From the very earliest times epilepsy has been looked upon as a mysterious and in many ways an inexplicable disease. The Romans spoke of it as the _malum comitiale_, the comitial disease, because if an attack of it occurred during the meeting of the Roman people known as the _comitia_, in which municipal officers were elected and other city business transacted, an adjournment was at once moved, and no further proceedings were considered valid. During more modern times, especially during the middle ages, and almost down to our own time, those affected by the disease frequently came to be looked upon as the subjects of possession by the devil. Hysterical manifestations were even more frequently considered signs of possession (diabolical manifestations) but even in our time it is not always easy to make the distinction between certain forms of hysteria and epilepsy. Many of these sufferers were considered as not responsible for their actions. In this respect, at least, the advance of modern medical science has only served to confirm the popular impression of less sophisticated times, and it has come to be recognised that quite a large number of the sufferers from epilepsy must be deemed lacking in responsibility. There are few nervous diseases that have been more studied than epilepsy, and yet, because the ailment involves so intimately the relations of the nervous system and the bodily function, there are few diseases of which less definite opinions can be given. This is especially true as regards prognosis and the question of mental deterioration in any given case. As a matter of fact the extension of our knowledge of epilepsy, far from making the question of the responsibility of the {252} epileptic under trying circumstances more easy of solution, has rather served to show how difficult this problem must ever remain.