The Criminal

by Havelock Ellis

In one of the homicides sight was exceedingly keen (V = 3). He examined 15 warders, between the ages of 27 and 45, under the same conditions, and found vision = 1.5. Further observations on this point are needed, as previous observers (Bielakoff, for instance) have found the sight of criminals inferior to the normal. If Ottolenghi’s results are confirmed by extended observation, there is an interesting analogy on this point between criminals and many lower races. Thus examinations by Seggel in 1881 yielded the following results—

Terra del Fuegians		V = 5
Nubians		V = 3
Georgians		V = 1¾

while among German and Russian soldiers the average varied between 1⅖ and 0.95.

Ottolenghi also found colour-blindness very rare; he met with one case (green-blindness) among 460 criminals tested with Holmgren’s wools. This result also corresponds with examinations of lower races, such as Samoyeds, Lapps, Esquimaux, Nubians, etc. It should be added that this result also needs confirmation, as it does not correspond with other observations. Thus Holmgren found that colour-blindness existed in 5.60 per cent. of 321 criminals, while among 32,000 of the ordinary population the proportion was scarcely 3.25 per cent. Dyschromatopsia has been found common, a fact of great significance, since this disorder is so frequently connected with grave disturbance of the nervous system.

The healthiness of eye in criminals, if confirmed, may be compared with a similar condition in imbeciles. In a study of twenty young adult male imbeciles of a minor degree than idiocy, Dr. Oliver found vision normal and colour perception apparently normal, and the eyes singularly free from the slight morbid changes so common in the eye. This condition, “which is shown by a proper balance of muscular action, a persistence of congenital hypermetropia, and an abnormally healthy appearance of the eye-ground (presenting a picture that is almost identical to the one seen during infantile existence), may be considered as significant of a type of unused, healthy, adult human eye.”[46]

The hearing of criminals is relatively obtuse, and they are prone to disease of the ear. Thus Dr. Gradenigo, at the request of Lombroso, undertook a series of researches into the matter,[47] in 110 instinctive and occasional criminals. Of the 82 criminal men he examined, 55 (67.3 per cent.) proved to be inferior to the normal. Of these 82, there were 40 who were instinctive criminals, and of these 29 (72.5 per cent.) had defective hearing. Of the 28 women, 15 (53.5 per cent.) possessed hearing inferior to the normal. Four of the women, however, possessed hearing much superior to the normal average.[48] Gradenigo found that the defective hearing was due in the great majority of cases to inflammatory affections of the middle and internal ear. He found no constant relation between defective hearing and obtusity of touch, taste, and smell, frequently found among criminals.

Ottolenghi has examined the olfactory acuteness of 80 instinctive criminals (50 men and 30 women) and 50 normal persons of the middle and lower classes. He constructed a kind of osmometer consisting of twelve acqueous solutions of essence of cloves, contained in similar bottles in similar quantities. The solutions were graduated from ¹⁄50000 to ¹⁄100.[49] Beginning with the weakest solution he noted when olfactory sensation commenced; and he also used the method of Nichols and Bailey, inviting the subject to arrange the bottles in order of intensity. The result, unlike what he had expected, was to show distinctly that the olfactory sense is less developed in the criminal than in the normal person, and slightly less in the criminal women than in the criminal men. Among normal persons (as Nichols and Bailey had previously found) the olfactory sense of women is less keen than that of men. Among the 80 criminals, 8 (6 men and 2 women) possessed no olfactory sensibility; in 2 of these there was entire absence of perception, in 6 absence of specific sensation.

Ottolenghi has also investigated the sense of taste in criminals.[50] He examined 60 instinctive criminals, 20 occasional criminals, 20 normal persons of the lower class, 50 students and professional men, 20 criminal women and 20 normal women, all healthy and robust, and for the most part between the ages of twenty and fifty. The three test substances used were sulphate of strychnia, saccharine, and common salt; various precautions (attention to uniformity of amount of solution used, temperature of solution, cleanliness of mouth, etc.) were adopted in order to make a series of experiments, full of practical difficulties, as reliable as possible. From these experiments, it appeared that the sense of taste is more developed in the normal man than in the criminal, and more developed in the occasional criminal than in the instinctive criminal. He found gustatory obtuseness in 38.3 per cent. of the instinctive criminals, in 25 per cent. of the lower class men examined, and in 14 per cent. of the professional men. The criminal women also showed a larger proportion of gustatory obtuseness than the normal women. He noted, however, that the women who passed as normal, but who were given to vice and prostitution, showed an even larger percentage of gustatory obtuseness than criminal women. The defect in gustatory acuteness seemed to him generally to be rather of a qualitative than quantitative character. The generic excitation was produced in a large number of cases as soon as in the normal person, but the specific sensation was very retarded. The subject was conscious of a taste, but could not tell of what kind it was; that is to say, the defect was situated centrally, in the cerebral cortex, rather than in the sensorial apparatus.

It is worthy of note that criminals begin to use tobacco at an early age. Thus among a population which normally begins to smoke before the age of thirty only in the proportion of 14 per cent. (and the insane 7.2 per cent.), 22 per cent. of criminals smoke before the age of thirty, and nearly all (279 out of 300 males and 32 out of 32 women) before entering prison. Venturi[51] found tobacco used by 14.3 per cent. of normal men, 1.5 of normal women; 45.8 of criminal men, 15.9 of criminal women. Marambat[52] concluded that the love of tobacco was the first passion that rooted itself in the youthful criminal. Out of 603 juvenile delinquents, between the ages of eight and fifteen, 51 per cent. had acquired the custom of using tobacco before their detention.

Lombroso notes that the sensibility of criminals to the weather appears to be greater than that of the ordinary population. He found it in 29 out of 112. There were 9 who became quarrelsome shortly before storms, and one of these remarked that his companions always foretold bad weather when he sought to quarrel. Dostoieffsky observed that quarrels and disturbances were particularly common among the convicts in the spring. What is true of the Russian prisoners in Siberia seems also to be true of American prisoners at New York. From some tables given by Dr. Wey of Elmira it appears that marks for bad conduct are specially numerous in the spring, and also, to some extent, in the autumn.