tually
than his grandson, and more irascible and imperious in his moods.

After 1872, when Charles Darwin was sixty-three years old, a marked
change for the better occurred in his health. For the last ten years
of his life the condition of his health was a cause of satisfaction
and hope to his family. "He was able to work more steadily with less
fatigue and distress afterwards." This is probably to be explained as
following the gonadopause hi him--the cessation of activity of the
interstitial cells. After this event, the adrenals in the male nearly
always function more efficiently, and well being is improved even
though the blood pressure often rises coincidently. In the relative
vigor of that decade we have another bit of evidence that the adrenals
had much to say over Darwin's life.

EPILEPTIC GENIUS

He had a fever when he was in Spain
And, when the fit was on him, I did mark
How he did shake: 'tis true, this god did shake
His coward lips did from their color fly;
And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world,
Did lose his lustre: I did hear him groan.

--Julius Caesar.

Epilepsy, the "falling sickness" or "fits," is generally associated
with a deterioration or degeneration of mentality, and an inferior
personality is frequently an ingredient. Progressively increasing data
accumulate to incriminate more and more a disturbance of the endocrine
balance, on the side of multiple deficiencies, as the basic mechanism
at the bottom of a good many of them. Concurrent studies reveal that
abnormalities of the thyroid, the parathyroids, the ovaries and
testes, and even the thymus exist behind the attack. Investigation of
the content of the consciousness of the different kinds of epilepsies
from this point of view will doubtless bring to light some interesting
information. There is much to be done for the epileptic with this new
method of approach.

Epilepsy, just the same, may occur in men gifted with the sort of
transcendent ability called genius. Mohammed, Lord Byron, Dostoyevsky,
Flaubert, to name a few cases, are famous instances. The point to be
settled is whether epileptic genius, that is epilepsy with superior
ability, occurs most often in pituitocentrics, the epilepsy being
symptomatic of a pituitary struggling against barriers, tugging
against bonds. As mentioned, in such cases epilepsy appears as the
twin brother of migraine in genius. Should that be established,
we should have more evidence