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26
Report of the Departmental Committee on Mental Deficiency.
5. Following its publication during the summer of 1929, some consideration
was given to the report of the Mental Deficiency Committee (the " Wood " report).
This Committee, which was a joint committee of the Board of Education and the
Board of Control, was appointed in 1924 by the chief medical officer of the Board
of Education " to consider the problems presented by mental deficiency among
children of school age." Subsequently, however, the Committee decided that their
inquiry could not profitably be confined to children, but must range over the whole
field of mentally defective persons.
6. The Committee's report is in four parts, viz.:—I. General. II. The Mentally
Defective Child. III. The Adult Defective. IV. Report on an Investigation into the
Incidence of Mental Deficiency. The report deals fully with the various aspects of
the problem which it discusses and, undoubtedly, is the most exhaustive survey of
the problem which has yet been made.
7. The conclusions which it submits are based largely upon the result of
investigations conducted by Dr. E. 0. Lewis, an inspector of the Board of Control,
into the incidence of mental defect in six selected areas typical of the whole country.
The report of these investigations (Part IV.) constituting, in effect, a careful statistical
survey of the incidence of mental deficiency in England and Wales, conducted by
one set of observers and therefore based, for each area dealt with and (by inference)
for the whole country, upon a uniform foundation, is perhaps the most striking
feature of the report.
8. At the end of 1929, the Committee's conclusions and recommendations
were still receiving the Council's consideration.
Ascertainment.
9. During 1929, the Council's duty to ascertain what persons in London
were defectives within the meaning of the Mental Deficiency Acts, 1913 to 1927,
and were subject to be dealt with under those Acts, was discharged as fully as
possible.

11. As in previous years, the most fertile source of information of cases of
mental defect during 1929 was the local education authority. The numbers of cases
of which information was received from other sources also were approximately in
the same proportion as in other years.
12. There is little doubt that, after 1st April, 1930, when the Local Government
Act, 1929, has come into force, there will be a large increase in the number of cases
referred to the local authority for the purpose of ascertainment. Reference to this
matter is made later (see par. 15, post).
"Wood"
Report.
Scope of the
Report.
Report of
Investigator.
Number of
cases of which
information
was received.
Sources of
information.
Probable
increase in
number of
cases for
ascertainment.