_THE BORN CRIMINAL AND HIS RELATION TO MORAL INSANITY AND EPILEPSY_
No one, before my father, had ever recognised in the criminal an
abnormal being driven by an irresistible atavistic impulse to commit
anti-social acts, but many had observed (cases of the kind were too
frequent to escape notice) the existence of certain individuals, nearly
always members of degenerate families, who seemed from their earliest
infancy to be prompted by some fatal impulse to do evil to their
fellow-men. They differed from ordinary people, because they hated the
very persons who to normal beings are the nearest and dearest, parents,
husbands, wives, and children, and because their inhuman deeds seemed to
cause them no remorse. These individuals, who were sometimes treated as
lunatics, sometimes as diseased persons, and sometimes as criminals,
were said by the earliest observers to be afflicted with moral
insanity.
_Analogy._ Those who are familiar with all that Pinel, Morel, Richard
Connon, and other great alienists have written on the morally insane
cannot help remarking the analogy, nay identity, of the physical,
intellectual, and moral characteristics of this type of lunatic and
those of the born criminal.
The same physical anomalies already observed in criminals, as described
in the first chapter (cranial deformities, asymmetry, physical and
functional left-handedness, anomalies in the teeth, hands, and feet),
are described by these older writers as being characteristic of the
morally insane, as are also those mental and moral qualities already
noted in the born criminal--vanity, want of affection, cruelty,
idleness, and love of orgies.
Only the analogy of the origin and early manifestations was lacking to
complete the proof of the identity of the two forms. It is true that
moral insanity is more often found in the descendants of insane,
neurotic, or dipsomaniac forebears than in those of criminals, and that
the characteristics are manifested at an earlier age than is the case
with born criminals, but these differences are not of fundamental
importance.
_Cases._ During many years of observation, my father was able to follow
innumerable cases of moral insanity in which perversity was manifested
literally from the cradle, and in which the victims of this disease grew
up into delinquents in no wise distinguishable from born criminals.
A typical instance is that of a certain Rizz... who was brought to him
by the mother because, while still at the breast, he bit his nurse so
viciously that bottle-feeding had to be substituted. At the age of two
years, careful training and medical treatment notwithstanding, this
child was separated from his brothers, because he stuck pins into their
pillows and played dangerous tricks on them. Two years later, he broke
open his father's cash-box and stole money to buy sweets; at six,
although decidedly intelligent, he was expelled from every private
school in the town, because he instigated the others to mischief or
ill-treated them. At fourteen, he seduced a servant and ran away, and at
twenty he killed his fiancee by throwing her out of a window. Thanks to
the testimony of a great many doctors, Rizz... was declared to be
morally insane, but if the family had been poor instead of well-to-do,
and the mother had neglected to have her child examined in infancy by a
medical man, thus obtaining ample proof of the pathological nature of
his perversity, Rizz... would have been condemned as an ordinary
criminal, because, like all morally insane persons, he was very
intelligent and able to reason clearly, like a normal individual.
Another typical case is that of a child named Rav... (see Fig. 12) a
native of the Romagna, who was brought to my father at the age of eight,
because his parents were convinced that his conduct was due to a morbid
condition. Unlike the above-mentioned case, his evil acts were always
carried out in an underhand way. He showed great spite towards his
brothers and sisters, especially the smaller ones, whom he attempted to
strangle on several occasions, and was expelled from school on account
of the bad influence he exercised over his schoolfellows. He delighted
above everything in robbing his parents, employers, and the neighbours
and in falsely accusing others, and so cleverly did he manage this that
he caused a great deal of mischief before his double-dealing was
discovered. When only eight, on leaving home early every morning to go
to work, he would secretly throw all the milk left at the neighbours'
doors into the dust-bin, then he accused the janitor of stealing it and
got him dismissed. A year later, he nearly succeeded in causing the
arrest of a pawnbroker, whom he accused of having lent him money on a
cloak, it being illegal in Italy to accept anything in pawn from a
minor. The cloak, however, was discovered by his mother hidden in the
cellar. At ten years of age, he alleged that his father had brutally
ill-treated him, and as severe marks and bruises on his body gave colour
to the accusation, the poor man was arrested. The marks, however, were
self-inflicted.
