SEGUIN, EDOUARD

born Jan. 20, 1812, Clamecy, Fr. died Oct. 28, 1880, New York City French-born American psychiatrist who pioneered modern educational methods for teaching the severely retarded. Born into a family of prominent physicians in Burgundy, Sguin was educated at the Collge d'Auxerre and at the Lyce St. Louis in Paris before studying medicine and surgery. From the start he was interested in mental diseases, and as a young doctor he worked with psychologists Jean-Marc Itard and Jean-tienne Esquirol. In 1839 Sguin opened a school for the severely retarded, where he developed a method of treatment, later widely accepted, based on the revolutionary premise that idiots had neither diseased nor abnormal brains but simply suffered arrested mental development before, during, or after birth. Treatment, therefore, consisted of sensory training designed to permit the patient to function as well as possible in society. Sguin's school became internationally renowned and spawned similar institutions throughout Europe. In 1846 he published Traitment Moral, hygiene et education des idiots (Mental Treatment, Hygiene, and Education of Idiots), which was quickly recognized as a classic work in psychology. Unhappy with the political atmosphere in France, Sguin immigrated to the United States, settling first (1851) in Ohio but later (1854) moving to New York. He established several teaching institutions for retarded children, and in 1860 he set up his own medical practice at Mt. Vernon, N.Y. He received an M.D. degree from New York University. In 1863 he moved to New York City and began work with retarded children in the asylum at Randall's Island. In 1866 Sguin published his second book, Idiocy and Its Treatment by the Psychological Method, and he instituted his ideas at the Sguin Psychological School in Orange, N.J., stressing sense and motor training. He wrote or collaborated in several books popularizing the use of the clinical thermometer. His son, Edward Constant Sguin, became an eminent American neurologist.