This chart shows very clearly the dangerous results of a marriage in which both of the parents are epileptic. Of the four children the first three were epileptic, and the fourth, a boy, who died at the age of nine, was feeble-minded. All four of these children were cared for at public expense, two are patients at the New Jersey State Village for Epileptics, and the other two were wards of the Children's Home Finding Society. The epileptic father is dead, and the mother married again to an alcoholic man. When last heard of she had another child.
An epileptic woman, married to a feeble-minded man, is responsible for the large number of defectives shown on this chart. The principal mating is that of one of the epileptic daughters of this woman, who, like her mother, married a feeble-minded man. Eight children resulted from this marriage; one died before two years of age, the other seven were epileptic, the five who are living are patients at the New Jersey State Village. Two of the girls in this fraternity had illegitimate children before receiving proper care. This family is undoubtedly a branch of a family of defectives, most of whom live in an adjoining State.
This is a case of incest, and shows plainly that the "empty germ plasm can yield only emptiness." These people lived in a hut in the woods. The feeble-minded man had by his defective sister an epileptic daughter, then by this daughter he had four children, one an epileptic, one a feeble-minded woman of the streets, who spends much of her time in jail, one an anencephalic monster who died soon after birth, and one a feeble-minded boy, who did not grow to manhood. Since the hut in the woods burned down, the epileptic woman and feeble-minded daughter live in a cellar in town, though much of their time is spent in jail.
This chart shows a feeble-minded man, who came from a feeble-minded family, married to an epileptic woman, who descended from a tubercular epileptic father and a mother who is described as "flighty," "not too bright." This couple had six children, three feeble-minded, two epileptic, and one still-born. Since the death of the epileptic mother, the father has secured homes in institutions for all of his children except one, and then married again. As yet he has no children by the second wife.
The wife in the central mating in this case is a low grade epileptic, who can scarcely recognize her own children. The father is a feeble-minded alcoholic, who works hard, but who spends all his money for drink. There were six children; one died at the age of four, and all of the others except one six-year-old boy are epileptic. All are being cared for by the public. Before the mother and three of the epileptic children were brought to the State Village for Epileptics the family lived in a cellar, slept on rags, and depended on the neighbours for food.