A critical discussion of the constitutional anomalies of epileptics

Conclusion

From the foregoing data it is relatively obvious that there exists no constant physical substrate for the epileptic constitution. That is, no essential alteration is shown that is not seen in an equal number of other individuals who are, perhaps, biologically inferior either as a result of their inheritance or because of the continued activity of their disease phenomena. Just what part is due to the latter and what proportion may be ascribed to the fundamental constitutional inheritance are matters which anthropological data as yet offer no line of demarcation. If one wished to take a broader psychoanalytic view, one might say that organic anomalies pave the way to inferiority of mechanism; or that many of the defects present are, at least so far as functioning is concerned, somatic manifestations of narcistic defect colligative of those known to exist in the psychic constitution of epileptic narcism. However, these general conclusions are but suggestive rather thanconclusive in the sense of our being able to determine the exact relationship which constitution has to the narcistic neuroses, if we may be permitted to call essential epilepsy an instance of that type.