Only a fragmentary history of this family has been obtainable, and there appears to be ground for supposing the number of members to have been much larger; but, so far as known, every member has been feeble-minded, and " hardly a year passes that other feeble-minded, illegitimate, children are not born into the family." All the individuals represented in the table have derived their support in greater or less measure from the community. The next table' presents an instance of continuity of feeble-mindedness through five generations:

Of another family we are told that it has never had a female member of sound mind, and that all the male members, with perhaps two or three exceptions, have been feeble-minded.

The tendency toward reckless parentage among the weak-minded continues to produce its stream of

1 E. P. Bicknell, loc. cit., p. 84.

imbecile illegitimates in spite, for the most part, of the best efforts of homes and county poor asylums to prevent it. Any one who has given even the briefest attention to the subject knows how totally inadequate is the protection for the feeble-minded which can be given by these institutions."' '

2

It is now generally conceded by those who have given the subject thoughtful attention, that imbeciles, at least of the lower grades,-whether chiefly of the mental or of the moral kind, cannot be permitted to live at large without grave damage to the public weal. The one remedy proposed is that they shall be gathered together into vast institutions and there be held captive until released by death. “A child who in early life betrays decided viciousness, and is even slightly below par intellectually, should be kept from society as we would keep poison from food. Through the proposed plan of life-detention, the feeble-minded may live such happy and useful lives as are possible for them, while the restrictions by which they are encompassed shall limit the mischief which it is their natural tendency to work. This system of so-called "custodial care is the most reasonable and the most kindly plan yet contrived for the true advantage both of the feebleminded and of society generally, but when we consider the small sum of happiness possible to these defective creatures-through their feeble capacity and the short duration of their life-and the tremendous financial drain which an adequate

1 E. P. Bicknell, loc. cit., p. 86.

2 Martha Louise Clark, loc. cit.

application of the plan would entail upon society, cannot but regard the remedy as highly unsatisfactory.

we

The Epileptic. The number of epileptics in a country no census determines with any degree of accuracy, the disease being often purposely concealed and at other times existing under an obscure form which even the expert diagnostician may fail to recognize. It appears, however, to be generally admitted that we have in the United States about 135,000 epileptics, of whom the great majority are in a more or less helpless condition.'

In the causation of epilepsy heredity plays an exceedingly important part, but it is not only as epilepsy that the requisite taint has appeared in the ancestry: any pronounced manifestation of degeneracy in one generation may be the harbinger of epilepsy in the next, which matter of equivalence has already been sufficiently explained. The predisposition existing, various forms of irritation may serve as exciting cause of the disease.

The disease may assume a great variety of forms, but its chief common characters are: the sudden partial or complete loss of consciousness, the occurrence of more or less general convulsions, and the repetition of the paroxysms with greater or less frequency. A very peculiar, yet by no means rare, modification of the common form is a change in the individual's consciousness through which he is led to do things purposeless or even fearfully destructive, which action is then immediately and completely

1 W. F. Drewry, M.D., Charities Review, 1896, v., 117.

forgotten. This dangerous phase may appear at the onset of the common paroxysm, during its continuance, or at its close, or may even entirely supplant it a so-called psychic equivalent of epilepsy. The frequency of the paroxysms varies greatly in different persons. For quite a large number of epileptics, several fits daily is the rule. Between the attacks the health may be very good; but in the majority of cases, especially those manifesting themselves in very early life, there is a progressive weakening of the intellect and moral sense which seriously impair the individual's usefulness and happiness, and make of him a menace to society. A certain minority of epileptics appear to escape entirely the usual loss of intellectual power, but even in these cases there is commonly a progressive increase of irritability and eccentricity.

The element of uncertainty introduced into the epileptic's life through the liability to sudden loss of consciousness becomes a great obstacle in the exercise of any vocation, and a very large number of these unfortunates thereby fall back upon the support of the public institutions. Recognizing their unfitness for steady work, the sense of distrust or aversion awakened in those with whom they come into contact, and the hopelessness of cure, very many of these unfortunates live by day a life of constant gloom; by night they are prone to suffer very dreadful dreams.

The transitory frenzy which often accompanies. the common paroxysm of epilepsy, or appears as its substitute, is, as during these recent years has been

abundantly shown, a fruitful source of crime.' A peculiar characteristic of the epileptic mania is its intense ferocity and destructive violence; while there may appear such distinct contrivance of means to ends as to indicate a full consciousness, a clear purpose. There can now be no doubt, however, but that the crimes of frenzied epileptics may be committed automatically, such consciousness as exists being entirely unconnected by memory with that usual consciousness of the individual which we are accustomed to regard as his true personality. After the perpetration of a frightful murder, the epileptic may comport himself as if nothing had happened, having no recollection of his crime; in other cases there may be gradually brought back some fragmentary memories of the frenzied consciousness, through a contemplation of the results of the horrid deed enacted. This tendency to transitory frenzy may exist in any epileptic. Even the good-humored epileptic is liable to be an uncertain and dangerous creature; instigated by an overpowering hallucination, he may explode in

1 The relation between epilepsy and crime appears to have been recognized at a very remote period. Herodotus, who wrote in the fifth century B.C., after telling of the outrageous deeds of the Persian King Cambyses, perpetrated against his own people and the conquered Egyptians, with inclusion of the murder of his brother and wife, says: "Thus madly did Cambyses behave toward his own family for Cambyses is said, even from infancy, to have been afflicted with a certain severe malady, which some called the sacred disease [epilepsy]. In that case, it was not at all surprising that, when his body was so diseased, his mind should not be sound." -Engl. transl. by Henry Cary, p. 184. New York, 1870.