Contributions to the Physical Psychology of Criminals
125 Art. X? ^ n Address delivered in the Vienna Section of the Medical Association in Lower Austria, November 10, 1875. :Author: Fhofessor MOBIZ BENEDIICT.
Translated by B. H. Semple, M.D., F.B.C.P. Loud. My address at the forty-eighth meeting of the German Naturalists and Physicians at Gratz, has called forth against me in our medical world an agitation, which did not spring altogether from honourable motives, and was not carried out by very creditable means. I have been reproached with build- ing up a theory on three examinations of the brain. I hat is simply a gross mistake, or an intentional perversion of the facts, which are just the reverse. My efforts to establish on the ground of modern evidence, a natural system of morals, have led me to limit the domain of responsibility incomparably more than is the case in positive legislation ; and the tacts of criminal psychology, the meaning of which is still under- valued by the mass of jurists, have led me to regaid the impulse of criminal natures in the light of natural laws. Those criminal lawyers and police agents who enjo}r a reputation in the history of crimes are acquainted empirically with these laws, and have therefore discovered with great acuteness botli crimes and their perpetrators. But it still remained to consider whether an anthropological change does not lie at the founda- tion of the criminal propensity ot brigands, habitual thieves, relapsing forgers, and criminals from incurable indiscretion. Long before I had seen a criminal’s brain I had expressed my conviction, in writing, that a deficient organisation lay at the base of these criminal natures, and at least, occasioned the disposition to an abnormal moral constitution. The significance of the three criminal brains, together with the fourth, to be now demonstrated to you is, however, in itself very important.
When one after the other in three cases sentence of death has been passed and carried into execution, and the evidence of material guilt lias been afterwards shown to be faulty, the circumstance must cause an enormous sensation, and on the one hand must warn judges and juries to exercise the greatest caution, and on the other must cause the ministers ot justice to hesitate, so that they do not hastily recommend sentences of death to he carried out.
But the three criminal brains of which I spoke at Grratz, and of which I have demonstrated two before you, and to which I am enabled to add another, have the same significance. In four cases following one another it is now shown that there exists a deficient anthropological development. In all four cases judgment was pronounced on the ground of the existence of a full responsibility recognised by judges and medical men. These four cases must suffice to make judges and ministers of justice, as well as legislators, hesitate in coming to a decision ; and if sentences of death are necessary they should be justified on other grounds. If even it should be proved that only in a small proportion of cases such changes in the dead body can be detected, still a full responsibility cannot be assumed in any criminal of this kind without positive evidence that these changes are wanting.
But a strange freak of accident must exist if these changes can occur one after the other in three cases, and, as I can now assert, in four, if the circumstance were not a common one. What a spectacle would be exhibited if anyone out of a pre- dominant literary relationship, in a disease seldom tested by necroscopy, had discovered appearances corresponding four times one after the other, and which the more bear upon them the stamp of truth since I have long ago, and before I thought of criminal brains, laid down the position that morals have their seat in the most posterior parts of the brain. Allow me to demonstrate the brain of a murderer of middle age, who had shot a relative from revenge, with whom he was living at enmity.
The skull was unsymmetrical in a high degree, inasmuch as the greatest arching of the parietal bone was on the right side, in front of the ear, and that on the left was behind it. The posterior cranial cavity on the left was smaller than on the right. Examine the brain from above, and on the right the cerebellum is not covered by the top of the posterior lobe, and the former lies on both sides uncovered on its outer margins. Examine first the right hemisphere, and the occipital fissure exhibits a similarity to that of the apes in the presence of the ?plis de passage, which are also present in the interparietal fissure, the ascending spur of the Fossa Sylvii, and the fissura temporalis prima, and also in all the frontal furrows.
The posterior spur of the fissure of the Fossa Sylvii does not reach to the upper median border, and thence outwards, but is interrupted by a transitional furrow from the posterior central lobe to the second vertical lobe. In some other respects the appearances in this brain correspond with those observed in the brains formerly demonstrated.
