§ 2 The Face
Prognathism has frequently been noted as a prominent characteristic of the criminal face, both in men and women. This is, however, a point that requires further study; giving due weight to racial characteristics, to the proportion of prognathous individuals among the general population, and to method and uniformity in measurement.
There is little doubt that the lower jaw is often remarkably well developed in those guilty of crimes of violence. The squareness and prominence of the jaw are obvious to the eye, and this is verified by weighing after death, as has been shown by Manouvrier. The average weight of the Parisian criminal skull is, if anything, below that of the ordinary Parisian, but while the average weight of the lower jaw in the latter is about 80 grammes, it is about 94 grammes among murderers. In this respect the criminal resembles the savage and the prehistoric man; among the insane the jaw weighs rather less than the normal average. A type of receding chin is also found frequently among petty criminals, the occasional or habitual, who are criminals by weakness; such heads Lauvergne called têtes moutonnes.
Prominence of the zigoma or cheek-bone has been noted by many observers, especially in sexual offenders, among whom Marro found it in 30 per cent. as against 22 per cent. in normal persons. This recalls a remark made many years ago by Charles Kingsley: “I have generally seen with strong animal passion a tendency to high cheek-bone;” but he confines this generalisation to women, and to those who are dark-complexioned. Virchow believes that the large development of the jaws and the cheek-bones (to which powerful muscles are attached) is favoured by coarse and hard food through many generations.
A few isolated observations have been made on the teeth of criminals by Lombroso, Zuccarelli, and others, who have observed certain anomalies, such as exaggerated or deficient development of the canines; and Dr. Prascovia Tarnowskaia, in her one hundred women thieves, found defects of the bony palate and undeveloped teeth among the most frequent anomalies. So far as I know, however, no extensive and careful series of observations has yet been made on the teeth of criminals. It is desirable that this should be done. The course of dental evolution among the higher mammals is now fairly well known. Atavism in dental anomalies is well recognised among the races of man; a fourth molar, for instance, found generally among the platyrhine apes, is occasionally found in man: in what proportion is it found among criminals? What, again, is the relative condition of the canine teeth? The wisdom-teeth are dying out; they are only absent among lower races in 19 per cent. cases, while in the higher races they are absent in 42 per cent. of the observed cases (Mantegazza). How do criminals stand in this respect? The development of the teeth is very closely related to the development of the nerves and brain. The extraordinary frequency of dental and palatal anomalies in idiots was pointed out in England in 1860 by Ballard and Langdon Down, and they have been carefully studied of recent years by Dr. Talbot, of Chicago, and by Dr. Alice Sollier at the Bicêtre in Paris. It is worth noting, in reference to the undeveloped teeth so frequently found by Dr. Tarnowskaia among women thieves, that Dr. Sollier found abnormally small teeth in 13 per cent. of her idiots. Among the insane dental anomalies are comparatively rare.
1. Darwinian tubercle and absence of helix.
2. Absence of lobule and antitragus.
(Féré and Séglas.)
Even non-scientific observers have noted the frequency among criminals of projecting or of long and voluminous ears. In the answers to my Questions issued to medical officers of prisons I found that the prominent ears of criminals were more generally recognised than any other abnormality. Thus Dr. V. Clarke says—“The largely developed external ear is a common feature;” others speak of “ears often large and outstanding,” etc. Lombroso finds the ear ad ansa, as he calls it—the handle-shaped ear—in 28 per cent. of his criminals; Knecht in 22 per cent.; Marro not more frequently than among ordinary people. Ottolenghi, who has recently examined the ears of nearly 600 criminals and of 200 normal persons, finds that while among the latter it is found in 20 per cent., among the former it is found in 39 per cent., the percentage varying from 35 among thieves to 42 among those convicted of assault and wounding. This observation is indeed by no means of recent date. In reading lately that curious treatise of mediæval physiology, Michael Scott’s De Secretis Naturæ, I found that a very bad character is given to those persons whose ears are uncommonly long, or ample transversely; they are bold, vain, foolish, incapable of work. To come down to comparatively recent times, Grohmann in 1820 noted the prominent ear as a marked characteristic of the criminal. Morel studied the abnormalities of the ear, especially in relation to heredity; Foville, as Dr. Barnes informs me, was accustomed to point out their significance in the insane; and in England Laycock fully appreciated their value as indications of degeneration.21 Dr. Langdon Down, working on the same lines as Laycock, points out in Mental Diseases of Childhood the frequency of congenital ear deformities in idiots and the feeble-minded, associated often with webbed toes and fingers; also an implantation of the ears farther back than is normal, giving an exaggerated facial development. In France, Italy, and Germany there has within the last two or three