The
exaggerated claims of the Italian anthropologist C. Lombroso and his
school, in regard to the close relation between genius and insanity,
have been largely disproved; yet there remains little doubt that the two
sometimes do go together; and such supposed epileptics as Mohammed,
Julius Caesar, and Napoleon will at once be called to mind. To apply
sweeping restrictive measures would prevent the production of a certain
amount of talent of a very high order. The situation can only be met by
dealing with every case on its individual merits, and recognizing that
it is to the interests of society to allow some very superior
individuals to reproduce, even though part of their posterity may be
mentally or physically somewhat unsound.
A field survey in two typical counties of Indiana (1916) showed that
there were 1.8 recognizable epileptics per thousand population. If
these figures should approximately hold good for the entire United
States, the number of epileptics can hardly be put at less than 150,000.
Some of them are not anti-social, but many of them are.
Feeble-mindedness and insanity were also included in the census
mentioned, and the total number of the three kinds of defectives was
found to be 19 per thousand in one county and 11.
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