42 THE TREND OF THE RACE 



additional cases are given. In one of these there were 12 children 

 who survived infancy (there being 4 stillborn). Of these three 

 were epileptic, one was feeble-minded, two were migranous and 

 six were neurotic. In the other case of the four surviving children 

 (4 being stillborn) two were epileptic, one was feeble-minded and 

 one "unclassified." In the two latter families nothing is recorded 

 of the ages of the children except that they were over 14, although 

 one would expect some explanation of the apparent discrepancy 

 between the results and the theoretical expectations. If offspring 

 from two epileptic parents may be simply migranous or neurotic 

 the "character" that is transmitted must be subject to a remark- 

 able degree of fluctuation. 



As the authors remark, feeble-mindedness and epilepsy appear 

 to be closely related in their transmission. Nine matings in which 

 both parents were feeble-minded gave one or more epileptics in 

 each family, while a larger number of children were simply feeble- 

 minded. In Week's data which includes all the cases in the paper 

 by Davenport and Weeks there is given 15 matings in which one 

 parent is epileptic and the other feeble-minded. Of the 55 off- 

 spring who lived to be old enough to classify, 28 were epileptic, 26 

 feeble-minded, and i insane. Of the 27 matings in which both 

 parents were either feeble-minded or epileptic all of the offspring 

 above 14 about whose condition anything could be ascertained 

 were classed as mentally abnormal, 43 being epileptic, 58 feeble- 

 minded, one insane, 2 migranous, and 8 neurotic, — certainly a 

 fearful harvest of undesirable progeny. 



Notwithstanding the hereditary association of epilepsy and 

 feeble-mindedness, it cannot be maintained that these are heredi- 

 tarily equivalent neuroses. Epilepsy is much more likely to 

 appear when one or both of the parents are epileptic than when 

 they are feeble-minded. When one parent was feeble-minded, 

 and the other epileptic the proportion of epileptic to feeble- 

 minded offspring of classifiable age was 28 epileptic to 26 feeble- 

 minded, whereas when both parents were feeble minded the ratio 

 was 7 epileptic to 29 feeble-minded. And the latter ratio is 

 naturally much higher than the average, since only those families 



