Exhibit D 2—6.49
had illegitimate children before receiving proper care. This family
is undoubtedly a branch of a family of defectives, most of whom live
in an adjoining State.
This is a case of incest, and shows plainly that the “ empty germ D 3
plasm can yield only emptiness.” These people lived in a hut in the
woods. The feeble-minded man had by his defective sister an
epileptic daughter, then by this daughter he had four children, one an
epileptic, one a feeble-minded woman of the streets, who spends much
of her time in jail, one an anencephalic monster who died soon after
birth, and one a feeble-minded boy, who did not grow to manhood
Since the hut in the woods burned down, the epileptic woman and
feeble-minded daughter live in a cellar in town, though much of their
time is spent in jail.
This chart shows a feeble-minded man, who came from a feeble- d 4
minded family, married to an epileptic woman, who descended from
a tubercular epileptic father and a mother who is described as
flighty,” “ not too bright.” This couple had six children, three
feeble-minded, two epileptic, and one still-born. Since the death of
the epileptic mother, the father has secured homes in institutions for
all of his children except one, and then married again. As yet he
has no children by the second wife.
The wife in the central mating in this case is a low grade D 5
epileptic, who can scarcely recognize her own children. The father is
a feeble-minded alcoholic, who works hard, but who spends all his
money for drink. There were six children; one died at the age
of four, and all of the others except one six-year-old boy are epileptic.
All are being cared for by the public. Before the mother and three
of the epileptic children were brought to the State Village for
Epileptics the family lived in a cellar, slept on rags, and depended
■on the neighbours for food.
This is a history which illustrates very well the source of a large o 6
number of the almshouse inmates. The central figure is an epileptic
woman, who spent most of her life in the poor house. No two of
her seven children are by the same father. The epileptic daughter,
whose father was feeble-minded, had started to lead the same kind of
life as her mother; in the almshouse she gave birth to one illegitimate
•child before she was put under State care. The mother, when she
last left the almshouse, went to live in a hut in the woods with a
feeble-minded man, who had three feeble-minded sons; one of these
sons married the feeble-minded sister of one of the epileptic patients
-at the New Jersey State Village.