Another boy, a certain Man..., a peasant from the Val d'Aosta, an
Alpine valley in Piedmont, where cretinism is indigenous, exhibited
perverse tendencies from his earliest infancy. When twelve years old, he
killed his companion in a squabble over an egg. (See Fig. 13.)
In the above-mentioned cases, the subjects all belonged to well-to-do or
honest families and the pathological heredity was therefore exclusively
nervous, not criminal. For this reason, the parents were struck by the
abnormal depravity of their sons and had them medically examined and
treated, thus discovering that they were morally insane. If, on the
other hand, the parents had been criminals and had, themselves, set a
bad example, nobody would have supposed that these depraved tendencies
were innate in the children or had developed precociously. The fact of
the prevalence of moral insanity in neurotic families (with frequent
cases of lunacy, alcoholism, etc.) rather than in those of criminal
tendencies appears at first sight strange, but according to the new
theory advanced by my father, the criminal is a mentally diseased
person; and we shall see in a later chapter that the heredity of insane,
neurotic, and dipsomaniac parents is completely equivalent to a criminal
heredity.
=FIG. 12
BOY MORALLY INSANE
(see page 55)=
=FIG. 13
BOY MORALLY INSANE
(see page 56)=
_Proofs of Analogy._ Thus the genesis and early manifestations, which
might have been diverse, really constitute a counter-proof. Careful
anamnesis shows that both born criminals and the morally insane begin at
a very early age to exhibit symptoms of the morbid tendencies which make
them such a danger to society, and if the general public and the police,
when such cases are brought to their notice, usually fail to realise
that they arise from precocious perversity, it is because atrocious
actions are excused on the ground of extreme youth and attributed to
this cause rather than to vicious propensities. In many cases, indeed,
they are revealed only to the physician.
A counter-proof is likewise furnished by investigations of the origin of
these pathological cases, since the study of born criminals shows that
they, as well as the morally insane, are as frequently the offspring of
insane, epileptic, neurotic, and drunken parents as of criminals, but in
the latter case, the morbid origin of their perversity is seldom brought
to light owing to the criminality of the parents, who naturally view
with indifference symptoms of vice in their children.
EPILEPTICS, AND THEIR RELATION TO BORN CRIMINALS AND THE MORALLY INSANE
We have already stated that the physical and psychic characteristics of
born criminals coincide with those of the morally insane. Both are
identical with those of another class of degenerates, known to the world
as epileptics.
The term epilepsy was applied to a malady frequently studied but little
understood by the ancient medical world, the chief symptoms of which
were repeated tonic and clonic fits, preceded by the so-called
"epileptic aura" and followed by a deep sleep. It was called _morbus
sacer_ and believed to be of divine origin.
Careful examination of epileptics by clinical and mental experts, showed
that in addition to the characteristic seizure, these unfortunate beings
were subject to other phenomena, which sometimes took the place of the
convulsive fit and in other cases preceded or followed it. These were
_pavor nocturnus_, sudden sweats, heat, neuralgia, sialorrhea,
periodical cephalalgia and, above all, vertigo; and these symptoms were
not always accompanied by unconsciousness nor followed by coma.
Sometimes the seizure was only manifested by paroxysms of rage or
ferocious and brutal impulses (devouring animals alive), which, if
consciously committed, would be considered criminal. This fact led
doctors and mental experts to examine other patients, and they were able
to advance positive proof that a certain number of epileptics never
experience the typical seizure, the disease being manifested in this
milder form with cephalalgia, sialorrhea, delirious ferocity, and above
all, giddiness.
