CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Lombroso was led to formulate his doctrine of the criminal, not through
the influence of the earlier workers in the same field, whose names were
mentioned at the end of the last chapter, but as a natural consequence
of the idea which dominated his whole mental development. This leading
idea—a part of the teaching of anthropological materialism—is, on the
one hand, that a man’s mode of feeling, and therewith the actual conduct
of his life, are determined by his physical constitution; and, on the
other hand, that this constitution must find expression in his bodily
structure. He was led to the more definite formulation of this idea by
chance anatomical discoveries (_vide_ _Arch. ital. delle malattie
nervose_, and also _R.C. dell’ Istituto Lombardo_, 1871, v., fasc.
18)[9] in the corpses of criminals, one of which, the so-called “median
occipital fossa,” had not been noticed by previous observers; this is
found in most of the lower mammals, as well as in many monkeys. This
first discovery of the kind has since been supplemented by a large
number of others: in part such as were in the first instance most
carefully observed by Lombroso and his pupils; in part those described
by other anthropologists as “theromorphs”; in part those enumerated by
Darwinian naturalists as “atavisms”—that is, characters regarded and
described as vestiges inherited from the prehuman ancestors of our
species. If we compare the writings of those zoologists and anatomists
who treat of these questions, with those of Lombroso and his followers,
we cannot fail to notice the complete independence of the Italians, and
at the same time their more comprehensive grasp, and their better
knowledge of prehistoric data. The anthropologists of the Italian school
usually went to work in the following way. If in examining the body of a
criminal they came across a theromorph in any organ, or observed any
other unusual structure, they propounded certain questions regarding the
peculiarity, viz.:
1. Is this peculiarity present in any of the authentic remains of
prehistoric man, and, if so, how often is it met with in these, as
compared with the frequency of its presence in the bodies of criminals?
2. Is it met with in the lower races of man, and, if so, how often? (The
answer to this question is obtained by examining the skulls, etc., of
these lower races, to be found in European museums.)
3. Is it found in the higher apes, and, if so, is it an occasional or a
constant feature?
4. Is it found in other species of the group of primates?
5. Is it found in animals lower than these in the scale of
classification?
6. Is it found in human beings presenting congenital morbid anomalies;
more especially is it found in epileptics and in idiots?
It is easy to understand that such investigations are very laborious. In
order to throw light on the meaning of comparatively insignificant data,
it may be necessary to organize most comprehensive researches. Unceasing
care and indefatigability in such isolated observations, and in the
interpretation of their meaning, is one of Lombroso’s highest claims to
honour. For this reason, his books and the thirty volumes of his
archives will remain for many decades to come a rich mine of discovery
for anthropology, as soon as this science returns from the study of
Mongols and Australians to the examination of contemporary Europeans. As
a result of these investigations, the fact has been established that,
above all in the skulls and the brains of criminals, but also in other
parts of the skeleton, in the muscles, and in the viscera, we find
anatomical peculiarities, which in some cases resemble the characters of
the few authentic remnants of the earliest prehistoric human beings, in
other cases correspond to the characters of still extant lower races of
mankind, and in yet others, correspond to the characters of some or all
of the varieties of monkey.
From these facts Lombroso draws a somewhat rash conclusion—namely, that
there are born criminals, representing the type of mankind which existed
before the origin of law, the family, and property, and that the
representatives of long past conditions thus thrust upon our own time
are incapable of respecting the security of life and property and other
legal rights; but, bold as this conclusion seems, it has, none the less,
all the qualities of a scientific conjecture, inasmuch as it harmonizes
with all the known facts, and enables us to deal in an orderly and
critical manner with the material upon which it bears.
I leave the question open whether we are to regard this idea as a theory
or merely as a hypothesis; but it is necessary to point out, in
opposition to the obstinate assertions of Lombroso’s opponents, that the
Italian school of anthropology has never maintained the proposition that
all persons who come before European courts of justice upon criminal
charges, or all who are confined in the criminal prisons of Europe, are
the unchanged descendants of the Neanderthal men, who hunted the
cave-bear with stone arrows. Put as concisely as possible, the doctrine
of the Italian school runs as follows: Born criminals exist, presenting
typical characters, both bodily and mental, and they owe their peculiar
organization to the fact that their development has been affected by an
atavistic reversion. It is impossible here to give particulars showing
the manner in which, in the five successive editions of “L’ uomo
delinquente,” this conception becomes gradually more clearly defined.
I may be permitted to make some further observations regarding the
nature of this atavistic reversion. There is not one single
characteristic of the human anatomy which is not the product of
inheritance. The existing type of the European mixed race appears to be
a permanent type; or rather, owing to the fact that the struggle for
existence of our time takes an almost exclusively economic form, and
that in consequence of this the brain has received a preponderant
importance, the present phase of human evolution affects the brain only
(in women, unfortunately, as well as in men); if any other organ than
the brain is influenced by selection in modern man, it is affected
solely or mainly on account of its correlation with brain development.
Naturally, future extensive changes in the size and shape of the brain
will ultimately give rise to changes more or less extensive in
neighbouring organs also, such as the bones of the skull, the teeth, the
jaws, the external ear, and the upper cervical vertebræ. But for the
brief period which the individual investigator has under his observation
in the course of his life, the human species may approximately be
regarded as a permanent type. Now our most enduring possessions in the
way of bodily characteristics are inherited from very remote
ancestors—they are atavisms. The great weight of the brain, the upright
forehead, the large facial angle, peculiar to the European, have been
inherited by him from his ancestors of the historic epoch; on the other
hand, the number and shape of his teeth, the structure of his
sense-organs, the arrangement of the fissures and convolutions of his
cerebral cortex, the number and form of the mammary glands, the
configuration of the upper limbs—these the European shares with the
so-called anthropoid apes, with whom in other respects also he possesses
a very close blood-relationship. Finally, the number of our fingers and
toes, and the structure of the various tissues, as demonstrated by the
microscope, are common to us and to the great majority of mammals;
whilst innumerable other physical characteristics are shared by us with
the lower vertebrata. Thus most of our bodily peculiarities are derived
from our prehuman ancestors; they are atavisms, interesting antiquities.
But if this be so, then the occasional appearance of one or two
additional atavistic characters, whether these be derived from the men
of the ice-age or from those of the tertiary period, or date back to the
still undiscovered ape-men of a yet earlier day, or to the half-apes, or
even to our remote fish-like progenitors, is hardly so incredible an
occurrence as to demand that the thunderbolts of sterile anthropometry,
so long carefully cherished by Virchow, should be launched against the
heretic Lombroso.[10]
Modern man has freed himself from much that was rooted in the blood and
bone of his forefathers. But unquestionably he has not freed himself
from all that was so rooted, and therefore it need not surprise us to
encounter individuals who exhibit, firmly fixed either in their bodily
or in their mental organization, characteristics which in the majority
have been weakened or have disappeared.
Such individuals, exhibiting characters no longer possessed by the
European permanent type, but still common to the most primitive extant
races of mankind, such as the Old Peruvians, the Papuans, and the
Australian blacks, and common also to the other primates, are found
among criminals, as Lombroso showed, with remarkable frequency—in fact,
to the extent of more than 40 per cent.—and with especial frequency
among those whose first crime is of a serious nature, and among those
who have for many years been living for and by crime.
In addition, we meet with numerous characters, either not atavisms, or
not yet regarded as atavisms, but which are or may be rather of a morbid
nature. Thus, the skull or the brain of a criminal may exhibit, in
addition to dubious atavistic characters, certain morbid features or
signs of past disease. It is, indeed, by no means improbable that a
congenital atavistic special predisposition may only become active to
such an extent as to lead to a criminal act in consequence of some
superadded disease; but in such a case it is idle to dispute whether we
have to do with a congenital, an insane, or an alcoholic criminal.
If Lombroso’s teaching were based solely upon the examination of the
skulls and brains of criminals to be found in European collections, its
foundation would unquestionably be too narrow. But it is based, in
addition, upon the anthropological examination of many thousands of
living criminals—an examination quite as thorough as that carried out by
an anthropologist in the case of a savage tribe which he has crossed the
world to study.
The examination of living criminals cannot, of course, take into account
the convolutions of the brain, or the fossæ, foramina, and processes on
the inner surface of the skull. The first place must here be given to
the external measurements of the head.
Now, as regards many of the problems of anthropology, it is left to the
examiner to decide whether he will describe the facts he has to record
by means of figures or ratios, or by means of a catchword descriptive of
some visible peculiarity of shape or of some other objective fact.
Thus the presence of a thick bony prominence in the middle of the hard
palate (torus palatinus) may, of course, be indicated by simply
recording the numerical results of the measurements of the palate; but,
on the other hand, we may prefer to state that one man has a slightly
developed torus palatinus, another a large torus, a third none at all,
and so on.
Another important character gives to the face, when seen from the front,
an extremely typical shape. This is a great lateral extension of the
malar bones, or, to speak more precisely, of the zygomatic arches. This
condition may be denoted simply by the one word, _eurygnathism_, which
describes it amply and aptly. On the other hand, instead of employing
this term, we may, in the case of each person examined, record the exact
width of the face between the malar eminences, and note also the
relation of this measurement to the width of the forehead.
As regards characteristics of form, however, it is much more convenient,
and at the same time conveys a much more vivid impression, to denote
these merely quantitative variations, and also relations perceptible
only through comparison, by means of a generally descriptive
terminology, which must not, of course, be confused with the precise
description of actual structures.
Employing this method, we have a lengthy register of
crimino-anthropological characters, and in the following table I append
a fragment of such a register:
I. PRIMATOID VARIETIES.
A. AFFECTING THE SKULL.
CEREBROGENOUS.
(_a_) _Direct Cerebrogenous._
1. Frontal submicrocephaly (expressed in the relative and
absolute smallness of the brain, especially in the
transverse diameter). Criminals, 41 per cent.
2. Narrowing of the cranio-facial angle at the base of the
skull, leading to prognathism.
Occurrence: In all primates, in negroes, Papuans,
Australian blacks, etc. Criminals, 60 per cent.
3. Receding forehead.
Occurrence: According to Lombroso, in 19·4 per cent. of
4,244 criminals. According to Kurella, in criminals from
Upper Silesia, 11 per cent.; in workmen from Upper
Silesia, 4 per cent.
4. Often associated with 2 or 3. Middle occipital fossa.
Occurrence: In all apes, in the anthropoids, including the
gibbon.
In the skulls of various races of mankind—
Per cent.
Ancient Peruvians 15
Australian blacks 28
Skulls provided with “students’
sets” 4·1
Criminals (3,200), (Lombroso, 16
per cent.) 20
Negroes 10
Prehistoric skulls 14·3
(_b_) _Indirect Cerebrogenous Varieties._
1. External angular process of the frontal bone abnormally
large. In criminals (704), 11·9 per cent.
2. Excessive size of orbits (exceeding the highest degree of
Mantegazza’s scale of the index cranio-orbitalis)—
Per cent.
Lombroso 9
Kurella 8·2
(of 218
cases)
3. Abnormal width of frontal sinuses—
Criminals 13
(of 252
cases)
Skulls provided with “students’
sets” 4
4. Strongly developed superciliary ridges—
Lombroso:
Skulls provided with “students’
sets” 7
Criminal skulls (out of 253) 13
Kurella:
Living workmen 7
Living criminals 16
Italian murderers 41·7
5. High (internal) frontal crest. The mean height of the
frontal crest is normally 3·8 mm.; in criminals the mean
height is 5·4 mm. In 25 per cent. of criminals it exceeds
7 mm., and in 35 per cent. of these latter it is
associated with the presence of an internal occipital
fossa.
(_c_) _Marked Development of the Antagonism between Brain
Development on the one hand, and Development of the Facial
Portion of the Skull on the other, the latter predominating._
1. Strongly developed temporal crest, nearer than usual to the
sagittal suture.
Distance between the two temporal crests, measured across the
sagittal suture—
Mm.
Gorilla 0·10
Eskimo 80
Skulls provided with “students’
sets” 125
Skulls of murderers 70
2. Torus occipitalis—
Per cent.
Criminals (Lombroso’s results) 31·7
Murderers (Lombroso’s results) 75
3. Eurygnathism—_i.e._, abnormal breadth of the face at the
level of the zygoma. This is a common characteristic in
the oldest human remains (skulls from Gibraltar,
Cro-Magnon, and Furfooz), and in the lower races of to-day
(the circumpolar tribes).
Per cent.
Convicts sentenced for robbery
with murder 37
In 1,567 criminal heads 18
4. Excessive height of the upper jaw.
This table exhibits the characters visible in the skull in a definite
class only, those whom in my “Naturgeschichte des Verbrechers” (“Natural
History of the Criminal”) I have, with Lombroso’s approval, designated
“primatoid.” Granted that they are typical of the criminal, it has none
the less often been maintained that the Italian school is not justified
in speaking of a criminal type, for the reason that not one of the
individuals described exhibits all these peculiarities. How, then, it is
said, can a criminal type be abstracted from such utterly heterogeneous
abnormalities?
This really depends upon the possibilities of abstraction. Academically
correct anthropologists continue to dispute regarding the types of the
most important races of mankind, whilst description is always preceded
by perception, and perception is not always in a position to comprehend
the typical; he who is not endowed with a sense for the significant will
see nothing but the insignificant. But there is something extremely
typical in the commonest and most important characteristic of the
criminal nature—namely, the coexistence of several primatoid characters
in the same individual. (Characters are termed “primatoid” which are
present in all primates, but which in the normal human being are
developed very slightly—in part, indeed, so slightly developed as to be
almost imperceptible. But in many criminals these peculiarities, which
are chiefly physical, are either more strongly marked than in the normal
European, or else they make their appearance in the criminal in a form
in which in the normal European they are entirely unknown, whereas they
are present in the members of many savage races, as well as in primates
lower down in the scale.)
There is one character, however, by which the primates in general are
distinguished from the lower mammals, whilst in the human species it is
far more strongly marked than in other primates; but in the criminal
this character is often so little developed as hardly to reach the
degree characteristic of prehistoric human remains. The character in
question is the greater development of the cranium (dependent upon the
more powerful development of the cerebral hemispheres) in association
with a lesser development of the jaws and their appendages. In this way
the direct cerebrogenous characters originate; and with these are
associated yet other characters, evidently in part mechanically
dependent on the cerebrogenous characters, but in part arising from
these in a different way. To this category belongs prognathism—the
condition in which the upper jaw protrudes markedly in front of the base
of the skull, so that when the face is viewed in profile, the region of
the incisor teeth appears very prominent. The skulls of the lower races
of mankind are prognathous, and still more prognathous are the skulls of
the anthropoid apes. Directly associated with prognathism is another
characteristic of the criminal type—namely, the forehead which “recedes”
markedly as it rises; and associated with the receding forehead is a
marked projection of the “superciliary ridges.”
It is well known that the two earliest known human skulls—that of the
Neanderthal and that of Spy—both exhibit to a high degree the two
characters last mentioned. If we compare with these the drawing in
Lombroso’s “Archivio di psichiatria” (vol. ii., 1882) of the skull of
Gasparone (the brigand celebrated under the name of “Fra Diavolo”), we
cannot fail to recognize a striking example of atavism.
One of the most remarkable of these characters is the middle occipital
fossa, first described by Lombroso, whose dependence upon the formation
of the cerebellum is still open to dispute. In any case it is a
well-marked primatoid character, for it is present in all the higher
primates, with the exception of the gorilla, the chimpanzee, and the
orang-utan. The middle occipital fossa was found to be present in 4·1
per cent. of the skulls provided with “students’ sets” that were
examined (but it must be remembered that such skulls always include a
certain proportion of the skulls of criminals). In prehistoric skulls
the character was present in 14·3 per cent.; in ancient Peruvian skulls
in 15 per cent.; in Australian blacks in 28 per cent.; in all the
criminal skulls examined it was present in 20 per cent. The significance
of such a fact as this cannot be gainsaid; and it is not surprising that
its discovery by Lombroso, the pupil of Panizza, made a profound
impression, more especially in view of the fact that he was then about
to bring to a close his comparison of the European with the melanodermic
races.
The book in which Lombroso instituted this comparison, “L’ uomo bianco e
l’ Uomo di colore,” was published in 1871 by Sacchetto of Padua, after
the manuscript had spent three years in vain wanderings from publisher
to publisher. In this work the writer asserted the common descent of the
higher apes and of the human species from an unknown primate, supporting
his contention by means of anthropological data. Darwin’s “Descent of
Man” was published while Lombroso’s work was in the press. The latter
displays the remarkable knowledge of comparative anatomy which Lombroso
owed to his teacher Panizza. It displays also a wide knowledge of
ethnological literature, and a thorough acquaintanceship with the
previous discoveries regarding prehistoric man (including those made at
Cro-Magnon, Hohlenfels, etc., during the years 1868–1870); and it shows,
in addition, the author’s remarkable talent for the discovery and
utilization of fruitful analogies.
I do not propose to consider here the various anomalies and
malformations of the skull discovered, described, and enumerated by
Lombroso and his pupils; but on account of their importance in relation
to the criminal physiognomy, we may mention that an abnormal widening of
the face (due to an exceptionally great distance between the two
zygomatic arches), and an abnormal divergence of the two halves of the
inferior maxillary bone, are characteristic of the criminal type.
Subsequently to the first publication of Lombroso’s results the question
of the distance between the angles of the lower jaw was thoroughly
investigated, more especially by the Dutch anthropologists and
alienists, at the instigation of Winkler of Amsterdam, and with the aid
of a very large quantity of material.[11]
Many remarkable peculiarities in the shape of the skull, the origin of
which cannot be referred to the above-mentioned antagonism between the
development of the cranium and that of the facial portion of the skull,
depend upon abnormalities and disturbances in the sequence and extent of
the ossification of the sutures of the skull. We know that the flat
bones of the skull-cap grow principally at the edges, with which they
come into contact one with another, and that normally they continue to
grow in this way as long as growth continues in the subjacent portions
of the brain; but if such a suture undergoes premature ossification,
room can only be provided for the growth of the brain by the yielding of
one or more of the other sutures, whereby that diameter of the skull at
right angles to the yielding suture becomes increased. Thus a skull in
which the sagittal or interparietal suture has undergone premature
ossification (as often occurs in the Eskimo) assumes the shape of a
narrow boat (scaphocephaly).
It is probable that such sutural varieties are dependent upon the most
diverse causes, and that in many cases they are not anomalies, but
racial peculiarities or racial congenital variations, whose origin is
genetically very ancient. In the skulls of criminals examined for the
detection of sutural abnormalities these have been found in about 40 per
cent., whilst in 1,200 living criminals the frequency was as high as 49
per cent.
Among the most interesting of the sutural abnormalities are the “Wormian
bones,” by which more or less extensive deficiencies of bone along the
principal sutures are filled in. A Wormian bone found at the apex of the
lambdoid suture, where this joins the posterior extremity of the
sagittal suture, was first discovered in the mummies of the ancient
civilized race of Peru, and it has therefore been named the “Inca bone.”
It is said that all the infant Inca mummies possess this bone, and that
it is present in 15 to 20 per cent. of the adult Inca remains. Italian
observers found it in 25 per cent. of the skulls of murderers, and in 8
per cent. of the skulls of other criminals.[12]
Certain other peculiarities of the sutures of the skull have received
much attention from students of general anthropology, on account of the
fact that they constitute distinctive racial characters; but some of
these are met with even more frequently in the skulls of criminals than
in ethnological specimens, although their appearance in these latter is
considered a characteristic feature of normal anthropology.
Of great interest are measurements of the cubical capacity of dried
skulls, and also estimates of this capacity, based upon measurements of
the head taken in living criminals (although such estimates can be no
more than approximations). Be it noted in this connection that the
extreme recorded range of capacity of normal skulls is from 2,050 c.c.
(the largest) to 1,050 c.c. (the smallest); the largest recorded cubic
capacity of skull in an anthropoid ape is 621 c.c.; thus, the difference
between the cubic capacity of the largest and that of the smallest human
skull exceeds the difference between the cubic capacity of the smallest
human skull and that of the largest simian skull.
Now, collections of the skulls of criminals comparatively often contain
skulls with a cubic capacity of less that 1,100 c.c., whereas skulls as
small as this are hardly ever met with in collections of normal skulls;
skulls ranging in cubic capacity from 1,100 c.c. to 1,800 c.c., which in
collections of normal skulls are found to the extent of from 6 to 10 per
cent., in collections of the skulls of criminals have been present, in
various instances, to the extent of 17·8, 18, 65·5, and 72·2 per cent.
respectively. Skulls below the normal mean in cubic capacity, which in
collections of ordinary skulls are present to the extent of from 25 to
30 per cent., are found in the different collections of the skulls of
criminals to be present to the extent of from 30 to 60 per cent. To put
the matter in a word, the criminal’s skull is often submicrocephalic; it
is, however, necessary to point out that skulls with the very largest
cubic capacity, exceeding 1,600 c.c., are met with twice or thrice as
often among the skulls of criminals (although this is not true of the
Italian collections personally known to me) as they are among
bone-dealers’ or museum skulls. A somewhat similar characteristic is
exhibited by all the criminal characters accessible to measurement. When
the material under investigation is derived indifferently from the
general population, the extreme values recorded by measurement are
seldom encountered. Among criminals, on the other hand, these extreme
values occur much more frequently; and, indeed, the extremely _low_
values are encountered in criminals with especial frequency when the
dimension under consideration is one which usually increases as we pass
from lower to higher stages in the scale of development. For example,
great breadth of the face across the zygomatic arches is a
characteristic of lower development; in criminals (900 instances),
exceptional width and exceptional narrowness of the face in this region
occurs more frequently than in the general population; but this is true
to a greater extent as regards the maximal than it is as regards the
minimal values of this dimension of the criminal skull.
Similar relations to those which obtain with regard to the size of the
skull are found in the bodies of criminals, in respect of the size, or,
rather, the weight of the brain, since the mass of the brain must
naturally bear a definite relationship to the cubic capacity of the
skull. In my “Naturgeschichte des Verbrechers” (“Natural History of the
Criminal”), published in 1893, I have collected the data known at that
period, derived, for the most part, from Italian sources; these data
relate to 305 brains accurately examined. To understand the results here
given, it is necessary to remember that the average weight of the
European brain, the mean resultant of a very large number of weighings,
is 1,360 grammes for males, and 1,220 grammes for females. A maximum
very rarely exceeded (though it was exceeded, for example, in the case
of Cuvier, and also in that of Tourgeniew) is a brain-weight of 1,800
grammes; whilst the smallest brain-weight known in individuals who can
be regarded as having possessed normal intellectual endowments is 960
grammes for males, and 880 grammes for females. Among a very large
number of normal brains, we shall find very few indeed weighing as
little as 1,150 grammes, and a considerable number weighing more than
1,500 grammes. On the other hand, among the total number of the brains
of criminals that have hitherto been weighed, we find that brains
weighing less than 1,300 grammes form a very considerable majority;
whereas, among the brains of normal individuals, less than 25 per cent.
weigh less than 1,300 grammes. In the various collections of the brains
of criminals, we find that brains weighing less than 1,300 grammes
numbered, in one case, 62·5 per cent. (Benedikt), in a second case, 77
per cent. (Mingazzini), and in a third case, 83·2 per cent. (Mondio).
At the very time when the criminal anthropologists were making a
thorough study of this problem, the anatomists (with the exception of
Flesch of Wurzburg) and the professorial anthropologists (that is, those
in official positions who were interested in this branch of knowledge)
were vigorously contesting the idea that there was any difference
between the brains of criminals and the so-called normal brains. All the
more interesting, therefore, were the data communicated by Professor
Johannes Ranke to the German Anthropological Congress at Dortmund in
August, 1902, in association with a demonstration of plaster-casts of
the heads of decapitated Chinese criminals. According to Ranke, the
brains of criminals show no structural deviation from the brains of
normal Europeans. This was Professor Ranke’s first contention; but to
this there succeeds a little parenthesis, in which he alludes to certain
peculiarities in the conformation of the central convolutions. (So,
after all, these brains do differ from those of Europeans!) Ranke is
straightforward enough to describe the abnormalities in question, but he
adds that they are probably to be regarded as racial peculiarities. He
gives no grounds whatever for this view, but he prefers to drag in an
ethnological hypothesis of this kind rather than to commit himself to
the heresy that the brains of criminals exhibit peculiarities; the
abnormalities must be labelled “ethnological,” lest they should fall a
prize to the heretical school of Lombroso.
On the other hand, in the same address (1902), Ranke laid stress on the
fact that among the brains of criminals there is a preponderance of
exceptionally large and of abnormally small brains, and also that among
the skulls of criminals there is, similarly, a marked preponderance of
extremely large and extremely small skulls—a fact which he might have
ascertained as long ago as 1893 from a study of the very numerous tables
of measurements and weights published in my “Natural History of the
Criminal.”
Finally, in other portions of his address, Ranke approximates even more
closely to the “heresies” of criminal anthropology. He insists on the
need for a careful study of the brains of criminals, and he points out
that there are two questions to which especial attention should be paid
in future investigations of this kind. The first of these is the
question whether the possessor of a brain of medium size does not
exhibit less inclination to crime than one whose brain is either
excessively large or excessively small; and the second is the question
whether, perhaps, certain intellectual abnormalities, which readily lead
to criminal practices, may not depend upon a partial microcephaly—that
is to say, is it not possible that in certain sharply circumscribed
portions of the brain, during intra-uterine life, there may have
developed certain abnormalities corresponding to those characteristic of
microcephaly? According to Ranke, it is always possible that an indirect
connection exists between the so-called stenocrotaphy (narrowing of the
skull in the temporal region) and the criminal tendency, in so far as,
in consequence of the said narrowing of the skull, those nervous centres
by whose activity automatism is kept within bounds may have their
development partially arrested or may in some other way be
sympathetically affected.
In these remarks we find, in the first place, a reference (although one
less clear than many recorded demonstrations of Lombroso’s teachings) to
the law in accordance with which extreme dimensions of physical
characteristics occur in criminals with especial frequency; and, in the
second place, in the theoretical portion of Ranke’s utterances we
encounter the fundamental notion of criminal anthropology, which is that
the lower organization of criminals, standing nearer to the lower
animals than that of normal men, predisposes the former to the
commission of criminal acts; and more especially that in the criminal’s
skull there is no room for a brain able to hold the feelings (or, in
physiological parlance, the inhibitory apparatus) requisite to induce
normal social behaviour. I have devoted considerable space to this
address of Ranke’s because it shows how convincing are these basic ideas
of criminal anthropology, and how irresistibly they are associated with
an anthropological mode of study of this social group. But how
remarkable it is that, through a study of the brains of Chinese
criminals, a recognition of the truth of Lombroso’s doctrines should
first dawn upon a German professor of established reputation!
The study of the brains of criminals subsequently moved in two
directions: whereas Benedikt, the talented and original Viennese
investigator, and after him a number of Italian investigators, studied
the fissures and sulci by which the surface of the human brain is
divided into convolutions in such a remarkable manner; during the years
1894 to 1900, the more limited circle of Lombroso and his immediate
pupils was engaged in the study of atavistic anomalies, and of those
more delicate peculiarities of the intimate structure of the brain which
can be demonstrated only with the aid of the microscope.
Moreover, the study of the convolutions in the brains of criminals has
led to the discovery of a number of characters which may be regarded as
atavistic. Most of these are primatoid varieties—that is to say, either
they are manifestations of an abnormally slight development of those
peculiarities of the convolutions by which the members of the human
species are distinguished from the other primates, or else they are
characters which are not normally found in human beings at all, although
they exist normally in other primates. In a tabular comparison of the
differences between the human and the simian brain, we observe that
these differences are precisely those in respect of which the deviations
of the criminal brain from the normal human type of brain are also
manifested.
In other words, the human brain is an advanced type of the brain of the
primates in general, but in the brain of the criminal the resemblances
to the simian type are much more strongly marked.
It is, indeed, quite impossible to explain the abnormal moral and social
behaviour of the criminal with reference merely to the abnormal
configuration of the criminal’s cerebral convolutions. Perhaps the human
contemporaries of the cave-bear in Europe possessed a brain, and,
_mutatis mutandis_, exhibited in many respects a mode of life analogous
to that of the modern Sardinian bandit, of the London street arab, the
_voyou_ of Montmartre, or the fugitive from the Siberian mines. But in
the Stone Age there existed no economically developed society upon which
our palæolithic progenitor could become parasitic. We know almost
nothing about post-glacial man. It may be possible at some future date,
from a chart of the surface of the brain, to deduce the social
characteristics of the race; but, although at present this deduction
remains beyond our powers—and perhaps will never become easy—the
primatoid character of the cerebral convolutions of the criminal
possesses, none the less, a profound anthropological significance. No
ethnologist is able from an examination of the convolutions of a
Greenlander’s brain to deduce the national characteristics of the race
to which the possessor of the brain belonged; but, nevertheless, when we
see a brain with certain characteristics we are able to declare it to be
the brain of a Greenlander.[13]
The interesting discoveries of Roncoroni, regarding the peculiarities of
certain cells of the cerebral cortex in criminals, though widely
discredited at first, have been subsequently confirmed by Pelizzi. In
this case also it appears that we have to do with atavism (Pelizzi,
“Idiozia ed Epilessia,” _Arch. di psichiatria_, 1900, p. 409).
Not only in the skulls and brains of criminals, but also in almost all
their other organs, we find abnormalities with greater average frequency
than among the general population, and this is especially true of
rudimentary organs, those which constitute the majority of the so-called
secondary and tertiary sexual characters. Many of these abnormalities
may be regarded as primatoid or atavistic; others appear to be mainly
dependent upon disturbance or arrest of development. All alike, in so
far as they are not merely characters acquired during the lifetime of
the individual, give the impression that the criminal is a being whose
humanity is not completely developed. This does not exclude the fact
that the criminal himself, in the light of his own peculiar valuation of
social and legal value, is apt to be firmly convinced that his is a
superman.
This arrest at an earlier stage of development gives rise, in respect of
numerous traits, to an approximation in the “criminal type” to the
characteristics of one or other of the extant savage races of
mankind—races such as the Australian, etc., which, owing to prolonged
isolation from other types and, possibly, also to less rigorous
selection and therefore less marked differentiation, in consequence of a
less severe struggle for existence, have been able for thousands of
years to retain their primitive characteristics.
We are, however, compelled to assume that many savage races have been
unable to raise themselves above their present low level of
intellectual, economic, and social culture, not merely on account of the
slighter operation of the factors of differentiation, but also on
account of an inferior innate developmental capacity. In philosophical
terminology we should perhaps therefore say that the world of crime
recruits itself from among the number of the less developed individuals
of the nation concerned; for it is an obvious deduction from the law of
organic variability that among all the individuals born as members of
any civilized race there should be some who are congenitally
incapacitated to attain the normal mean level of development peculiar to
that race.
It is not proposed to deal here at any length with the innumerable
anthropological characteristics of criminals other than those found in
the skull and the brain, but the physiognomically important characters
deserve separate notice.
Like all rudimentary organs (organs, that is to say, which continue to
be transmitted in the absence of any discoverable physiological
function), the external ear (pinna, or auricle) exhibits all possible
variations. Among these variations, two only appear to be of importance
in relation to criminal anthropology—viz., the handle-shaped and
projecting ear (German _Henkelohr_) and the Darwinian tipped ear,[14]
which are met with comparatively often in criminals, the former being
found in 328 among 1,568 criminals examined, and the latter in 189 out
of 1,187; rare in comparison with these is the so-called Morel’s ear, in
which the external margin of the auricle (the helix) is not folded upon
itself. Morel’s ear is a sign of a congenital tendency to severe nervous
troubles, and it is a remarkable fact that this character is common in
prostitutes.
According to my own observations, in addition to the two abnormalities
in the shape of the external ear already mentioned, we sometimes find in
criminals other strongly marked malformations of the ear; and as in the
case of other abnormal characters in criminals, so also in the case of
those of the ear, the anomalies are met with more frequently in
proportion as the crime for which the man was condemned was grave in
character, and in proportion also to the intensity with which the
criminal tendency has been manifested in the course of life.
The length of the auricle is also subject to great variations in
criminals. In Europeans the normal length of the ear lies between 51 and
60 millimetres (2 and 2·36 inches); it is longer than this in Mongols
and Indians, shorter in Malays, Papuans, and Australians; shortest in
Nubians, Negroes, and Bushmen. In this respect also (_i.e._, in the
greater range of variation) criminals resemble savage races rather than
civilized. According to the measurements of Frigerio, great length of
the external ear is in thieves and robbers even more characteristic than
great length of fingers, which latter, however, is also something more
than proverbial merely.[15]
If we endeavour to combine the physiognomical peculiarities of the
criminal type with the data of anthropological investigation, we obtain
a somewhat monotonous picture in widely different climates,
notwithstanding the fact that it is not permissible to speak of a
perfectly uniform type. The reason why this is impossible is one to
which I have already alluded more than once—namely, the fact that the
extreme cases, very great or very small values of linear dimensions,
surfaces, and weights, of the human body and its parts, are encountered
far more frequently among the inmates of our great prisons than they are
among an equivalent number of non-criminals; for example, among several
hundred factory employés, soldiers, emigrants—in a word, any other
category of mankind. It must not, however, be supposed that what we find
is, in one-half of the criminals we examine, that everything is too
large, and in the other half, that everything is too small. What we find
is: one dimension too large, and another dimension too small, side by
side in the same individual. An extremely common combination is: too
small a cranium, with jaws unduly large; beard too scanty; ears too
large. As regards an immediate general impression, and on superficial
observation, there can be no question of a “type.” The type first
becomes manifest as a result of intimate study. Anthropometrically, the
criminal type represents the extreme values; zoologically, it represents
the primatoid characters; developmentally, cases of incomplete
development, such as are found here and there in all nationalities. Such
is the meaning of the doctrine of the criminal type, which,
intentionally or unintentionally, has been continually misunderstood.
In respect of an immediate general impression, a well-marked example of
the criminal type attracts attention less by the expression of the face
than by the permanent structural peculiarities of the skull and the
face, more especially the smallness of the skull as a whole or in the
frontal region, the receding forehead, the large frontal sinuses,
prognathism of the upper jaw, and massiveness of the lower jaw,
prominent malar bones, and all kinds of anomalies in the shape of the
skull. The large, pale face is often very striking, with scanty beard,
thick, usually dark, hair, and large projecting ears. The nose is
commonly long and straight; in some cases it is bulky, with a wide,
ill-defined bridge. A well-formed, symmetrical nose is extremely rare in
the criminal type. Asymmetry of the face and a crooked nose are so
typical that realistic painters, from the period of the Early Renascence
down to the days of modern naturalism, depict these peculiarities
whenever they are painting rascals, vagabonds, executioners, condemned
criminals, and the like. I may mention, more especially, Goya, Gavarni,
Géricault, Canon, Wiertz, Leibl, etc. In Géricault’s drawing, “Tête d’un
Supplicié” (“Head of an Executed Criminal”), the asymmetry of the nose
is very clearly represented; whilst the broad, deeply-furrowed face, the
thin moustache, the narrow and receding forehead with prominent
superciliary ridges, the prominent cheek-bones, the heavy lower jaw, and
the irregular teeth, combine to constitute the complete criminal type.
The physiognomy of the criminal is naturally dominated by the traces
left on the face by the habitual modes of expression. Youthful criminals
have, for the most part, a dull or a frivolous appearance. The life of
crime when they are free, and the prison life when they are not free,
combine to produce a permanent imprint of anger and obstinacy, cunning
and hypocrisy. Obstinacy and anger are often expressed by a permanent
compression of the lips, marked wrinkling of the forehead, and a wild
look in the eyes. This last, quite by itself, often suffices to betray
the criminal nature, especially in the faces of women.
Elderly criminals often lose the energetic expansive expression, which
during prolonged periods of confinement they have endeavoured to
transform into a submissive mien—often, however, with but partial
success, resulting in a peculiar form of the superciliary arches, which
assume the appearance of an _S_ lying on the side. In others, the
dominant brutality is marked by a one-sided grin, or by restless facial
movements. Lombroso made some valuable observations regarding the
peculiar look of the criminal, which he often demonstrated to me
personally. The cold, wild glance of the murderer, and the restless
glance of the thief, are unmistakable. The cheat and the _chevalier
d’industrie_ (sharper), attempting to play the man of integrity or the
loyal soul, betray themselves by their piercing glances. Very great
restlessness of the glance, to a degree verging on the pathological, is
often seen in murderers, alternating with a cold, glassy, fixed stare.
In the mouth may be observed all shades of cruelty and defiance; the
fawning smile of the poisoner and of the homosexual prostitute is a very
common appearance. In the deeply-wrinkled face of elderly criminals,
Lombroso’s pupil, Ottolenghi, was the first to discover a remarkable
furrow, extending across the middle of the cheek at the level of the
angle of the mouth. I have rarely seen it outside the prison walls, but
have found it with notable frequency in the convicts of Upper Silesia.
Lombroso has named it the _ride du vice_.
* * * * *
In this chapter I have simply attempted to give a sketch of the data of
criminal anthropology. In view of the extensive material already
available, collected by numerous observers whose methods often differ, a
scientifically adequate exposition of these data is by no means easy. It
gives little satisfaction to learn from tabular statements that such and
such characters occur with such and such frequency. What we want to know
is, what proportion of criminals in general exhibit characters of this
kind, and how many of such characters may be assembled in a single
individual.
From 5,000 cases described in the literature of the subject, for the
most part by Lombroso himself or by his immediate pupils, I have
selected those cases in which the individual had been carefully
examined, in which his life-history was thoroughly known, and in which
mental disorder could be excluded: these numbered 800. I compared them
with the cases studied by myself in the prisons of Upper Silesia, whose
records were accessible to me; from these also I excluded several dozen
as idiots or lunatics.
The material being thus rigorously sifted, very carefully analyzed, and
consisting exclusively of criminals, it was then tabulated. The results
obtained were briefly the following:
There were present
Per cent.
At least one cerebrogenous character in 98
Frontal microcephaly in 57
Three or more cerebrogenous characters in 40
Primatoid characters in 100
Three or more primatoid characters in 60
Primatoid characters in the brain (post-mortem) 47
Varieties of the pinna in 41
More than three characters of any of the above kinds in 77
More than five characters of any of the above kinds in 33
From this we learn that among those repeatedly convicted of serious
crime in Western and Middle Europe, no less than 60 per cent. exhibit
several distinctive characters, indicating the existence of an abnormal
congenital predisposition.