Draehms, whose opinion on the supposed born criminal is worth while quoting, as it is founded on his personal experiences and observations while a resident chaplain of the state prison at San Quentin, California, says:
"Crime is not, as Lombroso and his coadjutors would have us believe, wholly either a disease or a neurosis in the sense of a direct, absolute, physiological, pathognomonic entity, though doubtless not infrequently closely associated with physical, anatomical, and nerve degeneration, as above conceded. To presuppose absolute and necessary brain lesion or diseased nerve action, or anomalous, physiognomonical, or anatomical diathesis, as the inevitable precursor of any form of mental and moral deflection, is an assumption wholly unwarranted and is nowhere substantiated by facts, though its advocates have sought to lay their foundations deep and wide in the materialistic hypothesis. Most criminals present unusually sound physiological conditions, and there is among them no unusual death rate, considering their habits and mode of life, as we shall hereafter see. Hence their moral instability can not be associated with physiological instability in the absolute sense. The physical defect must be either reversionary or incidental, rather than absolute."
The impetus in the study of criminals, which came as a result of the revolutionary teaching of the Italian school, has not been without a good effect. Criminals all over the world have been studied more closely and more sympathetically, in order to test the new ideas, until now it is possible to draw definite conclusions with regard to certain features of the problem. After a time, Lombroso came to admit that the so-called criminal type occurred in somewhat less than half the criminal cases. Criminal anthropologists, however, have shown that the physical conformation called by the name criminal, is really only the result of a defective or degenerative physical constitution. It is easy to understand that persons born with a defective nervous system, or with serious degenerative lesions in other parts of the body, which prevent the proper nutrition and functional development of the nervous system, would perform many more materially criminal acts than the rest of the population. The idiot and certain forms of the degenerative insane show this. Any defective development of the nervous system, moreover, may lead to instability of moral character, because the free action of the soul may be hampered by the physical environment with which it is associated.
Certain of the physical peculiarities most frequently seen in criminals have an influence of this kind and merit discussion. A knowledge of them will furnish clergymen with reasons for a larger charity to those unfortunates, and a greater tolerance for their relapses, without allowing sentiment to play too important a rôle in dealing with them. There are all grades of defective human beings, from the idiot up to those little less than normal. Anatomical peculiarities prevent the proper functions of the nervous system, as it is not hard to understand. The will is hampered in its action by the defect of the instrument through which it must work.
In persons properly to be considered as degenerates usually the head is small, though this may not be very noticeable because of over-development of the jaws. A heavy lower jaw particularly, because of the principle of bone-development that size depends on functional action and reaction, may lead to over-thickness of the skull at the point of articulation. The [{275}] jaw articulates with the base of the skull, and as a consequence the cranial capacity of these individuals is distinctly less than normal. Besides this, there is commonly some abnormality in the shape of the head, or the cranium is distinctly asymmetrical. It has been noted that criminals have a large orbital capacity, that is to say, the bony framework surrounding the eye is so large as to encroach much more than usual upon the space left within the cranium for nervous tissue. The bones of the skull are likely to be thicker and heavier than usual, thus also limiting the cranial capacity. The superciliary ridges often project and give the beetling brow that is sometimes so remarkable. The jaws are heavy, and especially the lower jaw is apt to be large and prognathic, that is, projecting. This may extend even to the existence of a so-called lemurian appendix of the jaw. The zygomatic process is apt to be prominent, in keeping with the heaviness of the upper jaw. The nose is usually somewhat flattened, and may be crooked. This peculiar development of the nose puts most of the internal parts of that important organ within the skull itself. This further encroaches upon the cranial capacity. The ears are asymmetrical, often unevenly placed at the sides of the head, sometimes adherent at the lobule, sometimes very prominent. The displacement of the soft tissues is due to the existence of asymmetry of the skull. As may be seen, all of the characteristics of the criminal type, pointed out by Lombroso, may practically be summed up in the one expression, there is diminished amount of intracranial space.
With regard to many cranial deformities, and especially various thickenings of the cranial bones, it must not be forgotten that they are not the expression of physical heredity, but are often pathologically acquired. Certain diseases of children are accountable for many of them. Various disorders of nutrition in the early years of life express themselves in bony deformities, and the skull is not spared. Rickets, for instance, is well recognised as a cause of such deformities. Owing to a wrong etymology of this word, by which it is supposed to be derived from the Greek word
, meaning the spine, rickets is sometimes scientifically [{276}] called rachitis. The connection, then, between the cranial deformity and some underlying nervous disturbance might be assumed. It does not exist, however. Rickets is an English word, the derivation of which is unknown, but probably it is wricken, twisted, deformed, and its use has crept in because the disease was first described in England, and is indeed often spoken of on the continent of Europe as an English disease. Not that it is any more frequent in England, however, but was there first recognised as a distinct pathological entity. As the result of this affection the children, usually of poor parents, suffer from gastro-intestinal disorders of various kinds, and develop symptoms of malnutrition, affecting especially bone tissue. The ends of the long bones at the wrists and at the ankles, where the effects of the disease can be noticed particularly, become more thickened and nodular than usual. The ends of the ribs, where the bones join the cartilages, also become nodular, so that a series of beads can be seen down each of the child's sides, a condition described as the rickety rosary. In a similar way the bones of the skull become thickened, especially at the edges of the fontanels, that is, the openings in the child's head before complete ossification of the skull has taken place. As a consequence of this thickening these openings do not close as they should, and the head becomes markedly deformed in some cases.
Indeed, as has been shown by experts in children's diseases, many of the peculiarities that have been pointed out by over enthusiastic craniologists as indicating criminal degeneration, are really the results of the rickety process on the skull. Needless to say, however, this does not change the character of the individual, nor is there any good reason why such deformities should have any special connection with criminality. It happens that many of the criminal classes suffer from malnutrition in their early childhood, and as a consequence there is a faulty bony development of the skull. It is observations of this kind, particularly, that have served to discredit craniology as an independent science.