The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-02-19
GENIusEs WHO ARE IDIOTS.
Science Says That Youthful PrOdi-
gies Are Really Lacking in Brains
From the Chicago Times-Herald.

From the Chicago Times-Herald.
Among degenerate diseases the affection
called learned idlocy is the latest. 1t
is the case of the man with an abnormal
appetite for one particular menta. attain
ment, who is at last catalogued where he
belongs, among the idiots. The youthful
prodigy, so long placed as being apart
from the rest of humanity must now take
up his stand with imbeclleS and the feeble
minded.
Specialists in mental disease have de-
clard that all those persons so wonderfully
and abnormally clever in just one line, and
showing Almost mental weakness in all
other lines, belong to a peculiar and in
dividual type of humanity.
To Frederick Peterson of New York is
due a systematized study and exposition
of this interesting fact. He relates an eX-
traordinary number of cases of learned
idiocy which have occurred in literature
Newspapers and journals TEEN with ac-
counts of prodigieS which spring up daily
The museums are stocked with a motley
array of so-called mental phenomena.
Musical infants, adult mindreaders and
wonderful mathematician are exploited in
every city of the union. The phenomena
are advertised, records of their deeds kept
but never has such a thing as an exp4ana-
ton of their attainment been written to
enlighten the gaping public.
DIR. Peterson has taken up the psyche
logical feature of the question. 1t is an
obscure one; even the physiological pro-
ceSSeS underlying special aptitudeS are in
distinct. The manifestations of partiCu-
lar faculties where the mind is otherwise
worthless, has always been somewhat of
a mystery and curiosity in itself. Among
the principal phases of idiocy which the
learned doctor enumerates are the arith-
NAUTICAL faculty, the musical faculty, spe-
eial mem ries, the initiative faculty, mod
cling faculty, delineatiVe faculty, faculty
for painting, aptitude for games and for
A striking example of the arithmetical
genius is that of an idiot, who had little
command of language, yet he possessed
most astonishing powers OF reckoning, and
If ones age were told him he would give
the number of minutes one had liyed al
most Immediately. Another case is that
of an imbecile at Salzburg, who could
solve the most difficult examples of men
tai arithmetic with almost Incredible ra-
pidity: Dase. the wonderful German
mamthematical penius, was totally una
BILE to master a single word of any spoken
language save his own.
This extraordinary mathematical apti-
tude in idiocy consists alomst invariably
of power in simple calculation only. 1t
is instructive and congenial, and is ac-
companied by marked evidences of further
degeneracy. 1t is also accompanied by
unusual development of INSTALLATION. Ii
is by means of the visual image that COM
putation is made.
Examples of the musical wonder are fire.
quent and common. Dr. Patterson cites
as his example a man who was totally
blind. With him, as with others, the mu-
steal faculty Is not creative but is the
result of an overdeVeloped auditory mem
DRY, as the powers of the calculating prod
igy is the result of strong INSTALLATION.
Among people of extraordinary memory
development is the case of a man who,
though an imbecile in all other directions
could remember the day of burial of every
person who had died in the parish for
thirty-fiVe years, and he could repeat with
perfect accuracy the names and ages of
the deceased and of the mourners at the
funeral. Another instance is that of a
man unable TO count to twenty, yet cap
able of naming all the saints of the cal
endar, and their respective fete days.
The court testers in the days of old be-
longed to that class of powerful mimics,
with an aptitude for coarse wit, that are
prevalent to-day in certain phase of
life. People who have a deft hand for
cards or chess yet cannot write their own
names, are classed likewise with the
idiots.
This so7called power then is overdevel-
opment of the faculties of memory, of
sight, of hearing, or of imitation. There
is absolutely no creative faculty The
learned idiots are automatons, no matter
what phase of development they exhibit.
The explanation shows the disease to be
merely a precocious development of one
faculty of the brain, generally in early
life, with tendency to degeneration.