With regard to women especially, it must be remembered that there is for them a period between the ages of forty {250} and fifty, during which for several years they are extremely unsuited for the responsibilities and exacting duties of a Superior. These years prove even to mothers of families, surrounded only by their own children and the ordinary circumstances of home life, a time of worry and irritation that plays sad havoc even with the best of dispositions. Mothers constantly complain to their physicians of an irritability of temper which they can scarcely account for, and which makes them do and say things which they are extremely sorry for afterwards. It is easy to understand, then, that a Superior with still more insistent duties when brought in contact with a number of persons, some of whom are almost sure not to be entirely sympathetic, is likely to suffer from irritation that is not a sign of absence of a fitting religious disposition, but only a physical manifestation of the physical strain through which she has to pass at this time of life. The years of the menopause, to be very plain, should not be allowed to make a Superior's life miserable and to add to the difficulties that a religious community always has to face in its relations to its Superior and to one another. Charcot, the distinguished French neurologist, used to say that women should never be asked to assume special responsibilities during the days of their monthly period, for their judgments are often warped by their physical condition. It is doubtful whether, in the majority of normal women, this is quite true, though the expression deserves to be remembered. There is no doubt, however, that the years of the change of life do bring on very serious modifications of the character of the individual, and occasionally these changes are lasting. JAMES J. WALSH. {251} XXII EPILEPSY AND RESPONSIBILITY