely to educable in the formal sense.

Stan

[ChristineR]

Census category: health: blind, deaf, dumb, imbecile, idiot, or lunatic.

 On her death cert, it says she died of congenital Brain Disease, and Broncal pneumonia four days. I don't understand how it could be congenital as I have not yet found any other family member with 'brain disease'.

Congenital only means present from birth. Heredity is when something is passed from one generation to the next. Some of the infectious diseases can cause damage to unborn children, trauma to the mother, or a difficult birth as you said.