By irritating the frontal lobes of dogs, Richet and Bernard produced vertigo and certain physical phenomena (snuffing, barking, and biting).
Taking these investigations as a basis, Jackson came to the conclusion that epileptic fits are due to a rapid and excessive explosion of the grey matter, which, instead of developing its force gradually, develops it all of a sudden because it is irritated. And as it has been shown conclusively that the disease can be manifested in such varied forms--vertigo, twitching of the muscles, sialorrhea, cephalalgia, fits of rage, and ferocious actions--which appear to be the equivalent of the typical seizure, individuals subject to these forms of neurosis should be classed as epileptics, even if they never experience the typical motor attack.
It is in this category, which may be called attenuated epilepsy, that we should place criminals, who in addition to the psychic and physical characteristics of the epileptic, possess others peculiar to themselves. Physical anomalies (plagiocephaly, microcephaly, macrocephaly, strabismus, facial and cranial asymmetry, prominent frontal sinuses, median occipital fossa, receding forehead, projecting ears, progeneismus, and badly shaped teeth) are characteristic both of criminals and epileptics, as was demonstrated in certain epileptics treated by my father (Figs. 14 and 15), and the same holds good of functional and histological anomalies. The histological anomaly discovered by Roncoroni in the frontal lobe of born criminals, consisting of the atrophy of the deep granular layer, the inversion of the pyramidal layers and small cells with enlargement and rarefaction of the pyramidal cells, and the existence of nervous cells in the white substance, is found in about the same proportion in cases of non-criminal epileptics. We find also in the same proportion in the field of vision of epileptics, as of born criminals, the anomaly discovered by Ottolenghi, consisting of peripheral scotoma intersecting the nearly uniform line of varying size common to normal eyes.
_Psychological Characteristics._ The complete identity of epileptics, born criminals and the morally insane becomes evident as soon as we study their psychology.