504 ILLINOIS STATE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



funds held in trust. The ctise was settled and a jail sen- 

 tence suspended. He moved to another state and made 

 a new start, but several minor lapses folloAved in quick 

 succession. Once, an affair with a woman; another, a 

 drunken spree for a few weeks in another city; and final- 

 ly the selling of his property without the knowledge or 

 consent of his wife. The money was quickly squan- 

 dered, and his once happy home was wrecked. His down- 

 fall was rapid. The saloon, the hrothel, the gambling 

 den now became his haunts and he was rarely seen by 

 his family. In a drunken row he was accused of killing 

 his pal. By this time he had so far deteriorated from 

 his former self that it was quite easy to prove him insane 

 when he came up for trial. He was sent to the hospital 

 for the insane in the state of Iowa, where he slowly de- 

 teriorated mentally and physically for about five years 

 when he died. 



His case turned out to be quite similar to that of his 

 two elder brothers. The break came at about the same 

 period of life or a little later, but the symptoms in the 

 diagnoses were quite similar. 



The youngest daughter. No. 5, Chart III, in this family 

 is still living. She has never suffered a breakdown but 

 has always been regarded as most peculiar. She married 

 and is the mother of three children, but she has not lived 

 with her husband for many years, nor do her children see 

 her. She has long periods of depression during which 

 she will not speak to her most intimate friends. These 

 are probably forerunners of a final state of melancholia 

 so common in her mother's family. 



In the third generation the terrible effects of the un- 

 social dominant traits described in the parents are still 

 evident. The accompanying charts show to what a low 

 station many of the descendants of the original pair have 

 sunk. One branch seems to have reached so low a stage 

 that there is little danger of further propagation. From 

 every standpoint the results have been disastrous. Eco- 

 nomically it has been wasteful. Four states, Iowa, Mis- 

 souri, Kansas and Nebraska, have expended approxi- 

 mately $18,000 in legal processes alone ; a moderate esti- 



