Samt describes a still more complicated form of this psychic seizure, in which the personality is altered without there being any loss of consciousness. In a case of this kind, a servant, after forty years of faithful service, murdered his old mistress during the night, having previously cut all the bell-wires to prevent communication with the other servants. He escaped with some valuables, but returned in a few days and gave himself up to the police, to whom he gave a detailed account of his crime without showing either horror or remorse. He was tried and condemned, and a few months later was again seized with epileptic fits during one of which he died. Samt, who saw him in this state, came to the conclusion that the murder had been committed during a similar seizure and he was able to prove that attacks of this kind are not necessarily accompanied by loss of consciousness. As in the above case, these psychic attacks are sometimes accompanied by an insatiable thirst for blood, destruction and violence of all kinds, as well as by an extraordinary development of muscular strength with apparent lucidity of mind. They may last from a few minutes to half an hour, after which the patient falls into a sound sleep and forgets everything that has happened, or else retains only a vague recollection. Such was the case of the epileptic Misdea, which first suggested to my father the idea of a link between crime and epilepsy. As this case has become famous in the annals of crime in Italy, it will perhaps be of interest to the reader. Misdea, the son of degenerate parents, manifested a series of typical epileptic anomalies--asymmetry, vaso-motor disturbances, impulsiveness, ferocity, etc. At the age of twenty, while serving in the army, for some trivial motive he suddenly attacked and killed his superior officer and eight or ten soldiers who tried to overpower him. Finally he was bound and placed in a cell, where he fell into a sound slumber and on awaking had entirely forgotten what he had done. He was condemned to death, but my father, who examined him medically, was able to prove conclusively that the crime had been committed during an attack of epilepsy. The physical and psychic characters of this class of epileptic are those common to all non-criminal epileptics, and indeed we are justified in considering them insane rather than criminal, because, with the exception of the attack, which assumes this terrible form, they do not manifest criminal tendencies. HYSTERIA Hysteria is a disease allied to epilepsy, of which it appears to be a milder form, and is much more common among women than men in the ratio of twenty to one. The disease may frequently be traced to hereditary influences, similar to those found in epilepsy, transmitted by epileptic, neurotic, or inebriate parents, frequently also, to some traumatic or toxic influence, such as typhus, meningitis, a blow, a fall, or fright.