FARM COLONIES FOR EPILEPTICS. 807 
With a woman, the risks are not less, though they are slightly 
different. She, too, is debarred from any money-making 
employment, and must be dependent on the often grudging 
charity of some relative. She is not, however, debarred 
from marrying, nor protected from becoming the prey of 
vicious men, and her own ailment is often a legacy be 
yueathed to her children. Dr. Knight, of Connecticut, 
quotes the following as an extreme instance of what may 
occur :—‘ An epileptic woman became the mother of 15 
defective children ; 8 died in infancy from lack of vitality, 
2 inherited the epilepsy, 3 were fairly teachable imbeciles, 
and 3 had sufficient intelligence to marry and reproduce 
according to the laws of heredity the mother’s experience.” 
Echeverria tabulates the condition of the offspring, as far 
as known, of 62 male and 74 female epileptics. Of 535 
children— 
4 per cent. were still-born ; 
36 3 died in infancy from convulsions ; 
5 » » a +H other diseases ; 
as ie became epileptic ; 
2 - became insane ; 
7 Ae suffered from paralysis ; 
9 = became hysterical ; 
if = became choreic ; 
1 5 had strabismus ; 
0) Fy were normal. 
Dr. Wildermuth adds that, making allowance for our great 
ignorance of the nature and actual causes of epilepsy, in at 
least 60 per cent. of cases the disease develops as a result of 
morbid hereditary tendencies. In short, we are caught in 
a vicious circle, which it is partly the mission of the colony- 
system to break. And while there is as yet no educated 
public opinion to support legislation which would prohibit 
the marriage of the epileptic, the colony-system, wherever 
it is introduced, acts as a very strong and wholesome check 
upon such marriages. In passing, however, I may mention 
that the State of Connecticut now actually has such an Act 
upon its statute books. 
Many scientifically-trained minds, when their attention 
is first directed to the education and employment of the 
epileptic or the feeble-minded classes of society, take the 
view that any care, attention, or money spent upon such 
is misdirected, and had far better be expended in the 
development of the normal citizen; but that view, we are 
all coming to see, is not supported by facts. Apart from 
