Anomalies of the tendon reflex of the knee are very common among criminals; they are either exaggerated or, very frequently, absent. Lombroso found feeble tendon reflexes especially common among thieves, and a very large proportion of exaggerated tendon reflexes among sexual offenders. Marro also found the highest proportion of exaggerated reflexes (the enormous proportion of 40 per cent.) among sexual offenders. There was an alcoholic or insane parentage among 79 per cent. of those with exaggerated reflexes.
§ 9. Physical Sensibility.
The extent to which tattooing is carried out among criminals, sometimes not sparing parts so sensitive as the sexual organs, which are rarely touched even in extensive tattooing among barbarous races, serves to show the deficient sensibility of criminals to pain.[41] The physical insensibility of the criminal has indeed been observed by every one who is familiar with prisons. In this respect the instinctive criminal resembles the idiot to whom, as Galton remarks, pain is “a welcome surprise.” He may even be compared with many lower races, such as those Maoris who did not hesitate to chop off a toe or two, in order to be able to wear European boots. Dr. Felkin found the maximum distance at which two points of a compass could be distinguished at the tip of the tongue was in an average European 1.1 mm., in a Soudanese 2.6 mm., in a negro 3 mm.
Lauvergne mentions a convict, imprisoned for life, who smiled with pleasure when, moxas having been applied to him, he saw his skin burning and heard it crack. Sbro ... (who killed his brother and his father), Lombroso’s favourite typical case of “moral insanity,” was found by Tamburini and Seppilli to be without perception of pain when tested with a needle. Other criminals have been found very deficient in sensibility to the electric current. Dr. Nicolson remarked: “They are comparatively free from that agitation and tremulousness which are so apt to arise under circumstances involving suspense and painful foreboding. The prisoner with the knowledge of a probable flogging on the morrow, instead of giving way to restlessness and anxiety, maintains a calm and stolid behaviour.” It is not uncommon to read in the newspapers of criminals who hold out their hands to be handcuffed without the slightest trembling, and who eat heartily on the eve of execution, or even while the jury above are still deliberating on their fate.
One of Rossi’s hundred criminals received when a child his father’s blows “as caresses,” and he was able to walk with a dislocated foot from Genoa to Novi (some thirty miles); another wounded himself severely and declared that it gave him no pain. Dr. Penta, in the course of his elaborate researches, found that the majority of his 184 instinctive criminals at Santo Stefano were insensible to the pain of punctures, burns, cuts, and even grave surgical operations. “I have extirpated tumours,” he remarks, “of considerable size, in the back and the neck, without the necessity of producing anæsthesia, and without causing pain; in a case of feigned epilepsy ammonia to the nose caused no reflex phenomenon, and deep puncture and burning of the skin produced no painful contraction.”
This insensibility shows itself also in disvulnerability, or rapid recovery from wounds, first pointed out by Benedikt, which appears to be a frequently observed phenomenon among criminals; thus it had been noticed by several of the medical officers of prisons who answered my Questions.[42] In this respect the instinctive criminal resembles the lower animals as well as the lower races of man; among the Egyptians, Chinese, and Annamites, and other races, wounds heal much more rapidly than in Europe. Thus Mr. Tregear remarks:—“I have seen a Maori speared with a big rafting-spear (an iron-shod pole thicker than the wrist), the point driven through the breast, just under the collar-bone, and coming out at the back. In a week’s time he walked fifteen miles, crossing a mountain range, the wound being healed.”[43] Benedikt speaks of a brigand who, in a revolt of prisoners, had several vertebræ broken; all his wounds healed, and the giant of former days became a dwarf, but he could work at the forge with a heavy hammer with all his old vigour. Lombroso knew a thief whose frontal bone was cloven laterally with a hatchet; in fifteen days he was cured without any relapse. He speaks also of a murderer who, when working as a mason, was reproved for some fault; he threw himself from the third storey into the court; every one supposed he was killed, but he got up, smiling, and asked to be allowed to continue work. A pregnant woman performed on herself Cæsarean section with a kitchen knife, subsequently killing the child; she recovered without dressings and without fever. We hear also of a criminal with a fractured rib and pleurisy who could hew wood and travel in a cart over rough mountain roads. “Individuals who possess this quality,” Lombroso remarks, “consider themselves privileged, and treat with contempt those who appear delicate and sensitive. It is a pleasure to such men to torment others whom they regard as inferior beings.”
Though loud in their complaints of trivial ailments, they are often unconscious of severe illness. At Chatham, in 1888, a prisoner dropped down dead on returning from labour; both lungs were found in an early stage of pneumonia, and death was probably due to syncope; he had made no complaints to any one. Prisoners will inflict severe injuries on themselves in order to gain some very trifling object. At Chatham, in 1871-72, 841 voluntary wounds or contusions are recorded; 27 prisoners voluntarily fractured a limb, and 17 of them had to submit to amputation; 62 tried to mutilate themselves, and 101 produced wounds by means of corrosive substances. Lombroso found the general sensibility decreased in 38 out of 66. Working with Du-Bois Reymond’s electrical apparatus, in conjunction with Marro, he found the sensibility of the criminals much inferior to that of the normal persons examined. Swindlers possessed much greater sensibility than murderers and thieves. Marro found sensibility, measured by an esthesiometer, most obtuse in murderers and incendiaries. Similar results were obtained by Ramlot, in reference to tactile sensibility; he examined 103 criminals and 27 normal persons, and found obtusity in 44 per cent. of the former, and in only 29 per cent. of the latter.[44] It should be noted that cases of excessive sensibility, due either to extreme pusillanimity, or to some morbid condition of the skin or brain, are also found among criminals.
The eyesight of criminals was found by Bono to be superior to the normal. He examined 190 youthful delinquents, and compared them with over 100 youths of similar age in an agricultural institute, the examination in all cases being made under the same conditions. The visual acuity of 49 per cent. of the criminals was superior to 1.5 Snellen; only 31 per cent. of the honest youths possessed an equal acuteness.
Ottolenghi obtained similar results.[45] He examined 100 criminals with Snellen’s types in the open air, using various precautions to ensure uniformity and accuracy. The results were—
| Visus | (average) | for | 82 | thieves | = | 1.8 |
| " | " | 18 | homicides | = | 2.2 | |
| " | " | 100 | criminals | = | 2.0 |