[Smerdjakoff--the epileptic decline of existence]

Since long the main interest of psychiatric clinical research has been the determination of character-changes in Janz' typus of the sleep-epileptic, who shows a specific inclination to what is low down, and therefrom calls him and ties him up. Smerdjakoff is this epileptic-prototype. He is linked to what is low down. His height is only pseudo-height. His crisis consists mainly in the threat of being dragged away from the height he claims, i.e. when he deteriorates to mediocracy. Then sadism in its typical aggression shows up--which converts the epileptic in one of the most dangerous psychotic persons.