TRANSMISSION OF EPILEPSY 71 



basis of these objections, have recently been called in question.^ 

 Epilepsy appertains to the same pathological series as insanity 

 and all mental diseases, and is produced by irritation of the 

 brain cortex. It is very probable that, in the case of the apparent 

 transmission of epilepsy, it is not the disease itself, but a general 

 pathological condition which is transmitted, a condition which 

 may reveal itself in epileptic attacks, or in some other clinical 

 form of cerebral disorder, or in a tendency to crime, or in neuras- 

 thenia. In fact, the particular manifestation will depend on 

 the external conditions of development. It is certain that 

 epilepsy, insanity, crime, and neurasthenia belong to the same 

 pathological stock, and frequently the same individual suffers 

 from several, or even aU, of these afiections. The hereditary 

 transmission of epilepsy presents, therefore, no greater theoretical 

 difficulty than the hereditary transmission of insanity, whether 

 clinical or moral. 



That such hereditary transmission does, in fact, consist in the 

 transmission of a general pathological condition, rather than of 

 the disease itself, is shown by the case of traumatic epilepsy 

 produced by a blow on the head. That epilepsy can be induced 

 by an injury to the skuU afEecting the cerebral centres is a fact 

 long since estabHshed. Were somatically acquired characters 

 transmissible, as is alleged by the Lamarcldan school, then the 

 malformation of the skull and of the cerebral centres which 

 produced the epilepsy should be transmitted to the succeeding 

 generations along with the disease itself. This, however, is 

 not the case : the somatic malformation is never transmitted. 



* Vide Ziegler, Zoologisches Centralblatt, 1900, Nos. 12 and 13, who 

 cites especially Sommer and Binswanger in this connection. Sommer 

 (Die BroianSequardsche Meerschweinchenepilepsie und ihre Ubertragung 

 auf die Naehkommensehaft, Jena, 1900) relates experiments made by 

 him on about forty guinea-pigs, in order to test the accuracy of Brown- 

 Sequard's experiments. Sommer's experiments gave an entirely negative 

 result, and he concludes that the experiments of Brown-Sequard can no 

 longer be relied upon in support of the theory of the hereditary nature of 

 epilepsy. 



