The Eugenics Record Office's "Bulletin No. 4: A First Study of Inheritance in Epilepsy" Through the Lens of Contemporaneous Book Reviews.

To investigate the opinion of The Eugenics Record Office's (ERO) "Bulletin No. 4: A first study of the inheritance of epilepsy" by Charles Davenport and David Weeks through the lens of contemporaneous book reviews. In 1911, the ERO published the aforementioned report. The authors, Davenport and Weeks, held a deterministic view of the genetic basis of epilepsy - the progeny of an epileptic or feebleminded will be epileptic, feebleminded, or both. Reviews of the ERO's Bulletin were sought using online databases. Also, the publication's title, and the authors' names were used as searchable terms. Finally, the Bulletin was analyzed in detail, comparing the findings to other writings by the booklet's authors. The search yielded 3 reviews, all published in 1912, 2 by the same author. In his first review, Schuster indicated that the data was poorly collected. Hence, the authors' conclusions were unjustified. In his second review, Schuster further criticized the manner in which the data was analyzed. He suggested that, when the information did not align with the authors' claims, the data was manipulated. In his review, Ellis also criticized the quality of the data, and stated the author's solution to the problem - segregate epileptics during their reproductive years. Even when one recognizes the differences in what was known about genetics in the early 1900s and what is known today, Davenport's and Weeks' dogma is illness-based racism. Recommending that epileptics and feebleminded be segregated during their reproductive years is tantamount to illness-based discrimination.