Chapter III · (continued 2)

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.

Vaso-motor Sensibility.—Inability to blush has always been considered the accompaniment of crime and shamelessness. Blushing is also very rare among idiots and savages; the Spaniards used to say of the South American Indians: “How can one trust men who do not know how to blush?” From the investigations of Amadei, Tonnini, and Bergesio, it appears that if we compare lunatics and criminals, twice as many of the latter are incapable of blushing. Pasini, in his examinations of women, noted blushing in 21 per cent. of murderers, 20 per cent. of poisoners, 18 per cent. of infanticides, and only 10 per cent. of thieves. It was not at the mention of their offences that they blushed, but when questioned concerning their menstrual functions. Out of 130 criminal women examined by Salsotto, 50 blushed when spoken to concerning their offences. Dr. Andronico of Messina communicated to Lombroso some interesting, though too general, observations concerning the prostitutes and young female criminals in prison under his charge. “Among the inscribed prostitutes,” he remarks, “none blushed when questioned concerning their occupation. I have seen some of them blush when reproached for unnatural practices. I have noted that female homicides narrate their deeds ingenuously and without blushing; those who have poisoned their husbands blush, but partially. Among female prisoners condemned for theft, blushing shows itself first on the ears, then on the face; those who are condemned for excitation to prostitution do not blush.”

In order to test the vaso-motor reactions of the criminal to various thoughts and emotions, Lombroso made a series of very interesting experiments, during the course of a year, with the sphygmograph and with Mosso’s ingenious and valuable instrument, the plethysmograph. With the sphygmograph (or, rather, the hydrosphygmograph) he observed the degree of excitement produced on various individuals by the sight of wine, cigars, food, money, and photographs of nude women. The plethysmograph is a delicate instrument for measuring mental excitement, depending on the fact that the slightest emotion causes an alteration in the amount of blood present in any part of the body.[53] With the plethysmograph Lombroso found that the strongest impressions (superior to the normal) were produced by cowardice, fear of the judge, some favourite mode of excitement (wine or women), but above all, by vanity. It is not, however, easy to generalise from his observations; it is necessary for such observations to be carried on during a long period on a great number of persons, normal as well as criminal, and to be carefully controlled. They are of very great interest, for they enable us to penetrate into the most secret recesses of the mind, and to measure the force of the motives that move it. It is to be hoped that they will be conducted on a much larger scale than they have hitherto been.

All these researches into the physical sensibilities of the criminal are of the first importance, and it is necessary that they should be greatly extended and carefully checked. So far they nearly all converge to show that the criminal is markedly deficient in physical sensibility. On this physical insensibility rests that moral insensibility, or psychical analgesia, as it has been called, which is, as we shall see, the criminal’s most fundamental mental characteristic.