The multiformity of epilepsy has been fully confirmed by the experiments
of Luciani, Zehen, and others, who produced various forms of epilepsy by
submitting different cerebral zones to varying degrees of irritation. By
graduating the electric current, Rosenbach was able to provoke the whole
series of epileptic phenomena described above, from the mildest to the
most serious manifestations. A slight irritation of the motor areas gave
rise to tetanic contractions and clonic convulsions in a given joint; an
increase in the strength of the current produced more violent movements
which spread over the whole limb, and by intensifying the current still
further, to half the body. Finally, on the application of a very strong
current, the typical fit was produced with clonic spasms in all the
body, unconsciousness, nystagmus, and rigidity of the pupils.
By irritating the frontal lobes of dogs, Richet and Bernard produced
vertigo and certain physical phenomena (snuffing, barking, and biting).
Taking these investigations as a basis, Jackson came to the conclusion
that epileptic fits are due to a rapid and excessive explosion of the
grey matter, which, instead of developing its force gradually, develops
it all of a sudden because it is irritated. And as it has been shown
conclusively that the disease can be manifested in such varied
forms--vertigo, twitching of the muscles, sialorrhea, cephalalgia, fits
of rage, and ferocious actions--which appear to be the equivalent of the
typical seizure, individuals subject to these forms of neurosis should
be classed as epileptics, even if they never experience the typical
motor attack.
It is in this category, which may be called attenuated epilepsy, that we
should place criminals, who in addition to the psychic and physical
characteristics of the epileptic, possess others peculiar to themselves.
Physical anomalies (plagiocephaly, microcephaly, macrocephaly,
strabismus, facial and cranial asymmetry, prominent frontal sinuses,
median occipital fossa, receding forehead, projecting ears,
progeneismus, and badly shaped teeth) are characteristic both of
criminals and epileptics, as was demonstrated in certain epileptics
treated by my father (Figs. 14 and 15), and the same holds good of
functional and histological anomalies. The histological anomaly
discovered by Roncoroni in the frontal lobe of born criminals,
consisting of the atrophy of the deep granular layer, the inversion of
the pyramidal layers and small cells with enlargement and rarefaction of
the pyramidal cells, and the existence of nervous cells in the white
substance, is found in about the same proportion in cases of
non-criminal epileptics. We find also in the same proportion in the
field of vision of epileptics, as of born criminals, the anomaly
discovered by Ottolenghi, consisting of peripheral scotoma intersecting
the nearly uniform line of varying size common to normal eyes.
=FIG. 14
AN EPILEPTIC BOY
(see page 60)=
_Psychological Characteristics._ The complete identity of epileptics,
born criminals and the morally insane becomes evident as soon as we
study their psychology.
Epilepsy, congenital criminality, and moral insanity alone are capable
of comprising in one clinical form intellectual divergencies which range
from genius to imbecility. In epileptics, this divergence is sometimes
manifested in one and the same person in the space of twenty-four hours.
An individual at one time afflicted with loss of will-power and amnesia,
and incapable of formulating the simplest notion, will shortly
afterwards give expression to original ideas and reason logically.
Contradictions and exaggerations of sentiment are salient
characteristics of epileptics as of born criminals and the morally
insane. Quarrelsome, suspicious, and cynical individuals suddenly become
gentle, respectful, and affectionate. The cynic expresses religious
sentiments, and the man who has brutally ill-treated his first wife,
kneels before the second. An epileptic observed by Tonnini fancied
himself at times to be Napoleon; at others, he would lick the ground
like the humblest slave.
The extreme excitability manifested by born criminals is shared by
epileptics. Distrustful, intolerant, and incapable of sincere
attachment, a gesture or a look is sufficient to infuriate them and
incite them to the most atrocious deeds.
Epilepsy has a disastrous effect on the character. It destroys the moral
sense, causes irritability, alters the sensations through constant
hallucinations and delusions, deadens the natural feelings or leads them
into morbid channels.
