On the Mental Disturbances of Epileptics [Beitrag zur Kenntniss der Seelenstorungen der Epileptiker]. (Allgem. Zeits. f. Psychiat., B. lvi, H. 5, 1899.) Deiters

Dr. Deiters commences his article by stating that, since Samt's investigations on the forms of epileptic insanity, it has generally been recognised that the mental symptoms are very characteristic; indeed, some hold that the presence of epilepsy may sometimes be inferred from the psychical manifestations alone. Sometimes, however, insanity combined with epileptic seizures takes a different character, approaching the forms of other vesaniæ. He gives at some length the description of a patient fifty-five years old, who had epilepsy combined with delusions of a paranoic nature. He had led a vagabond life, had been in prison for stealing, and had been passed on to a workhouse as incapable of earning a livelihood. When admitted to the asylum at Andernach, he was found to be lazy and indifferent, to have religious delusions, and suspicions of being poisoned. He said that at night people put “oprigus” under his nose, and that he was going to be made pope. Finally, he imagined that he was actually crowned as pope, and that Christ had appeared to him and held a chalice over his head, etc. Other cases of hallucination and systematised delusions have been described by Gnauck, Pohl, Buchholz, and others. Magnan thought that several psychoses might exist together. Deiters observes that the forms of insanity which he specifies are technical divisions rather than specific diseases, but that fairly distinct forms may supervene the one upon the other. He thinks that the mind never remains intact after repeated epileptic seizures. Epilepsy prepares the ground for insane ideas, but the character and sequence of these ideas may now and then take an unusual course.