On the left side the interparietal fissure runs parallel with the fissura Eolandi. Hence the first and even the second pari- etal lobe are diminished in size, and the parieto-temporal oper- culum is placed in front of the horizontal occipital fissure, and is connected with it. On the other hand the first and second temporal lobes corresponding to it are greatly developed. This occipital fissure also contains plis de passage. The lobuli lingualis and fusiformis are on the lelt ery badly, and on the right are relatively well developed, so that on this side it appears that the perpendicular occipital fissuie at the lower edge of the median surfaces is directed in an acute angle towards the scissura hippocampi. But on the right also the two convolutions rise steeply upwards towards the gyri hippocampi and uncinatus. The two last named gyri are on both sides strikingly deficient in furrows.
The third frontal convolution at the base is on both ^ sides merged in the Fossa Sylvii. The left first frontal lobe is divided into two parts by a sagittal furrow. At the union of the second and third frontal convolutions in the fissura prsecentralis of this side there is one operculum and also a second fai in fiont in the second frontal fissure. The fissura prsecentralis reaches as far as the upper median border. The second frontal fissure does not proceed from the third.
By these four examinations following one alter the other the probability is therefore very great that at least in a large proportion of murderers the brain is in a low grade of develop- ment, but still the question must be asked whether this change , is not already visible in the skull; and, if such be the case, Ave should have the special advantage of being, perhaps, enabled to announce during life the probability of the existence of cerebral abnormities. When I communicated my researches on the examination of brains to my friend and pupil, Dr John Badik, physician to the Illawa prison, he hastened to examine the heads of 365 murderers in that establishment, and invited me to superintend his researches.
In the case of the murderers at Illawa, Dr Badik was struck with the want of prominence of the external occipital protuberance and with the flatness of the occiput. When I examined a great number of the prisoners it struck me as very characteristic in their appearance that the occipital pait of the sagittal diameter of the skull was, in general, strikingly shortened. It trom the depression which lies on the anterior surface of the mastoid process (the mastoid fossa) a sagittal diameter is con- ceived to the highest point of the occiput, the measure amounts in normal persons generally to at least and generally more, of the whole diameter. It is exceedingly rare that in normal persons this diameter sinks to and only in certain cases, and generally only on one side, does this diameter amount to less than The occipital brachycephalia, on the other hand, is present very frequently in the case of the robber-murderers who were examined. I propose to represent figures of these skulls in a forthcoming series of plates.
I offer at present the following provisional numbers in reference to this subject. The occipital brachycephalia appeared in the highest degree (namely, under of the whole diameter) in common robber-murderers (raubmorder) in 43 per cent, of the cases; in murderers from premeditation (motiven-mdrder) in 34 per cent.; and in habitual thieves in 23 per cent. In a medium degree (i.e. in ^ to of the whole diameter) in common murderers in 34 per cent.; in murderers from premeditation in 21 per cent.; and in habitual thieves in 12 per cent.; while the highest degree (of occipital brachycephalia) in normal persons?namely those outside the prison?is very rare, and the medium degree appears in very few. More striking still do the facts appear when we make the percentage calculation of those cases in which the disproportion is altogether wanting. In common murderers it is wanting in 23 per cent.; in mur- derers from premeditation in 45 per cent; and in habitual thieves in 65 per cent. In normal persons it is wanting as a rule. The flattening of the occiput appears to be less charac- teristic. This appears in the highest degree in the first category of criminals, in 59 per cent.; in the second in 52 ; in the third in 53: in the medium degree in the first category in 24 per cent.; in the second in 20 ; in the third in 18 ; while in normal persons it is wanting altogether in 56 per cent., and is present in a high degree only in 16. The want of prominence of the occipital protuberance exists in common murderers in 75 per cent., and in the other categories in about 59; but in normal persons it is only the case in 22 per cent.
