FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69  
70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   >>   >|  
phasise the fact that while it is attenuated so far as motor attacks are concerned, it is aggravated on the other hand by criminal impulses, which render the patient semi-immune and permit him a longer and less troubled existence, but provoke a constant brain irritation, which clouds and disturbs his intellectual and moral nature. In order better to understand these two forms of epilepsy, we must recall two analogous forms of another and equally multiform disease, tuberculosis in its forms of quick consumption and scrofula. The etiology is identical and the symptoms frequently alike, but while the latter proceeds very slowly and allows the patient a long life, the former is rapid and severs life in its prime. In motory epilepsy, the irritation is manifested on a sudden, but leaves the mind healthy in the interval, although the attacks may lead to rapid dementia. In criminal epilepsy this irritation does not break out in violent seizures and is compatible with a long life, but it changes the whole physical and psychic complexion of the individual. The epileptic origin of criminality explains many characteristics of the criminal, the genesis of which was previously obscure. Many of the moral and physical peculiarities of born criminals and the morally insane may be classed as professional characteristics acquired through the habit of evil-doing, especially the naso-labial and zygomatic wrinkles, cynical expression, tapering fingers, etc. Many anomalies also in the bones, hair, ears, eyes, and the monstrous development of the jaws and teeth, must be explained by arrested development in the fifth or sixth month of ultra-uterine existence, corresponding to the characteristics of inferior races by the usual law of ontogeny which recapitulates phylogeny. But there is a final series of anomalies, the origin of which was formerly wrapped in mystery: plagiocephaly, sclerosis, the thickening of the meninges, cranial asymmetry, and other changes in the cerebral layers, which can be explained only by a disease altering precociously the whole cerebral conformation, as is exactly the case in epilepsy. The born criminal is an epileptic, not however afflicted with the common form of this disease, but with a special kind. The pathological basis, the etiology, and the anatomical and psychological characteristics are identical, but there are many differences. While in the ordinary form motor anomalies are very common, in the crimina
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69  
70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

criminal

 

epilepsy

 

characteristics

 

anomalies

 
irritation
 

disease

 

physical

 
epileptic
 

attacks

 
explained

development

 

etiology

 
identical
 

origin

 

existence

 
patient
 

cerebral

 
common
 

arrested

 

monstrous


acquired

 

crimina

 

ordinary

 
expression
 

cynical

 

wrinkles

 

labial

 

zygomatic

 

tapering

 

fingers


cranial

 

asymmetry

 

layers

 

meninges

 

plagiocephaly

 

sclerosis

 
thickening
 
pathological
 
afflicted
 

altering


precociously
 

conformation

 

anatomical

 

mystery

 

inferior

 

special

 

uterine

 

differences

 

ontogeny

 

series