THE JUKES. 115 



by the propagation or perversion of a coming generation. The 

 old laws attempted this extinction by hanging ; but for us it must be 

 perpetual imprisonment, with certain mitigations to guard against 

 barbarity. For this class, congregate imprisonment is perhaps the 

 most suitable. 



In discussing the question of homicidal tendency among a 

 certain class of epileptics Dr. Maudsley says : " The attack of 

 homicidal mania may take the place of the ordinary epileptic con- 

 vulsions ; being truly a masked epilepsy. The diseased action has 

 been transferred from one nervous centre to another, and instead 

 of a convulsion of the muscles the patient is seized with a convul- 

 sion of ideas. * * * These are facts of medical observation first, 

 that an outbreak of irresistible homicidal impulse may occur in a 

 person who has the epileptic neurosis^ without there ever having 

 been an attack of actual epilepsy ; * * Secondly, that it may im- 

 mediately precede or really take the place of an attack of epilepsy 

 in either of its forms ; and thirdly, that it may follow an attack of 

 epilepsy* * * ' sudden and irresistible impulses being,' as Trousseau 

 remarks, ' of usual occurrence after an attack of petit mal, and 

 pretty frequent after a regular convulsive fit.' " * 



The following is a case in point : 



T. C d, aged 47 ; assault and battery ; six months in peni- 

 tentiary. Is of a sanguine, lymphatic temperament, average vitality, 

 good general health, but apathetic. He is intelligent, with a fair 

 stock of useful knowledge, and was a school teacher when young, 

 but now is an upholsterer. His moral sense is fair, but his will is 

 weak. He served in the rebellion for nine months and was wounded 

 in the head by a ball, which fractured the skull ; was insensible for 

 several months, and after being trepanned came back to conscious- 

 ness ; in 1864 had an epileptic attack, a consequence of the injury 

 received by the brain, and in the last 10 years has had ten or twelve 

 epileptic seizures. Has probably been committed before for similar 

 offenses ; confesses that he has been in brawls before, and that, 

 when he gets a little liquor, he " gets off his head." Says he can't 

 drink much for it makes him wild. This, while somewhat exagger- 



Resjxmsi&ility in Mental Disease, by H. Maudsley, M. D., pp. 166, 169. 



