work upon. Born, say, with more of a posterior pituitary than he had,
which would have rendered him more sensitive to the sufferings of his
fellow-creatures, if nothing else, and the forces of the Revolution
probably would have swamped him from the very first moment of his
emergence at Toulon, when the whiff of grape-shot, symptom of an
inexorable, merciless intellect and will, started him upon the road
that led to the Napoleonic Era. Destiny is always ironic. For the
deficiency of the internal secretions which made him eligible for
glory was responsible as well as for his downfall.

EPILEPSY AND MIGRAINE IN GENIUS

In the annals of genius, there occur a number of instances of those
who suffered from attacks that have been diagnosed epilepsy
or migraine. Because their ailment was associated with their
extraordinary ability, they attracted an attention that concerned
itself not at all with the circumstance that genius has also been
liable to measles, scarlet fever, and so on. Epilepsy and migraine
certainly occur in people of no supernormal gifts, and often in
degenerates and subnormals. Yet the fact remains that these affections
of the nervous system, so terrible to feel and to behold, have
afflicted the finest brains of the race.

About forty years ago the idea established itself that epilepsy,
exhibiting itself in one form or another as "fits," and migraine, the
severe periodic sick headache, were interconvertible manifestations of
the same underlying morbid process in the brain. Nothing in the way
of a concrete cause, attackable on the material side, was elicited by
this generalization. Then the investigations of the pituitary in the
last decade produced evidence of epilepsy-like and migraine-like
symptoms in sufferers from tumors or other enlargements of it.
Reasoning back, cases of epilepsy and migraine began to be examined
for evidences of involvement of the pituitary in their troubles.
These accumulated rapidly. The physiognomy and physique of the
pituito-centric were discovered in them. The phenomena noted in
Napoleon's case were often present: lowering of the pulse, chilliness,
and an increased irritability of the bladder. In women the attack
often coincides with the menstrual period, a typical time of endocrine
unbalance. Finally X-ray examinations of the sella turcica, the bony
lodging of the pituitary, clinched the matter: it often appeared
small, or enlarged, with erosions of the bone, signifying a despe