IDIOT, Persons. A person who has been without understanding from his
nativity, and whom the law, therefore, presumes never likely to attain any.
Shelf. on Lun. 2.
2. It is an imbecility or sterility of mind, and not a perversion of
the understanding. Chit. Med. Jur. 345, 327, note s; 1 Russ. on Cr. 6; Bac.
Ab. h.t. A; Bro. Ab. h.t.; Co. Litt. 246, 247; 3 Mod. 44; 1 Vern. 16; 4
Rep. 126; 1 Bl. Com. 302. When a man cannot count or number twenty, nor tell
his father's or mother's name, nor how old he is, having been frequently
told of it, it is a fair presumption that, he is devoid of understanding. F.
N. B. 233. Vide 1 Dow, P. C. now series, 392; S. C. 3 Bligh, R. new series,
1. Persons born deaf, dumb, and blind, are, presumed to be idiots, for the
senses being the only inlets of knowledge, and these, the most important of
them, being closed, all ideas and associations belonging to them are totally
excluded from their minds. Co. Litt. 42 Shelf. on Lun. 3. But this is a mere
presumption, which, like most others, may be rebutted; and doubtless a
person born deaf, dumb, and blind, who could be taught to read and write,
would not be considered an idiot. A remarkable instance of such an one may
be found in the person of Laura Bridgman, who has been taught how to
converse and even to write. This young woman was, in the year 1848, at
school at South Boston. Vide Locke on Human Understanding, B. 2 c. 11, Sec.
12, 13; Ayliffe's Pand. 234; 4 Com. Dig. 610; 8 Com. Dig. 644.
3. Idiots are incapable of committing crimes, or entering into
contracts. They cannot of course make a will; but they may acquire property
by descent.
Vide, generally, 1 Dow's Parl. Cas. new series, 392; 3 Bligh's R. 1; 19
Ves. 286, 352, 353; Stock on the Law of Non Compotes Mentis; Bouv. Inst.
Index, h.t.