It is a known fact that the two halves of the skull are seldom symmetrical. In no case is this fact so striking as in habitual thieves. While in common murderers the asymmetry existed in a high degree in 26 per cent., and in murderers from premeditation in 32, it was 37 in habitual thieves. In a small degree the asymmetry was remarkable in 64 per cent, of the common murderers, and in 63 of the habitual thieves, while it amounted to 43 in murderers from premeditation. By the measurement of the eye the asymmetry was not per- ceptible in common murderers in 10 per cent., and in mur- derers from premeditation in 25 ; but, on the other hand, it was never wanting in the habitual thieves whom 1 saw in Leopoldstadt, while it was wanting in normal persons in 55 per cent.
As a very characteristic form of the skull, I observed in 56 per cent, of the habitual thieves’ skulls in Leopoldstadt a condition which I designate as vertex-steepness (Scheitelsteilheit) rising up from before, backwards. While, for example, the highest point of the crown generally stands a little higher (U centimeter) than the boundary line between the part of the forehead covered with hair and that which is uncoveied, this proportion is altered in habitual thieves, and there aie differences amounting to 7 centimeters. Thus the frontal diameter at the top &of the crown is broad, and broader than that of the forehead ; and further, the highest piotuberance of the two parietal bones lies commonly in such an oblique hon- zontal line that one end of it lies before and the other behind the ear.
Except in habitual thieves, I have seen this form of skull only once in an individual, of whose moral constitution I have no information. In many cases the bones of the face have been found equally unsymmetrical witli those of the skull, especially in habitual thieves. In connection with these com- munications I drew you the skulls of two murderers, whose brains I lately demonstrated to you. “iou see the biachy- cephalia, the flatness of the occiput, and the want of piomi- nence of the protuberance in a marked degree.
Permit me to make some remarks on the relation of the present investigations with the doctrine of Gall. -The funda- mental idea of Gall, that the psychical functions are localised in the brain, is an acquisition of the most recent experi- mental physiology and cerebral pathology, and in a certain degree undoubtedly correct. I have already published some remarks on the defects of Gall’s theory. The chief of these is, that Gall imagined complicated psychical processes to take place in a definite part of the brain. Murder, for instance, is a compli- cated psychical function; sometimes it is committed from an overpowering sensitiveness, such as inflicting death from an excessive sense of honour. At another time it is allied to an ethical weakness or imbecility, because the materials for the formation of nobler feelings, especially of compassion and justice, are wanting. In professional robber-murderers it is an excess of the feeling of strength which develops a sensation of pleasure in their own strength, and a certain hoirible feeling of delight in contrasting it with the weakness and the deficient feeling of strength in other people. Besides, according to experience, murder and manslaughter are generally connected with a defect of intellect, which is unable to foresee the conse- quences of the deed to the perpetrator, while in other cases there is a satisfaction in the cunning of a premeditated plan corresponding- with a pressing impulse towards the act. The factors of such an act are therefore composed of intellectual, motor, and sensory impulses, both positive and negative; or, in the language of cerebral pathology, of impulses which find their expression in the function of the anterior lobe for intelli- gence, of the middle lobe (i.e. the circumference of the central lobes, and also probably of a part of the upper lobes) for the motor part, and of the posterior part of the brain for the sensory. The same rule applies to stealing in habitual thieves, to forgery, &c., as to murder. It is therefore especially erro- neous to assume for murder, for instance, a definite and exclusive topographical change, since crime is the product of different qualitative and quantitative factors. It is useful to remember how it happened that on a false scientific basis the doctrines of Gall on the localisation of the psychical functions of the brain were set aside. It was by the experiments of Flourens, which appeared to prove that there is a single psychical organ in the brain, inasmuch as by slicing off the organ the functions were preserved up to a certain degree; and, as soon as one incision had been reached all the cerebral functions appeared to cease. These experiments are in the present day completely contradicted. Their cogency, as in opposition to Gall, is, nevertheless, not invalidated. It must further be declared that many impulses in mental actions are founded on similar anatomical relations in physiological condi- tions, since apathy and indifference on the one hand, and ready excitability, irritability, and passion on the other, depend on physiological conditions of excitability.