_Affection for Animals._ The hatred frequently manifested by criminals
and epileptics towards the members of their own families is in many
cases accompanied by an extraordinary fondness for animals as is shown
by the cases of Caligula, Commodus, Lacenaire, Rosas, Dr. Francia, and
La Sola,--who preferred kittens to her own children. A morally insane
individual known to my father would spend months in training dogs,
horses, birds, geese, and other fowls. He was wont to remark that all
animals were friendly to him as though they recognised in him one of
their own kind. Dostoyevsky's fellow-convicts showed great fondness for
a horse, an eagle, and a number of geese. They were so attached to a
goat that they wanted to gild its horns.
=FIG. 15
FERNANDO
Epileptic
(see page 60)=
_Somnambulism._ This is a frequent characteristic of epileptics.
Krafft-Ebing says:
"The seizure is often followed by a condition approaching
somnambulism. The patient appears to have recovered consciousness,
talks coherently, behaves in an orderly manner, and resumes his
ordinary occupations. Yet he is not really conscious as is shown by
the fact that, later he is entirely ignorant of what he has been
doing during this stage. This peculiar state of mental daze may
last a long time, sometimes during the whole interval between two
seizures."
Many of the criminals observed by Dostoyevsky were given to
gesticulating and talking agitatedly in their sleep.
Obscenity is a common characteristic. Kowalewsky (_Archivio di
Psichiatria_, 1885) notes the resemblance between the reproductive act
and the epileptic seizure, the tonic tension of the muscles, loss of
consciousness and mydriasis in both cases, and remarks also on the
frequency with which epileptic attacks are accompanied by sexual
propensities.
The desire for sexual indulgence, like the taste for alcohol, is
distinguished by the precocity peculiar to criminals and the morally
insane. Precocious sexual instincts have been observed in children of
four years, and in one case obscenity was manifested by an infant of one
year.
Marro (_Annali di Freniatria_, 1890) describes a child of three years
and ten months, who had exhibited signs of epilepsy from birth and was
of a jealous, irascible disposition. He was in the habit of scratching
and biting his brothers and sisters, knocking over the furniture, hiding
things, and tearing his clothes, and when unable to hurt or annoy
others, would vent his rage upon himself. If punished, he would continue
his misdeeds in an underhand way.
Another child had been afflicted with convulsions from his earliest
infancy, in consequence of which his character deteriorated, and while
still a mere infant, he behaved with the utmost violence. He killed a
cat, attempted to strangle his brother, and to set fire to the house.
Invulnerability, another characteristic common to criminals, has been
observed by Tonnini in epileptics, whose wounds and injuries heal with
astonishing rapidity, and he is inclined to regard this peculiarity in
the light of a reversion to a stage of evolution, at which animals like
lizards and salamanders were able to replace severed joints by new
growths. This invulnerability is shared by all degenerates: epileptics,
imbeciles, and the morally insane.
"One of these latter," says Tonnini, "tore out his moustache bodily and
with it a large piece of skin. In a few days the wound was nearly
healed."
Very characteristic is the almost automatic tendency to destroy animate
and inanimate objects, which results in frequent wounding, suicides, and
homicides. This desire to destroy is also common to children. Fernando P.
(Fig. 15), an epileptic treated by my father, when enraged was in the
habit of smashing all the furniture within his reach and throwing the
pieces over a wall some twenty-five feet high.
Misdea, a regimental barber, to whom we shall refer later, roused to
fury by dismissal from his post, broke four razors into small pieces
with his teeth. Another epileptic, Piz... used to break all the
crockery in his cell regularly every other day, "just to give vent to
his feelings."
This tendency to destroy everything in the cell is common also to
ordinary criminals.
_Cases of Moral Insanity with Latent Epileptic Phenomena._ The following
cases, which were treated by my father and which were subject to
careful observation and study, will serve to give a clear idea of the
criminal form of epilepsy.
