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 proper direction, to support himself wholly or in part by
his own labor. The hideous and repulsive condition of the body can
be cured; the mental deformity will yield less readily; yet in some
instances this, too, may disappear, and the cretin take his place with
his fellow-men.

Let us now turn our attention to another class, in whom, as a people, we
have a deeper interest; for though cretinism does undoubtedly exist in
the United States, yet the cases are but few; while idiocy is fearfully
prevalent throughout the country.

The possibility of improving the condition of the idiot is one of those
discoveries which will make the nineteenth century remarkable in the