EPILEPSY. 139 



mity, criminality, cancer, scrofula, and insanity. Few, 

 indeed, are the families which become extinct without 

 displaying epilepsy in some of their latest represen- 

 tatives. It is the constant associate of idiocy, which 

 is the lowest form of development consistent with a 

 continuance of life. M. Herpin, the distinguished 

 French physician, calculated that epilepsy occurred in 

 six out of every 1000 of the general population (and 

 even this was thought by some to be too high au 

 average) ; whereas Drs. Ireland, Langdon Down, and 

 others found that close on 25 per cent, of all idiots are 

 epileptic, that is, 250 to the 1000 against six to the 

 IOOO among the ordinary population. The frequency 

 with which epilepsy attacks the drunken, the instinctive 

 criminal class, the scrofulous, and the insane is notorious. 

 From the figures of the Commissioners in Lunacy we 

 find that 90 to the IOOO is the rate at which it is to be 

 found among the insane of these countries, while the 

 studies of Lombroso and others have proved pretty 

 clearly that anthropologically the epileptic and the 

 criminal are very nearly akin. 



In the great mass of cases epilepsy makes its appear- 

 ance during childhood, this being the more certainly 

 true where the disease is distinctly hereditary. Dr. 

 Eussell Reynolds found that 83.3 per cent, of hereditary 

 epilepsy appeared under fifteen years of age, while of 

 the non-hereditary only 46. 1 per cent, appeared under 

 that age. He also expressed the opinion that the 

 disease appears earlier in life the more strong and 

 direct the taint. He gives the average age at which 



