The Mentally Retarded in Society

The Mentally Retarded in Society. By Stanley Powell Davies, with the collaboration of Katherine G. Ecob. Columbia University Press; London : Oxford University Press, 1959. 45s. As the author points out, this volume endeavours to present Cental retardation in its social rather than clinical aspects. Based ?n two earlier books, one published in 1923 and another in 1930, The Mentally Retarded in Society presents an up-to-date and extraordinarily well-documented account of the development of social services for the mentally handicapped in the United States, against a background of the changing social philosophy concerning this section of the population. The book is divided into two parts : the first concerns the history of American mental deficiency practice and includes chapters on the various criteria of subnormality and the effect in different states of such measures as sterilization, segregation and special laws for dealing with defective delinquents. There is a most lucid and interesting account of the history of intelligence testing; early attempts to educate the severely retarded; and the events leading to the panic about national degeneracy which swept America and Britain in the early part of this century and which greatly influenced the legal and social provisions made at that time. This section of the book ends with two chapters on the changing concepts of causation and new light which has been shed on the