The Intelligence of Epileptic Children

Although epilepsy was known to Hippocrates, there is a strange lack of precision in our know-ledge, not only of its mtiology, but of the mental disturbances associate(1 with it. Carvers has suggested that anatomical, physiological, psychological and other factors may all contribute to the production of the epileptic syndrome. In what we know of the mentality of epileptics there is much that seems contradictory. On the one hand, it is a common belief that some of the nmost distinguished figures in history, as, for instance, Napoleon, Julius Caesar, Mahomet, and Byron, suffered from the 'falling sickness on the other, it is well-known that subnormal mentality is common among epileptics. It is true that the meagre information we have of these cases suggests that some of them do not answer to what is now commonly called epilepsy. Mahomet's symptoms, for example, were those of hystero-epilepsy, and Cameron 3 has suggested that Byron suffered from a mild form of spastic paraplegia; buit it is probable that some of them were genuine epileptics. AManiy writers have commented on the high frequency of mental abnormality among epileptics, and a few have measured it by means of intelligenee or other tests. Shanahan1° found that of those in Craig Colony, New York, only 10% were mentally normal or approximately so; 15% he thought had deteriorated from apparent normality, while 7500 were from the first defective. Lowenstein8 tested 16 cases with the Yerkes-Bridges intelligence tests and found only 6 subnormal; some were distinctly superior, and three showed the typical epileptic constitution, in that they were emotional, suspicious and irritable. Coo0kson5 in a study of 100 children between the ages of 6 months and 11 1 years founid a more or less marked mental deficiency in 26. He writes:-