Genealogy Chat

I have a family member in the Workhouse in 1891 and he is classed as an imbecile. I appreciate that people were admitted for amny strange reasons but does anybody know how the term imbecile was different to being calssed as a lunatic.

found this.... Lunatic ~ a mentally ill person with periods of lucidity. Imbecile ~ persons who have fallen in later life into a state of chronic dementia.

According to the dictionary, an imbecile is not as strong a term as idiot. I guess it is someone we would think of as being a bit simple who would find it difficult to cope on their own. Janice

One of my husbands ancestors is recorded on the 1901 census as being an imbecile due to sunstroke at the age of 21. He was a mariner, so would probably have been at sea at the time. Just shows what the sun can do!!! My late mother-in-law remembered him (he was her uncle) and said he was like a little boy as an adult. Kath. x

There were three specific terms to be used on the censuses. Lunatics were intermittently mad. I think the third term was Cretin, covering those who had been insane from birth. I think I have read somewhere that there was serious under-recording of insanity on the censuses, presumably because the enumerators didn't like to ask the question outright.

I believe that cretin was used as a term for people with thyroid disorder. from online dictionary: cretinism severe hypothyroidism resulting in physical and mental stunting

Helen, they still use that term `cretin` today! linda x

These definitions appeared in an earlier thread- A lunatic = had periods of sanity. An imbecile = some-one who had later in life become demented. An idiot = was mentally handicapped by birth. A moron = had a mental age of 8-12. A cretin = had a mental retardation caused by thyroid deficiency.

An ancestor of mine was also classed as an imbecile on the census, when I obtained her death cert she had died as the result of a stroke, quite likely when the census was taken, the poor soul would have been unable to speak properly, this can happen with stroke victims, she may also have had her face twisted etc. So, the enumerator, probably not a very well educated person, just assumed, oh this is an imbecile! how cruel and ignorant they were in those days!