28 EuGKNics Record Office, Bui^letin No. 4 



derived from the epileptic, feeble-minded and normal mothers of 

 our families. The greater size of these principal fraternities (i.e., 

 containing the patient whose pedigree is being investigated) as 

 compared with the collateral fraternities, that gave an average 

 size of 5, is probably due to the fact that the principal fraternity 

 is more fully known ; in the collateral fraternities some children 

 have not been recorded. 



The upshot of these counts is that they afford no evidence 

 that the families containing defectives are exceptionally large, 

 any larger than other families. It is probable that the increase 

 in such families is nearly the same as the population in general. 



It appears then that, while as matings are at present made 

 epilepsy tends in successive generations to form a larger part of 

 the population, this process has not, until recently at any rate, 

 been furthered by a relative increase in the number of individuals 

 belonging to the defective strains — ^but by a higher incidence — a 

 greater density — of defect inside such strains. If our data should 

 hold generally for strains with epileptic members we could con- 

 clude that, if no change in mating and fecundity occur, the number 

 of epileptics and feeble-minded in the state of New Jersey will be 

 relatively double what it is now in 1940, and relatively four times 

 as common in 1970. Thus if the present proportion is i to 500 

 it would be i to 125 in 1970. 



What measures are recommended to stop this increase? The 

 most effective, violating least the social ideals of our time, is the 

 segregation during the entire reproductive period — (say from 15 

 to 45 years of age) of epileptics of both sexes. Such measures 

 would be an expensive burden for the present generation of tax- 

 payers; but if it is ever justifiable to bond a state it is for such a 

 purpose as this ; because inside of ten years the stream of defec- 

 tive children would be almost dry. By twenty years half of the 

 temporary detention-sanatoria for defectives could be closed, and 

 by thirty years the expense of maintenance would probably be 

 less than it is now. By forty years an institution like that at Skill- 

 man would probably provide ample accommodation for all the 

 remaining defectives (now grown quite gray) and in fifty years 

 there would remain only an old man's and old women's home for 

 such as did not care to leave its shelter to return to their relatives. 

 By this time the State could pay off its bonds from the sale of 

 most of the land reserved for these unfortunates. Of course, 



