Somnambulism. This is a frequent characteristic of epileptics. Krafft-Ebing says:
"The seizure is often followed by a condition approaching somnambulism. The patient appears to have recovered consciousness, talks coherently, behaves in an orderly manner, and resumes his ordinary occupations. Yet he is not really conscious as is shown by the fact that, later he is entirely ignorant of what he has been doing during this stage. This peculiar state of mental daze may last a long time, sometimes during the whole interval between two seizures."
Many of the criminals observed by Dostoyevsky were given to gesticulating and talking agitatedly in their sleep.
Obscenity is a common characteristic. Kowalewsky (Archivio di Psichiatria, 1885) notes the resemblance between the reproductive act and the epileptic seizure, the tonic tension of the muscles, loss of consciousness and mydriasis in both cases, and remarks also on the frequency with which epileptic attacks are accompanied by sexual propensities.
The desire for sexual indulgence, like the taste for alcohol, is distinguished by the precocity peculiar to criminals and the morally insane. Precocious sexual instincts have been observed in children of four years, and in one case obscenity was manifested by an infant of one year.
Marro (Annali di Freniatria, 1890) describes a child of three years and ten months, who had exhibited signs of epilepsy from birth and was of a jealous, irascible disposition. He was in the habit of scratching and biting his brothers and sisters, knocking over the furniture, hiding things, and tearing his clothes, and when unable to hurt or annoy others, would vent his rage upon himself. If punished, he would continue his misdeeds in an underhand way.
Another child had been afflicted with convulsions from his earliest infancy, in consequence of which his character deteriorated, and while still a mere infant, he behaved with the utmost violence. He killed a cat, attempted to strangle his brother, and to set fire to the house.
Invulnerability, another characteristic common to criminals, has been observed by Tonnini in epileptics, whose wounds and injuries heal with astonishing rapidity, and he is inclined to regard this peculiarity in the light of a reversion to a stage of evolution, at which animals like lizards and salamanders were able to replace severed joints by new growths. This invulnerability is shared by all degenerates: epileptics, imbeciles, and the morally insane.
"One of these latter," says Tonnini, "tore out his moustache bodily and with it a large piece of skin. In a few days the wound was nearly healed."
Very characteristic is the almost automatic tendency to destroy animate and inanimate objects, which results in frequent wounding, suicides, and homicides. This desire to destroy is also common to children. Fernando P. ([Fig. 15]), an epileptic treated by my father, when enraged was in the habit of smashing all the furniture within his reach and throwing the pieces over a wall some twenty-five feet high.