Background
Isaac Newton Kerlin was born on May 27, 1834 at Burlington, New Jersey, United States, the son of Joseph and Sarah (Ware) Kerlin.
(Excerpt from The Mind Unveiled, or a Brief History of Twe...)
Excerpt from The Mind Unveiled, or a Brief History of Twenty-Two Imbecile Children In the domestic circle, it is a sad evil everywhere. It weighs heavily upon parents, and bedews the hearth of home with drops Of grief. Within the friendly, social circle, it is an eye-sore spot from which every one turns, with either pity or disgust; and in the community at large, it is a burden which taxes the public purse, and calls loudly for relief. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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Isaac Newton Kerlin was born on May 27, 1834 at Burlington, New Jersey, United States, the son of Joseph and Sarah (Ware) Kerlin.
Kerlin was educated in the Burlington public schools, the John Collins Academy, and at the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied medicine under Dr. Joseph Parrish. He graduated in 1856 and spent one year as resident at the Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia.
About 1857 Kerlin became assistant superintendent of the Pennsylvania Training School for Feebleminded Children at Elwyn, near Media (1858 - 1862). In 1862 he enlisted in the army but was soon detailed as medical officer in an impoverished hospital at Hagerstown, Maryland. In 1863 he served with the United States Sanitary Commission in the Army of the Potomac.
The following year he left the service to become superintendent of the Pennsylvania Training School. Conditions were difficult, the work discouraging. He soon realized the necessity of closer contact and cooperation with heads of similar institutions. Through his efforts a national Association of Superintendents of Institutions for the Feebleminded was formed at a meeting held at Elwyn in 1876, with O. Edouard Seguin as president and Kerlin as secretary. Kerlin remained secretary until his death and became largely responsible for the gradual extension of the association until it included almost all psychiatrists interested in mental deficiency.
The Elwyn institution was his life work. Here he conducted a series of autopsies and laid some foundation for the psychopathology of the future. He held advanced ideas for his time, insisting that all mental deficients were wards of the state. He planned separate small buildings for their care, the first of which, holding 112 children, was opened in 1883. At his death, he had a central building, providing schoolrooms and accommodations for 400 teachable deficient children, and four detached buildings for 400 custodial and unteachable patients. His management was thorough and economical, but achieved at the cost of constant strain.
About 1888 cardiac and renal symptoms began to make Kerlin's work difficult, but he was only happy when busy. His trustees offered him ample leaves of absence, and he made protracted visits to Europe (1889 and 1891), during which he was enthusiastically welcomed at all prominent institutions for the feebleminded in Great Britain, Norway, and Denmark. But he would not give up his work. He died in the fall of 1893 and was buried in a grove on the Elwyn grounds.
During his life he had little time for extensive literary production. His numerous short articles on subjects related to his work are able and instructive. He published two books, Mind Unveiled (1858), based on his early experiences with mental deficients, and The Manual of Elwyn (1891).
Kerlin was a pioneer psychiatrist, who made the first important contributions toward the understanding and care of mentally deficient children and adults. He was the founder of the National Association of Superintendents of Institutions and framed the draft of a bill, passed by the legislature, to provide institutions similar to that at Elwyn in the western part of Pennsylvania.
(Excerpt from The Mind Unveiled, or a Brief History of Twe...)
( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
In 1865 Kerlon married Harriet C. Dix, a Massachusetts woman, who predeceased him by a few months, leaving four sons.
