The Mongol in Our Midst

The Mongol in Our Midst: A Study of Man and HisThree Faces is a book by the British physician F. G.Crookshank that was rst published in 1924. It advancedthe now-discredited idea, then prevalent in contemporaryscientic racism, that so-called Mongolian imbecility,a form of mental retardation now known as Down syn-drome, was an atavistic throwback to the more primitiveMongoloid race. Finding success with a popular audi-ence, The Mongol in Our Midst was republished in twomore editions, the third edition in 1931 with expandedanthropological and clinical references.[1]

In The Mongol in Our Midst, Crookshank argued thatMongolian imbecility was the result of the distant racialhistory of the Caucasian parents, each of whommust alsocarry Mongol traits. That Caucasians bore this racial his-tory was either the result of those individuals sharing acommon Mongoloid ancestor, or of all Caucasians hav-ing distant Mongoloid ancestry. Mongolian imbeciles,then, were atavistic throwbacks to that Mongoloid her-itage, the modern emergence of which Crookshank be-lieved was due to their incomplete development in thewomb.[2] As a consequence, Mongolian imbeciles werea race apart. For better or for worse, they are not quite asare other men and women around them. They are indeed'Mongol expatriates.'"[3]

In support of his thesis, Crookshank presented purportedexamples of physical characteristics and behavior sharedby Mongolian imbeciles and those of the Mongoloidrace. Crookshank termed the physical traits the Mongo-lian stigmata, among which he included small earlobes,protruding anuses, and small genitals in both sexes.[4] TheMongol in Our Midst also emphasized what Crookshankviewed as the natural habit of Mongolian imbeciles tosit cross-legged, the same position portrayed in statues ofthe Buddha.[5]

These ideas did not originate with Crookshank; the link-age of Down syndrome to the so-called Mongoloid racedated from the mid-19th century.[6] Through The Mon-gol in Our Midst, however, Crookshank was successfulin bringing it to a widespread, popular audience, andhis book and thesis were well received at the time.[7] Acontemporary review in the journal Nature, for exam-ple, praised Crookshank as argu[ing] with much skill infavour of his view...[8]

1 See also Recapitulation theory

2 Notes[1] See Shrubsall 1931, p. 830, a review of the third edition

in The British Journal of Psychiatry.

[2] This theory is noted in Wright 2001, p. 173.

[3] Quote republished in Weatherford 2004, p. 258. Theterm Mongol expatriates and the books theory ofreemergent Mongoloid ancestry are also noted and sum-marized in Shrubsall 1931, p. 831.

[4] These stigmata are summarized in Weatherford 2004,p. 258.

[5] See summaries in Nature, 605, and Shrubsall 1931, pp.83132, both noting the books emphasis on the signi-cance of the cross-legged stance, and comparing the com-mon sitting posture of Mongoloid imbeciles to depic-tions of the Buddha. Known as the lotus position, thissitting posture actually originated in India.

[6] John Langdon Down, the British doctor who rst de-scribed the condition and after whom it is now named,labeled it the Mongolian type of Idiot in 1866, aspart of his theory that it was possible to classify dier-ent types of conditions by supposed ethnic characteris-tics. Weatherford 2004, p. 257 credits Scottish scientistRobert Chambers with the rst recorded link betweenthe race and the condition, in his 1844 work Vestiges ofthe Natural History of Creation. See also Down syndrome:history for a fuller treatment.

[7] A contemporary review of the books third edition in theJournal of the American Medical Association states thatthe rst edition attracted wide attention when it rst be-came available. J Am Med Assoc 99 (9): 782. 1932.Shrubsall 1931, p. 830, also noted in The British Journalof Psychiatry that The Mongol in Our Midst excited con-siderable excitement on its rst appearance. Weatherford2004, p. 258 simply describes the book as having beenpopular.

[8] Nature 114: 605 (25 October 1924).

3 References The Mongol in our Midst: a Study of Man and his

Three Faces. Nature 114 (2869): 605. 25 October1924. doi:10.1038/114605c0. Retrieved 2010-01-11.

Shrubsall, F.C. (1931). The Mongol in Our Midst:By F. G. Crookshank, M.D. Third Edition.. The

1

2 3 REFERENCES

British Journal of Psychiatry 77 (319): 83032.doi:10.1192/bjp.77.319.830. Retrieved 2010-01-11.

TheMongol in OurMidst: A Study ofMan and HisThree Faces. J Am Med Assoc 99 (9): 782. 1932.doi:10.1001/jama.1932.02740610080037.

Weatherford, Jack (2004). Genghis Khan and theMaking of the Modern World. New York: ThreeRivers Press. pp. 25758. ISBN 0-609-80964-4.

Wright, David (2001). Mental disability in Victo-rian England: the Earlswood Asylum, 1847-1901.Oxford University Press. p. 173. ISBN 0-19-924639-4.

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