EPILEPTIC’S ACTS

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11423, 20 January 1923, Page 12

EPILEPTIC’S ACTS

“FITS” CURABLE BY OPERATION. NEED FOR NEW LAW. Should not efforts along scientific lines be made to cure epileptics guilty of criminal acts? That is one of the great issues raised by Dr. Bernard Hollander, the well-known mental specialist, of London, when interviewed on the remarkable theory advanced in defence of the boy Leonard Kerrigan, aged 14, accused of the murder of George Smith, aged 3, by placing him in a box. It was declared that. an epileptic could commit a murder unknowingly and then recall the facts in a dream. The accused lad had made such a declaration. “FITS” AND HYPNOSIS.

“That theory is absolutely correct,” declared Dr. Hollander. “The state of unconsciousness in epilepsy is similar to a state of hypnosis. When the hypnotised subject wakes his mind is a blank as to what happened when in the hypnotic trance. But let the subject be' hypnotised a second time and he will recount all that happened in the first state of hypnosis. ‘That is clearly what has happened with this epileptic, Kerrigan. In a isubfeequent epileptic fit—which may have occurred during his sleep—he has remembered the awful act of placing the younger boy in a bos and roping him up. SECOND PERSONALITY. “Often an epileptic will act strangely in a fit of semi-consciousness. He then demonstrates a second personality. I have seen a man after dressing in the morning go into one of these fits. For the time being he simply became a second personality, and forgetting he had dressed he went and bathed a second time, but with all his clothes on. “There is no knowing what a person may do in this state. Generally his acts are innocent enough; but sometimes when they are criminal and violent, although the epileptic is not, responsible for his actions, the law fails to take cognisance of the disease. “In 1919 an epileptic, Perry, was hanged for murder, despite medical testimony that he could be cured of his disease by surgical operation. “Many cases of epilepsy can he cured, absolutely cured, by surgical operation—but only 6lowly is this becoming recognised. “Epileptic cases which come within the vsach of the law of the country should he put in observation hospitals. Many so-called criminal lunatics of today oouM thus be permanently cured. 1 bis is a case for the medical man not the judge.”