MENTAL SUBNORMALITY AND ITS PREVALENCE IN NORTHERN IRELAND

Northern Ireland has an area of 5,238 square miles and a population of 1,435,400 (Registrar General‘s estimate, June 1962). Although it is part of the United Kingdom, it has a measure of self-government exercised by a local parliament, and has its own legislation for certain matters including health, both physical and mental. Persons ascertained to be “suffering from arrested or incomplete development of mind (whether arising from inherent causes, or induced by disease or injury) which render them socially inefficient to such an extent that they require supervision, training or control in their own interests or the interests of other persons” (Mental Health Acts Northern Ireland, 1948, 1961) are the responsibility of the Special Care Services and are referred to as “persons requiring special care”. The term “mental deficiency” is no longer used. The purpose of this paper is, first, to describe the population for whom these services exist and, second, to discuss some of the data in relation to findings from two other surveys (Lewis, 1929; Goodman & Tizard, 1962).