The danger that arises to others during the preliminary stage of an epileptic attack, and that which is present after the coma has passed away, cannot be exaggerated. But there is actual danger to others during the continuance of what is called the fit itself. Trousseau was consulted by a newly married couple. The lady stated that a short time after their union she had been suddenly awakened during the night by the strange movements of her husband. Suddenly she was attacked, and had it not been that she was succoured by a servant, she would have been severely injured. The assault was repeated a few days before the physician was applied to, and upon the latter occasion the wife awakened in time, and, having lighted a candle, witnessed her husband's convulsions, and escaped from the fury which immediately followed. The patient was perfectly conscious of something having happened to him, of which he could give no account, and he admitted that frequently, previous to marriage, he had been subject to vertiginous feelings, which had been misunderstood by the physicians.*

These facts show that there is some necessity to consider the legal relations of those who labour under this disease, and show that there is a necessity for an intelligent adaptation of the principles we have already enunciated to certain cases of the disease which is under consideration. Now, we have seen the proneness of medical men to look upon every disease as, to some extent, depriving an individual of responsibility. We have had occasion more than once to remark upon the unpractical refinements of those persons who have made mental disease their study, and there is ample room still left for the censure of alienist physicians. Those who assert that all epileptics are insane, and therefore irresponsible, err as much upon the one side as the Lord Justice Clerk (Inglis), who said, "Disease of the brain is not insanity. Disease of the brain is bodily disease, and insanity is mental disease, and no amount of bodily disease will justify you in pronouncing the persons insane," did on the other.

But there are some facts with regard to the capacity and responsibility of epileptics which require to be considered. While an attack of epilepsy lasts, the individual is clearly incapable of performing any civil act, and it would be as unjust to hold such an individual responsible for any criminal violence as to hold an individual who is labouring under the delirium of fever responsible for any

* Legrande de Saule, La Folie devant les Tribunaux,' p. 391.

outrage which he might commit.

But with regard to the premonitory conditions and the subsequent state the question is one of much greater difficulty. A very recent judicial decision bears somewhat directly upon this point.

During the trial of Walter Crabtree for the murder of his father, which took place at Leeds upon the 29th of March last, after the evidence for the prosecution had been led, a juryman took an epileptic fit, and was removed from the jury-box. A Dr. Hay, of Halifax, was in attendance immediately, and upon being summoned to the witness-box by Cleasby, B., he said that "he was of opinion that the juryman in question was suffering from an epileptic fit, and that he would be unable to go on with the trial that day.” He also said that he ascertained from the wife of the juryman that he had suffered an injury to his head some years ago, and it was to that injury his wife ascribed the frequency of the fits. In answer to a question put by the judge, Dr. Hay said a fit might come on at any time, and that it was impossible to say whether he would be in a condition to resume his duties upon the following day. After consulting with Mr. Justice Brett, the presiding judge said he must hold the juryman permanently disabled, and the jury were discharged.*

In this case we find an epileptic seizure incapacitating a man from performing one of his civil duties and from enjoying a civil privilege. Not only must the existence of this disease incapacitate a man from doing this one act or enjoying this municipal privilege, but it must necessarily deprive him of the power of doing many acts which as a citizen he would otherwise have a right to do. Thus, any contract entered into by an epileptic during the state of mania which often follows the attack would be invalid, as it is evidently a matter of no importance how long the incapacity lasts if its existence can be satisfactorily proved. But not only should this rule apply to the mania, but it ought to apply with equal force to the temporary imbecility which exists at a certain stage of the disease. In this case, of course, the proof of the existence of a mental condition which deprives an individual of the power of contracting or of the power of disposing of his property is a matter of much greater difficulty, and because of the greatness of the difficulty will be the frequency of the occurrence of cases in which it is impossible to do justice.

*Author's notes of the trial.

No one asserts that human tribunals always do right. Any one who is acquainted with the administration of justice must be satisfied that sometimes much injustice is done. And in those cases where civil incapacity or criminal irresponsibility is in question on the ground of the existence of the temporary mental weakness due to epilepsy, it is impossible to predicate that, even with the best medical testimony, justice will always be fairly meted out. But that whenever the existence of that mental condition which renders the individual incapable of judging fairly of motives,-whenever that mental state which places the mind at the mercy of one overmastering motive or idea, which may have been made strong by the iron of habit, can be proved to exist, then, upon the legal principles already described, the individual ought to be held irresponsible for criminal acts, and incapacitated from the enjoyment of civil privileges. This is no new doctrine. There is not a judge upon the bench that would not admit that such was his idea of the English law, and it is only because medical men have used technical terms, and not been at the pains to ascertain the real foundations of the legal principle and the psychical fact of irresponsibility or incapacity, that there has been interminable confusion, and in many cases very stupid blunders.