Subject: Giuliano Celestino, age 16. Yellow skin abundantly tattooed,
absence of hair on face or body. Cranium: plagiocephaly on the left
frontal and right parietal regions, obliquely-placed eyes, narrow
forehead, prominent orbital arches, line of the mouth horizontal as in
apes, lateral incisors of upper jaw resembling the canines with rugged
margins, excessive zygomatic and maxillary development, tactile
sensibility very obtuse, dolorific sensibility non-existent on the
right, very obtuse on the left, rotular reflex action exaggerated on the
right, very feeble on the left. Devoid of natural feeling. When asked if
he was fond of his mother, he replied: "When she brings me cigars and
money." When questioned concerning his crimes he showed neither shame
nor confusion. On the contrary, he confessed with a smile that when only
ten he had tried to kill his youngest brother, who was then an infant in
the cradle, and when hindered by his mother, had struck and bitten her.
His father was a drunkard afflicted with syphilis, and Giuliano had
suffered from epilepsy from the age of seven. At this age he began to
indulge in alcohol and self-abuse, and stole from his parents in order
to buy sweets. He appears to have been subject to an ambulatory mania,
which caused him to wander aimlessly about the country, and if kept
within doors he would let himself down from the windows, climb up the
chimney, or, failing in these attempts to escape, would break the
furniture and attract the attention of the neighbours by his terrific
yells. From the age of eight, despite his parents' efforts to apprentice
him, he was always immediately dismissed by his employers. He ran away
with a strolling company of acrobats, and later apprenticed himself to a
butcher in order to revel in the horrors of the slaughter-house. At
fifteen he was confined in a reformatory, where he twice attempted to
escape and to set fire to the building, and was sentenced to two years'
imprisonment. For the space of a few days, he appears to have suffered
from epileptic attacks, although in a masked form, accompanied by
various attempts at suicide. These were renewed every other month for a
whole year. When asked what he would do for a living when released, he
would reply laughingly that there was plenty of money in other people's
pockets.
L... a morally insane subject, age 16, native of Turin, the son of an
aged, but extremely respectable man. Height 1.50 m., weight, 46.2 kg.,
with abundant hair, and down on the forehead, incisors crowded
together, excessive development of the canines, and exaggerated orbital
angle of the frontal bone. He was entirely devoid of affection for his
family, remarking cynically that he was fond of his father when he gave
him money and did not worry him. Sometimes he kicked the poor old man
and otherwise abused him. When unable to obtain money, he would smash
all the furniture in the house, until, for the sake of economy, his
family gave him what he wanted. In order to get a five-pound note from
money-lenders he would sign promissory notes for ten times that amount.
He changed his ideas from one hour to another. Sometimes he wanted to
enter the army, at others to emigrate to France, etc. When only fourteen
he frequented houses of ill-fame, where he played the bully.
Although this case may be regarded as a typical instance of moral
insanity, there were apparently no symptoms of vertigo or convulsions.
At the age of sixteen, however, while suffering from rheumatism, this
subject tried to throw himself from the balcony of his bedroom at the
same hour three nights running. After this he seems to have suffered
from amnesia.
These frenzied attempts at self-destruction, which seem to have taken
the place of the epileptic seizure, were related to my father casually
by the boy's mother; but in other cases, similar incidents, although of
the utmost importance to the criminologist, often pass unnoticed.
In the _Actes du Congres d'Anthropologie_, Angelucci describes another
typical case of epileptic moral insanity. E. G. (brother a criminal
epileptic, father a sufferer from cancer) was sentenced several times
for assaulting people often without motive. Tattooed with the figure of
a naked woman, microcephalous (39.2 cubic inches = 589 c.c.), having
cranial and facial asymmetry, he was vain, deceitful, and violent, and
made great show of scepticism although he wore a great many medals of
the Virgin. This subject was over twenty-five when the first epileptic
seizure took place.
The connection between epilepsy and crime is one of derivation rather
than identity. Epilepsy represents the genus of which criminality and
moral insanity are the species.
