It feels very uncomfortable to utter the term 'non-European extraction' that Professor Moncrieff uses to describe the boy who suffers lead poisoning. There is an entry on this site on ethics in public health, and it would be interesting to look into this more, and to consider what terminology, if any, medical assessments adopted today, and the history of this. So how might one approach such terminology today? Use the same? Find another way, or avoid it altogether?

Having studied philosophy and anthropology I would start by thinking through a cultural history of the terms used generally to describe someone's ancestry or lineage, and then specifically in areas such as medicine. This prompted me to start putting in the words 'extraction', 'ethnicity' and 'categorisation' into search engines on the internet.

Some of the things that caught my eye were the following...

Definition of the term extraction -
a) the act of extracting or the condition of being extracted
b) something obtained by extracting; an extract
c) origin; lineage

Definition of the term 'extraction' (in terms of the context of Moncrieff's description) - where you come from, depending on where your ancestors or progenitors are from, i.e. Scotland, Vietnam etc.

Extraction - properties attributable to your ancestry, i.e. "he comes from good origins" SO DID THE BOY INHERIT HIS PICA? WERE HIS ORIGINS FLAWED? DOES HIS PARTICULAR ANCESTRY MAKE HIM MORE SUSCEPTIBLE TO MENTAL RETARDATION AS A RESULT OF LEAD POISONING? WOULD THIS BE ARGUABLE TODAY? Please add an entry if this is your field of expertise/ interest?

Words associated with extraction: origin, family, ancestry, descent, race, stock, blood, birth, pedigree, lineage, parentage, derivation

From this I started to think about inheritance in terms of blood lines, which led to obstetrics/ gynaecology & reproductive sciences. I found an article on genetic screening which stated that most disorders are inherited from both parents carrying particular genes, or from just one of them. So, is ‘mental retardation’ (which Moncrieff also describes the boy as having), inherited as well as having been physically caused through lead poisoning, or a result of his social experiences? Please look at the entry entitled ‘Definition of Mental Retardation…’

When doing genetic testing today for a couple who wants to know in advance what genetic information they carry before conceiving, these are some of the things screened for: Cystic Fibrosis, Fragile X Syndrome, Hemoglibinopathy screening, Sickle Cell, Tay Sachs, Canavan Disease, Familial Dysautonomia. Of all of these, Fragile X Syndrome is described as a cause of mental retardation. Elsewhere someone has described the boy as ‘Boy X’. Are you an expert on Fragile X Syndrome?

From here I started thinking about statistics in relation to ethnicity, which led me to the Office for National Statistics and the 2001 Census. The census has three questions - ethnic group, country of birth, and religion. Have a look at:
www.statistics.gov.uk/about/ethnic_group_statistics/downloads/ethnic_gro...
www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/profiles/commentaries/ethnicity.asp
This is interesting for a number of reasons, but in this instance in terms of the terminology used to categorize people now.

This is where I have got to so far…can you take this forward?

My next intention is to contact someone in UCL’s Anthropology Department, and to ask, depending on their discipline how they would approach unravelling the term ‘non-European extraction’. I think I’ll start with sending an email to Ronald Reynolds who specializes in medical anthropology…