A consideration of some of the remarks of the Lord Justice Clerk's charge in the case of George Stephens will show that the above surmise is correct. This was a trial for murder, and the prisoner was proved to be an epileptic. "There are some matters," said his lordship, "connected with the doctrine of legal insanity which it is quite necessary to give you directions about at the outset. Insanity is a term capable of being used in several meanings, and it is very often used by gentlemen of the medical profession in a totally different sense from what it is in use in courts of criminal jurisdiction. A man's mind may be weakened by disease, and may, in a certain sense, be called insane, but not on that account does he cease to be morally and legally responsible for his actions. A man whose mind is weakened or impaired may be more easily excited and provoked than another, just as a man in bad health may be easily irritated; but does he, therefore, cease to be a responsible agent ? That is quite out of the question."*

But it does not seem to have occurred to his lordship that there

* See report in Aberdeen Herald,' 22 April, 1865.

may be an amount of weakness produced by disease which will reduce the strong man to the level of the idiot; and just as it would not be absurd, and has never been out of the question, to hold that the idiot was irresponsible, therefore it seems to us that, while the mental enfeeblement which follows after epilepsy exists, and is of such a nature as we have described above, the individual thus affected should be held to be incapable of committing a criminal act, which implies the possession of volition, intention, and malice in the individual committing the act. Still we regard epileptics who are not otherwise insane as in every way capable of performing all the acts of a citizen, and liable to all the punishments which citizens incur who violate the laws, except under the conditions above described. We would also be very careful of sifting the evidence adduced in proof of the temporary mania or the temporary imbecility which follows upon epilepsy in some cases; but when it is satisfactorily proved it must necessarily be a bar to punishment, and must invalidate any contracts which the party may have entered into during the existence of this mental state. With regard to crimes committed during the convulsions of the disease nothing need be said.

NOTE.-The following works, which have not been alluded to in the text, may be referred to:-Dr. Sieveking's 'Epilepsy and Epileptiform Seizures;' M. Brown-Séquard's 'Researches on Epilepsy;' Dr. Radcliffe's 'Epilepsy and other Convulsive Affections;' Portal's 'Observations sur la Nature et la Traitement de l'Épilepsie;' Delasiauve's Traité de l'Epilepsie;' Schroeder van der Kolk's Syd. Soc. Trans.; Maissonneuve's 'Recherches et Observations sur l'Épilepsie;' and article on "Epilepsy" in Reynolds' 'System of Medicine,' vol. ii, p. 251.

CHAPTER XIII.

SOMNAMBULISM AND ITS LEGAL RELATIONS.

"HALF our days," says Sir Thomas Browne, "we pass in the shadow of the earth, and the brother of death extracteth a third part of our lives." Well has sleep been called "death's brother." In sleep men are in another world-they are in a delirium of dreams. Consciousness is scarcely maintained, identity is sometimes lost, memory is chaos, reason is a lord of misrule. All the mysteries which are brought before us every day are likely to remain mysteries. Their commonness makes the trouble of solution a trouble scarcely ever undertaken. So it is we know little or nothing of the physiology of sleep or dreams. The subject has been as unfathomable as the ocean to which sleep has been so often compared.

"And the beasts, and the birds, and the insects were drowned

In an ocean of dreams, without a sound.

Whose waves never mark though they ever impress

The light sand which paves it,-consciousness."

That sleep is a succession of ever varying states has been pointed out; and the alternating passage from waking to sleeping has been quoted as an illustration. A man may sleep deeply or shallowly, and as Bichat has said, "Le sommeil général est l'ensemble des sommeils particulièrs," which shows that it was his opinion that each separate faculty or sense may be at the same moment in totally different conditions. We have all along held that any sense may sleep while others are awake, just as any sense may be deadened and lost while others are still intact; and we have held that the appreciation of this fact in all its bearings would explain many of the circumstances of mesmeric sleep or hypnotism, as it is evident that the circumstances of the production of the sleep must

Chapters on Mental Physiology. Sir H. Holland.