Another fundamental idea of Gall is, that the skull is a model of the brain, and skulls formed the peculiar bases of the writings of that author. It has been objected that there are in the skull very many accidental secondary prominences which have no counterparts in the brain. Fairly considered, however, this objection is not very material, inasmuch as it refers only to unimportant and changeable details and comparatively rare abnormities. No scientific man, even if he does not altogether agree with Gall, disputes the doctrine that the construction of the skull is remarkably proportionate to the whole anthropo- logical organisation in brutes and in man ; and the whole of craniology, as it is understood by anatomists and anthropolo- gists, would have no meaning if this idea were not the leading- one. It must only be admitted that Gall lias sought too much and found too much, and that he was led astray by a fal?p psychological analysis; but his fundamental idea is not shaken.
Whoever has followed with any degree of interest, on the one hand the verdicts of juries, and on the other hand knows how Holtzendorff has examined the fallibility of legislation in reference to the complicated psychological process of crime, will be forced to the conviction that only a psychology founded on a basis of natural science (and which takes into considera- tion the abnormities of cerebral development and of cranial structure) is capable of bringing to a scientific conclusion the important civilised ideas of law, which changes with the times and with the prevailing classes of the people, &c., and of impressing the results on the popular understanding. When we reflect, moreover, that few men stand at the head of modern scientific knowledge ; that the necessary education in natural science is wanting in lawyers as well as in the laity, and that it was regarded as an especial merit, in the physicians of the last generation to think universally as little as possible; then it cannot be a matter of wonder how unprepared many people still are to enter upon developed ideas; and when a distin- guished jurist says, in an essay, that these ideas are unsuitable to the State and to the people because they inspire fear of their consequences, but that the freedom of the human race is concerned in these ideas, then you will understand that the con- science of the best men makes them indifferent about contending against slander and calumny. These are ideas to which cha- racter belongs, because want of character and weakness of character tremble at the last consequences of shifting ideas, and are deceived by sophisms which harmonise with the prejudices of the masses and of the powerful.
Allow me, in conclusion, to make a few general remarks. Superficial readers have made it a reproach against me that if the view taken by me is correct punishment must be abolished. Such would be the case if the doctrine of responsibility, as it is taught by most jurists of the present day, were the necessary basis of legislation. The true basis, however, is the protection of the existence of normal persons against the ethically dege- nerate, and the necessary degree of this protection is an essential measure for the severity of the punishment. The greater, for instance, is the general corruption, the smaller is the guilt of each individual, because he is to be regarded for the most part as being misled; therefore we must punish more severely because the threatening danger is greater, subjectively and objectively, for society. From my doctrine of the cor- rection of criminals on the ethic plan would result the abolition of the punishment of death, even if the arguments against this were not so weighty as Holtzendorff has so convincingly- proved. Tn those cases where the criminal is to be regarded as incurable, and the crime very dangerous, future justice will punish more severely by rightly appreciating the views ad- vanced by me. The modern doctrine of judicial punishment is evidently in a false condition, because it always sets free criminals whose relapse is certain, allows them to commit fresh crimes, and then for the first time deprives them of the liberty to do mischief. Of what importance then must it be, if the anthropological study of the brain, the skull, and the head offers us the prospect of determining, at least in a portion of the cases, with scientific clearness, when a relapse is to be expected. Criminal psychology must supply the factors of which, in each special case and in each group of cases crime is composed, and must determine whether im- prisonment and education have eradicated or can eradicate a part of the factors and the predisposing impulses. Now allow me to close with the passage?
Edle streben, Schlechte hohnen und unterdriicken. Noble characters struggle, and base ones sneer and oppress. Supplement.
I will now give the description of the brains demonstrated in a former meeting. They were those of two murderers who committed a murder for hire.