The born criminal is an epileptic, inasmuch as he possesses the
anatomical, skeletal, physiognomical, psychological, and moral
characteristics peculiar to the recognised form of epilepsy, and
sometimes also its motorial phenomena, although at rare intervals. More
frequently he exhibits its substitutes (vertigo, twitching, sialorrhea,
emotional attacks). But the criminal epileptic possesses other
characteristics peculiar to himself; in particular, that desire of evil
for its own sake, which is unknown to ordinary epileptics. In view of
this fact this form of epilepsy must be considered apart from the purely
nervous anomaly, both in the clinical diagnosis and the methods of cure
and social prophylaxis.
Moreover, the nervous anomaly, which in the case of criminals appears on
the scene from time to time, accentuating the criminal tendency till it
reaches the atavistic form and producing morbid complications which
sometimes prove fatal, serves to point out the true nature of the
disease and to emphasise the fact that while it is attenuated so far as
motor attacks are concerned, it is aggravated on the other hand by
criminal impulses, which render the patient semi-immune and permit him a
longer and less troubled existence, but provoke a constant brain
irritation, which clouds and disturbs his intellectual and moral nature.
In order better to understand these two forms of epilepsy, we must
recall two analogous forms of another and equally multiform disease,
tuberculosis in its forms of quick consumption and scrofula. The
etiology is identical and the symptoms frequently alike, but while the
latter proceeds very slowly and allows the patient a long life, the
former is rapid and severs life in its prime.
In motory epilepsy, the irritation is manifested on a sudden, but leaves
the mind healthy in the interval, although the attacks may lead to rapid
dementia. In criminal epilepsy this irritation does not break out in
violent seizures and is compatible with a long life, but it changes the
whole physical and psychic complexion of the individual.
The epileptic origin of criminality explains many characteristics of the
criminal, the genesis of which was previously obscure. Many of the moral
and physical peculiarities of born criminals and the morally insane may
be classed as professional characteristics acquired through the habit of
evil-doing, especially the naso-labial and zygomatic wrinkles, cynical
expression, tapering fingers, etc. Many anomalies also in the bones,
hair, ears, eyes, and the monstrous development of the jaws and teeth,
must be explained by arrested development in the fifth or sixth month of
ultra-uterine existence, corresponding to the characteristics of
inferior races by the usual law of ontogeny which recapitulates
phylogeny. But there is a final series of anomalies, the origin of which
was formerly wrapped in mystery: plagiocephaly, sclerosis, the
thickening of the meninges, cranial asymmetry, and other changes in the
cerebral layers, which can be explained only by a disease altering
precociously the whole cerebral conformation, as is exactly the case in
epilepsy.
The born criminal is an epileptic, not however afflicted with the common
form of this disease, but with a special kind. The pathological basis,
the etiology, and the anatomical and psychological characteristics are
identical, but there are many differences. While in the ordinary form
motor anomalies are very common, in the criminal form they are very
rare, while in ordinary epilepsy the mental explosions are accompanied
by unconsciousness, in the other form they are weakened and spread over
the whole existence, and consciousness is, relatively speaking,
preserved; and while, finally, the ordinary epileptic has not always the
tendency to do evil for its own sake--nay, may even achieve holiness--in
the hidden form the bent towards evil endures from birth to death. The
perversity concentrated in one second in the motor attack, is attenuated
in the second form, but spread over the whole existence. We have
therefore an epilepsy _sui generis_, a variety of epilepsy which may be
called criminal.
Thus the primitive idea of crime has become organic and complete. The
criminal is only a diseased person, an epileptic, in whom the cerebral
malady, begun in some cases during prenatal existence, or later, in
consequence of some infection or cerebral poisoning, produces, together
with certain signs of physical degeneration in the skull, face, teeth,
and brain, a return to the early brutal egotism natural to primitive
races, which manifests itself in homicide, theft, and other crimes.