ere the mental
degeneration is as complete as the physical would as readily yield to
treatment; and we are driven to the conviction that the enthusiasm and
zeal of Dr. Guggenbuehl have led him to exaggerate the measure of success
attained in these cases of low grade, and thus to excite hopes which
could never be fulfilled.[A]

[Footnote A: Dr. F. Kern, Superintendent of the Idiot School at
Gohlis, near Leipzig, in an article in the _Allgemeine Zeitschrift fuer
Psychiatrie_, published the present year, (1857,) states that he
examined a boy in the Abendberg Hospital in 1853, of whom Dr. Guggenbuehl
had said, in his work _Upon the Cure of Cretinism_, published a few
months previously, that, "after the painstaking examination of Dr.
Naville, he was held to be capable of entering a training school for
teachers, in order to qualify himself for a teacher": Dr. Kern found
that he knew neither the day of the week or the mouth, nor his birthday,
nor his age.]

There are four other institutions in Germany devoted wholly or in part
to the treatment of cretins; they are located at Bendorf, Mariaberg,
Winterbach, and Hubertsburg. There are also two in Sardinia. All
together they may contain three hundred children. The success of these
institutions has not been equal to that of the Abendberg, although the
teachers seem to have been faithful and patient. The statistics of the
latest census of the countries of Central and Southern Europe render
it certain that those countries contain from seventy-five to eighty
thousand cretins, and as the cretin seldom passes his thirtieth year,
the number under ten years of age must exceed thirty thousand. The
provision for their training is, of course, entirely inadequate to their
needs.

The limited experience of the few institutions already established
warrants, we think, the conclusion, that too high expectations have been
raised in regard to the complete cure of cretinism; that only a
small proportion (cases in which the bodily disease is the principal
difficulty, and the mental deterioration slight) can be perfectly cured;
but that these institutions, regarded as hospitals for the treatment and
training of cretins, are in the highest degree important and beneficial;
and that, under proper care and medication, the physical symptoms of the
disease may be greatly diminished and in many cases entirely eradicated,
and the mental condition so far improved, that the patient shall be
able, under pro