=What Is Meant by a Born Criminal?--=All we can do is to fall back on the assurance that any act directly or indirectly injurious to society is an offense, and that those offenders who are congenitally unable to distinguish between what is generally accepted as right and wrong, or who if recognizing this are nevertheless uncontrollably impelled toward or are unable to refrain from anti-social acts because of some inherent condition of intellectual or volitional make-up, may be legitimately classed as individuals born with an aptitude for crime and social transgressions. In such individuals the natural mental make-up is lacking in some of its necessary elements so that memory, judgment, or will-power are not up to the minimum that is necessary for the establishment of proper conduct. In some cases, apparently, this lack finds expression in almost any kind of vice or crime into which circumstances happen to lead the individual. In others, however, there seem to be tendencies toward the commission of certain types of crime or vice. Certain family strains are characterized by petty thieving, others by deeds of violence, and still others by sexual offenses. Certain types of mental defect are closely associated with certain crimes. Thus sufferers from incipient paresis seem particularly prone to commit assaults and larceny; epileptics, crimes of brutality and violence. =The Epileptic Criminal Especially Dangerous.--=One of the characteristics of epilepsy, indeed, emphasized by various psychiatrists, is that frequently it leads to loss of those forms of self-restraint which are absolutely indispensable to morality and the safety of society. Cruelty, atrocious sexual offenses and other vicious crimes are the result. It is a noteworthy fact, moreover, that often in the milder forms of affliction, where instead of well-marked convulsions only momentary lapses of consciousness occur, the greatest amount of mental and moral deterioration and fluctuation is sometimes found. The situation as regards the epileptic is well presented by Doctor William Healy, Director of the Juvenile Psycopathic Institute of Chicago, in an article entitled "Epilepsy and Crime; the Cost", in the _Illinois Medical Journal_, November, 1912. He says: