IDIOT. A person who has been without understanding from his nativity, and whom the law, therefore, presumes never likely to attain any. Shelford, Lun. 2.
2. It is an imbecility or sterility of mind, and not a perversion of the understanding. Chitty, Med. Jur. 327, note s, 345; 1 Russell, Crimes, 6 ; Bacon, Abr. Idiot (A) ; Brooke, Abr. ; Coke, Litt. 246, 247 ; 3 Mod. 44 ; 1 Vern. Ch. 16 ; 4 Coke, 126 ; 1 Blackstone, Comm. 302. When a man cannot count or number twenty, nor tell his father's or mo ther's name, nor how old he is, having been frequently told of it, it is a fair presumption that he is devoid of understanding. Fitzher bert; Nat. B•ev. 233. See 1 Dow, Parl. Cas. N. s. 392 ; 3 Bligh, N. s. 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. Coke, Litt. 42 ; Shelford, Lun.
3. But this is a mere presumption, which, like most others, may be rebutted ; and doubt less a person born deaf, dumb, and blind, who could be taught to read and write, would not be considered an idiot. A remarkable in stance of such a 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. See Locke, Hum. Und. b. 2, c. 11, N 12, 13 ; Ayliffe, Pand. 234; 4 Comyns, Dig. 610 ; 8 id. 644.
3. Idiots are incapable of committing crimes; or entering into contracts. They can not, of course, make a will ; but they may ac quire property by descent.
See, generally, 1 Dow, PaH. Cas. N. s. 392 ; 3 Bligh, 1; 19 Ves. Ch. 286, 352, 353 ; Stock, Non. Comp. ; Bouvier, Inst. Index ; Story, Parsons, Contr. ; Bishop, Crimes.