INHERITANCE OF MENTAL DEFECTS AND DISEASE 43 
are considered in which there are some epileptic offspring. In 
many feeble minded stocks the proportion of epilepsy that ap- 
pears is quite small. On the other hand most pedigrees which 
include a considerable number of epileptics contain also more or 
less feeble-mindedness. 
In many pedigrees epilepsy shows a marked association with 
other neuropathic traits. As Weeks observes, “That there are 
more than five times as many epileptics as feeble-minded persons 
in these fraternities coming from matings where neither parent can 
be classed as normal, or called mentally defective, seems to indi- 
cate that neurotic or otherwise tainted conditions are more closely 
related to epilepsy than to feeble-mindedness.”’ 
From the available data it is far from evident that epilepsy 
is inherited as a single Mendelian character. ‘It will be seen 
from the present evidence,’ Weeks admits, “that epilepsy cannot 
be considered as a Mendelian factor when considered by itself, but 
that epilepsy and feeble-mindedness are Mendelian factors of the 
recessive type in that their germ cells lack the determiner for 
normality,’ however we are to imagine such an entity to occur. 
The statement of Davenport and Weeks concerning epilepsy and 
feeble-mindedness that ‘‘each is due to the absence of a proto- 
plasmic factor that determines complete nervous development,” 
and the further conclusion that ‘‘when both parents are either 
epileptic or feeble-minded all their offspring are so likewise,” 
indicate chat both these defects are due to the loss of the same 
factor. If so, epilepsy and feeble-mindedness should be heredi- 
tarily equivalent, which we have seen they are not. If they 
depend on the loss of different factors we should expect them to 
behave as independent characters in which case it would be per- 
fectly possible for the mating of a feeble-minded and an epileptic 
to produce normal children; in fact we should expect most 
children to be normal. Neither of the authors mentioned seems 
to be sufficiently impressed with the dilemma into which their 
interpretations land them. There are indications that epilepsy is 
often recessive and that it is frequently inherited in an alternative 
manner, but we must be guarded on both these points. Davenport 
