The term ''imbecile'' was once used by

psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry. Psychiatrists are physicians who evaluate patients to determine whether their symptoms are the result of a physical illness, a combination of physical and mental ailments or strictly ...

s to denote a category of people with moderate to severe

intellectual disability Intellectual disability (ID), also known as general learning disability (in the United Kingdom), and formerly mental retardation (in the United States), Rosa's Law, Pub. L. 111-256124 Stat. 2643(2010).Archive is a generalized neurodevelopmental ...

, as well as a type of criminal.Fernald, Walter E. (1912). ''The imbecile with criminal instincts.'' Fourth edition. Boston: Ellis. .Duncan, P. Martin; Millard, William (1866). ''A manual for the classification, training, and education of the feeble-minded, imbecile, and idiotic.'' Longmans, Green, and Co. The word arises from the Latin word ''imbecillus'', meaning weak, or weak-minded. It originally referred to people of the second order in a former and discarded classification of intellectual disability, with a mental age of three to seven years and an IQ of 25–50, above " idiot" (IQ below 25) and below " moron" (IQ of 51–70).Sternberg, Robert J. (2000). ''Handbook of Intelligence.''

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...

. . In the obsolete medical classification ( ICD-9, 1977), these people were said to have "moderate mental retardation" or "moderate mental subnormality" with IQ of 35–49, as they are usually capable of some degree of communication, guarding themselves against danger and performing simple mechanical tasks under supervision. The meaning was further refined into mental and moral imbecility.Kerlin, Isaac N. (1889). "Moral imbecility". ''Proceedings of the Association of Medical Officers of American Institutions for Idiotic and Feeble-minded Persons'', pp. 15–18.Fernald, Walter E. (1 April 1909)
"The imbecile with criminal instincts"
'' American Journal of Psychiatry''. 65(4):731–749. The concepts of "moral insanity", " moral idiocy", and "moral imbecility" led to the emerging field of eugenic

criminology Criminology (from Latin , 'accusation', and Ancient Greek , ''-logia'', from λόγος ''logos'', 'word, reason') is the interdisciplinary study of crime and deviant behaviour. Criminology is a multidisciplinary field in both the behaviou ...

, which held that crime can be reduced by preventing " feeble-minded" people from reproducing.Rafter, Nicole Hahn (1998). ''Creating Born Criminals''. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press. . Tredgold, A. F. (1921). "Moral Imbecility". '' Proc R Soc Med'', 1921; 14(Sect Psych): 13–22. "Imbecile" as a concrete classification was popularized by psychologist Henry H. Goddard Goddard, Henry Herbert (1915).
The Criminal Imbecile; an Analysis of Three Remarkable Murder Cases
'. New York: The Macmillan Company. and was used in 1927 by

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. in his ruling in the forced-sterilization case '' Buck v. Bell'', 274 U.S. 200 (1927).Lombardo, Paul A. (2008). ''Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell''. JHU Press, . The concept is closely associated with

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

psychiatry Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of deleterious mental disorder, mental conditions. These include matters related to cognition, perceptions, Mood (psychology), mood, emotion, and behavior. ...

, and eugenics. However, the term ''imbecile'' quickly passed into vernacular usage as a derogatory term. It fell out of professional use in the 20th century in favor of ''mental retardation''.Kaplan, Robert M.; Saccuzzo, Dennis P. (2008). ''Psychological Testing: Principles, Applications, and Issues''. Cengage Learning. . Phrases such as "mental retardation", "mentally retarded", and " retarded" are also subject to the euphemism treadmill: initially used in a medical manner, they gradually took on derogatory connotation. This had occurred with the earlier synonyms (for example, ''moron'', ''imbecile'', ''cretin'', and ''idiot'', formerly used as scientific terms in the early 20th century). Professionals searched for connotatively neutral replacements. In the United States, " Rosa's Law" changed references in many federal statutes to "mental retardation" to refer instead to "intellectual disability".Sweet, Lynn (October 5, 2010).
Obama signs 'Rosa's Law;' 'mental retardation' out, 'intellectual disability' in
(). '' Chicago Sun-Times''.

References

{{Reflist Obsolete terms for mental disorders Pejorative terms for people with disabilities Intellectual disability Obsolete medical terms Slurs related to low intelligence