§ 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 |
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. Venturi51 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. Marambat52 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.