In one the cerebellum is not covered by the occipital lobes, and the occipital brachycephalia is present on the left side. In the right hemisphere the ascending posterior spur is merged with the ascending part of the interparietal fissure and reaches at the median surface into the gyrus fornicatus. The second parietal lobe is divided from the first temporal lobe by a long fissure (parieto-temporal fissure) which is lost in an operculum with plis de passage (parieto-temporal operculum) which is bounded by the lobulus tuberis and by lobules which are probably to be regarded as processes of the first and second temporal lobes, but are pretty clearly distinguished from them. The ill-developed gyri fusiformes and lingualis rise upwards steeply from the plane of the gyrus uncinatus towards the summit of the occiput, and thereby, that the fissura calcarina may reach to the same point, is the gyrus rectus of the occiput reduced to a minimum. The vertical occipital fissure is in direct communication on the one hand with the horizontal occipital fissure, and on the other band with the sulcus hippo- campi. The horizontal occipital fissure exhibits the ape-form with its plis de passage. The firstthree temporal convolutions are arranged concentrically according to the brute type, with the concavity downwards. The gyrus uncinatus and gyrus hippo- campi are very deficient in convolutions. The fissura prcecentralis reaches to the middle border. (The first and second frontal fissures are divided from it by imperfect convolutions.) Plis cle passage are found both in the horizontal occipital fissure and in the parieto-temporal operculum, in the posterior spur of the fissure of the Fossa Sylvii combined with the interparietal fissure, in the anterior ascending spur of the same fissure, and also in all the furrows. On the left, the posterior ascending spur of the fissure of the Fossa Sylvii rises to the median line, and the inter- parietal and parieto-temporal fissures are separated from it by ill-developed portions of convolutions. The vertical occipital fissure is not connected with the interparietal fissure. The second frontal convolution is crossed with the fissura prse- centralis, and thereby are the first and second frontal con- volutions divided into (smaller) posterior and (larger) anterior halves. The fissura prascentralis reaches as far as the inferior border, and is excessively convoluted. The first and second temporal furrows are arranged in a more normal manner. In other respects the arrangement is the same as on the right. In the second brain, the body of the organ appeared, on the other hand, altogether oblique and shortened, and the obliquely situated cerebellum was deeply imbedded in the niche of the fourth and fifth temporal convolutions, whereby the mass of the occiput appeared to be deteriorated in a high degree behind the gyrus uncinatus. On the right, the posterior spur of the fissure of the Fossa Sylvii rises high up, but with- out reaching the median border. The interparietal fissure is in normal proportion with it, but stands, nevertheless, in direct communication with the fissura Rolandi. The horizontal occipital fissure shows no decided similarity to the apes. The parieto-temporal fissure is not much developed; the parieto-temporal operculum is well marked. The first three temporal fissures, with their convexity downwards, concentrically surrounding with a rim imperfectly formed convolutions. The fissura prcecentralis goes as far as the median surface, and con- tains an operculum in the transition between the second and third frontal convolutions. The same is found (between all the three frontal convolutions) in the most anterior part of the first frontal furrow. The second frontal convolution at the base badly developed; the fissura cruciata showing a com- plicated operculum. The gyri hippocampi and uncinatus strongly projecting over the frontal lobes and little furrowed. The gyri fusiformis and lingualis rising steeply towards the top of the occiput, much diminished, and especially the first very much shortened by the first two temporal convolutions, and connected in a peculiar serpentine manner with the pos- terior combining part of the lobulus tuberis and the second temporal lobe at the parieto-temporal operculum. The per- pendicular occipital fissure is connected with the sulcus hippo- campi and conceals numerous plis de passage. Especially the median part of the occipital lobe reduced to a minimum. On the left, the posterior ascending spur of the fissure of the Fossa Sylvii and the interparietal fissure exhibit their normal proportion, but the latter conceals in it numerous plis de passage. The horizontal occipital fissure exhibits the ape structure. The parieto-temporal fissure is not well marked, but the parieto-temporal operculum is. The vertical occipital fissure is connected with the sulcus hippocampi. The first temporal furrow shows the brute form by a posterior spur (the concavity directed downwards). The fissura Rolandi is con- nected anteriorly with the first and third frontal furrows, and in all the fissures there are numerous opercular structures. The third frontal convolution is submerged at the base.
In the case of the first murderer’s brain examined the space of the plis de passage was, in the part behind the posterior central convolution, almost predominant over the developed convolutions, so that a normal type of convolutions and furrows could scarcely be drawn. Here also the furrow of Rolandi communicated with the fissura pnecentralis. The occipital lobes scarcely covered the cerebellum.
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