EPILEPSY. 135 



and gout. Dr. J. Russell Reynolds found heredity 

 well marked in 31 per cent, of his cases, and says, 

 " I am therefore led to believe that an hereditary 

 tendency to epilepsy is much more common than it is 

 generally represented to be by recent writers on the 

 subject." Echeverria said 28 per cent, of all the cases 

 coming under his notice were hereditary. Webster 

 in England, and Esquirol in France, declared that a 

 third of all cases of epilepsy depended on family taint, 

 while Dr. Gowers, one of the greatest authorities on 

 the subject, asserts that no less than 36 per cent, of 

 all epilepsy has hereditary transmitted predisposition 

 as a foundation. 



I myself have records of 143 consecutive cases of 

 epilepsy, as they appeared for admission into an asylum 

 for the insane. There were 93 males and 50 females. 

 Of the males, 34.4 per cent, were members of families 

 in which either epilepsy or insanity of some descrip- 

 tion had already appeared ; of the females, 50 per 

 cent, belonged to the same class; while in 39.8 of 

 the total of both sexes there was positive evidence of 

 hereditary taint. I would also remark that in a con- 

 siderable number of my cases, no history of any kind 

 could be obtained. 



Although epilepsy is frequently transmuted to in- 

 sanity, idiocy, chorea, hysteria, the drink- crave, and 

 other diseased conditions of the nervous system in 

 transmission, it is remarkable for the regularity with 

 which it is transmitted unchanged in some families. 

 Dr. Gowers found in nearly 75 per cent, of all his 



