Considering only the "institutional population" of the United States,
one gets the following figures:
BLIND: total, 64,763 according to census of 1900. Of these,
35,645 were totally blind and 29,118 partly blind. The affection is
stated to have been congenital in 4,730 cases. Nineteen per cent of the
blind were found to have blind relatives; 4.5% of them were returned as
the offspring of cousin marriages.
DEAF: total, 86,515, according to the census of 1900. More than
50,000 of them were deaf from childhood (under 20), 12,609 being deaf
from birth. At least 4.5% of the deaf were stated to be offspring of
cousin marriages, and 32.1% to have deaf relatives. The significance of
this can not be determined unless it is known how many normal persons
have deaf relatives (or blind relatives, in considering the preceding
paragraph), but it points to the existence of families that are
characterized by deafness (or blindness).
INSANE: the census of 1910 enumerated only the insane who were
in institutions; they numbered 187,791. The number outside of
institutions is doubtless considerable but can not be computed. The
institutional population is not a permanent, but mainly a transient one,
the number of persons discharged from institutions in 1910 being 29,304.
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