Legislation and Policies
Mental Deficiency and Lunacy (Scotland) Act.
Mental Deficiency And Lunacy (Scotland) Act, remained the legislative basis for the organisation of mental handicap until its repeal by the 1960 Mental Health (Scotland) Act. This Act created the categories of : (a)Idiots: i.e. to say, persons so deeply defective in mind from birth or from an early age as to be unable to guard themselves against common physical dangers; (b)Imbeciles: i.e. to say, persons in whose case there exists from birth or from an early age mental defectiveness not amounting to idiocy, yet so pronounced that they are incapable of managing themselves or their affairs, or, in the case of children, of being taught to do so; (c) Feeble‑minded: i.e. to say, persons in whose case there exists from birth or from an early age mental defectiveness not amounting to imbecility, yet so pronounced that they require care, supervision, and control for their own protection or for the protection of others, or, in the case of children, that they by reason of such defectiveness appear to be permanently incapable of receiving proper benefit from the instruction in ordinary schools; (d) Moral Imbeciles: