Broca, who, by initiating the Anthropological Society of Paris in 1859,
has been regarded as the founder of the modern science of anthropology,
gave attention also to the special science of criminal anthropology by
noting the peculiarities of the skulls and brains of criminals. At the
Exeter meeting of the British Association in 1869, Dr. G. Wilson read a
paper on “The Moral Imbecility of Habitual Criminals as exemplified by
cranial measurements.” He had measured 464 heads of criminals, and found
that habitual thieves presented well-marked signs of insufficient cranial
development, specially anteriorly. “The cranial deficiency,” he observed,
“is associated with real physical deterioration. Forty per cent. of all
the convicts are invalids, more or less; and that percentage is largely
increased in the professional thief class.” He argued that a prisoner must
be treated on reforming principles, and not allowed unrestricted liberty
until there was reasonable evidence to show that he would not prove
dangerous to society. About the same time, also (in 1870), J. Bruce
Thomson, Resident-Surgeon to the General Prison for Scotland at Perth,
published in the _Journal of Mental Science_ a summary of his observations
on over 5000 prisoners. From the decisiveness of his utterances and the
large number of prisoners of whom he was able to speak, this summary gave
a stimulus to the study of the criminal throughout Europe. Thomson
enumerated some of the physical characteristics of the instinctive
criminal now generally recognised, pointed out the semi-imbecility
prevalent among the juvenile criminals under his observation, the
frequency of accumulated morbid appearances at _post-mortem_ examinations,
and the large proportion of cases at Perth needing treatment for mental
diseases soon after admission, “apparently from congenital causes.”
Thomson’s facts and opinions were too curtly, and, probably, too
emphatically stated. Dr. Nicolson, writing also in the same journal from
1873 to 1875, dealt with the morbid psychology of the criminal, the
unstable, emotional element in him, his proneness to delusions, his
insensibility, and his weak-mindedness. Dr. Nicolson’s papers, all written
before the latest and most fruitful era of criminal anthropology began,
were, so far as I have been able to trace, the latest original
contributions from the scientific side made in England to the study of the
criminal. Such knowledge as has been furnished since has come from writers
who have, almost of necessity, dealt with what may be called the mental
and social symptomatology of criminals. Among the books which supply more
or less valuable or interesting information of this kind may be mentioned
the Rev. J. W. Horsley’s _Jottings from Jail_, Michael Davitt’s _Leaves
from a Prison Diary_, and the _Scenes from a Silent World_, by a Prison
Visitor, which appeared in _Blackwood’s Magazine_ during 1889. An earlier
book of this class, Mayhew’s _London Labour and the London Poor_ (vol.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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