A rough sketch of modern Paris

by J. G. Lemaistre

The physician Pinel, to whose inspection the boy was first submitted, reported, that the organs of sense in this unfortunate child were reduced, from the want of use, to such a state of debility, that, in this respect, he was inferiour to several domestic animals. His eyes, without fixing themselves, and without expression, wandered wildly from one object to another, incapable of distinguishing the nearest from the most distant objects. His organ of hearing was alike insensible of the loudest noise, or the softest harmony. The power of the voice was lowered to such a degree, that he could not make an uniform and guttural sound. The sense of smelling was so little exercised, that he received, with the same indifference, the odour of the choicest perfumes, or the nauseous stench of the filthy couch on which he lay. To conclude, the sense of touching was confined to the mere mechanical functions of taking hold of bodies.

In respect to his intellectual powers, the same physician stated him to be incapable of attention (excepting as to the objects of his immediate wants), and consequently incapable also of all those operations which are created by attention. Destitute of memory, of judgment, and of the power of imagination, and so limited, even in the ideas relative to his wants, that he had not yet learnt to open a door, or to get upon a chair, in order to reach those objects of food which were held above his grasp. In fact, destitute of every means of communication, having neither expression nor intention in the motions of his body, passing suddenly, and without any presumable cause, from the gloom of apathy, to the most immoderate fits of laughter. Insensible of every kind of moral affection, his discernment was but a calculation of gluttony; his pleasure an agreeable sensation of the organs of taste; his sense, an aptitude to produce some incoherent ideas relative to his wants—in one word, all his existence seemed purely animal.

M. Pinel afterwards compared “le sauvage d’Aveyron” with children born, or become, irrevocably idiots; and he was inclined to conclude, that this unhappy child, doomed to an incurable evil, was not susceptible either of sociality or instruction; but he expressed this opinion with considerable doubt.

Dr. Itard, physician to the national institution des sourd muets, from whose interesting little pamphlet I have taken this account, though struck with the fidelity of the picture drawn by Dr. Pinel, and the justice of his remarks, was unwilling to accede to the unfavourable conclusion with which he had closed his report. Founding his hopes first on the doubtful cause of his supposed idiotism, and next on the possibility of the cure, he humanely determined to make the education of this deserted child his particular study. This education, or moral treatment, he began, on the general principles laid down by doctors Willis and Crichton, and by professor Pinel himself, though he could not appeal to any particular precepts, as no such case had been foreseen in their works. He conceived, that he had five principal objects to effect.

1st. To attach him to social life, in rendering that life more agreeable than the one which he now led, and particularly by making it more analogous to the life which he had lately quitted.

2dly. To revive the sensibility of his nerves by the most poignant stimulants, and sometimes by exciting the liveliest affections of the mind.

3dly. To extend the sphere of his ideas, by giving him new wants, and by increasing his connection with surrounding objects.

4thly. To lead him to the use of speech, by dragging into use the power of imitation by the imperious law of necessity.

5thly. To exercise, during some time, on the objects of his physical wants, the most simple operations of his mind, and thence to lead it to objects of instruction.

Dr. Itard then fully explains the methods which he took towards these important objects, in which, by incessant care, humane treatment, and the assistance of madame Guerin (the female to whose protection, as a nurse, the child was intrusted), he has so far succeeded, that he no longer entertains any doubt of his ultimate success. It is impossible for me, within the compass of a letter, to enter into the details given on this subject. I shall therefore content myself with translating the observations, with which Dr. Itard concludes the account.