years sprung up a considerable literature on the subject, of which Frigerio’s little book, L’Oreille Externe: Étude d’Anthropologie Criminelle (Paris, 1888), is perhaps the most valuable. Dr. Frigerio, who has devoted special attention to this feature both among criminals and the insane, finds certain peculiarities very common, and also notes various anomalies of movement in the pinna and its partial hyperæmia, especially in neurotic subjects. From the examination of several hundred subjects, he concludes that the auriculo-temporal angle (measured by a special otometer from the edge of the pinna to the mastoid) undergoes a gradual progression from below 90° in the normal person, above 90° among criminals and the insane, up to above 100° among apes. He found the large angle very marked in homicides; less so in thieves. The longest ear Frigerio has ever seen in man or woman was in a woman convicted of complicity in the murder of her husband; the left ear was 78 mm., the right 81 mm. (the normal being 50-60 mm.) in length. Her father, her two sisters, and three cousins all possessed excessively large ears, and were all convicts. The degenerative variations to which he attributes most importance are the Darwinian tubercle—i.e., a pointed projection in the outer margin of the ear—frequent among the insane and criminals, the doubling of the posterior branch of the fork of the antihelix, and a conical tragus (very frequent in childhood and among apes) often found among the insane and criminals. Féré and Séglas,22 who examined over 1200 subjects—healthy, insane, idiot, and epileptic—found anomalies frequent among epileptics, and especially so among idiots; but not notably more frequent among the insane than among the sane. They especially noted the number of abnormalities frequently found in the same subject; and also a connection between defects in the ear and sexual abnormalities. The committee appointed by the British Medical Association to investigate the development and condition of brain function among the children in primary schools, found that ear-defects were especially frequent in connection with nerve-defects and mental weakness.23
1. Darwinian tubercle.
2. Root of the helix dividing the concha into two distinct cavities.
3. Adherent lobule.
(Féré and Séglas.)
The most common (so-called) atavistic abnormalities of the ear—i.e., those most frequently and prominently seen among the anthropoid and other apes—are the Darwinian tubercle,24 absence of one of the branches of the fork, absence of helix, effacement of antihelix, exaggerated development of root of helix, absence of lobule. Adherent lobule may frequently be observed in well-developed individuals; it is not found among apes, and appears to have no special significance.
The projecting ear has usually been considered as an atavistic character, and with considerable reason, as it is found in many apes, in some of the lower races, and it corresponds to the usual disposition of the ear in the fœtus. Marro prefers to regard it as a morbid character because it is so frequently united with true degenerative abnormalities, and because it is not always found in the lowest human races; Hartmann, for instance, having found it frequently among the European peasants, and in Africa more frequently among Turks, Greeks, and Maltese than among the indigenous fellaheen, Berbers, and negroes of the Soudan. Among so low a race as the Australians the ear is often, I have noticed, very well shaped. At the same time the projecting ear frequently accompanies deaf-mutism, Dr. Albertotti having found it in sixteen out of thirty-three deaf-mutes.
1. Forking of the root of the helix.
(Féré and Sêglas.)
The ear, it is well known, is very sensitive to vasomotor changes, slight changes serving to affect the circulation visibly; so that in pale, nervous people a trifling emotion will cause the ears to blush. Galton tells us of a schoolmistress who judges of the fatigue of her pupils by the condition of their ears. If the ears are white, flabby, and pendent, she concludes that the children are very fatigued; if they are relaxed but red, that they are suffering, not from overwork, but from a struggle with their nervous systems, rarely under control at the age of fourteen or fifteen. If this kind of sensitiveness is not common among criminals, a few of neurotic temperament, as well as some lunatics, possess the power, rare among normal persons, of moving the ear. Frigerio notes movements of the superior and posterior muscles, especially when touched; in apes the transverse muscle also acts. Frigerio connects this power of movement with perpetual fear, always on the look-out; many of the criminals with this peculiarity were recidivists, and three of the lunatics had delusions of persecution.
The interest of these investigations, now so actively carried on, into the malformations of the pinna among criminals is obvious. A few ingenious persons have sought to explain some of them by the influence of the headgear, pulling of the ears, etc.; but on the whole it is generally recognised that they are congenital. The study of them, therefore, is of distinct value in enabling us to fix the natural relationships of the criminal man. There is still need for careful series of observations on criminals, the insane, epileptics, and idiots, and every such series should be controlled by a similar series of observations, by the same observer, on ordinary subjects.
The criminal nose has been measured and studied with great care and enthusiasm by Ottolenghi.25 He finds that the criminal nose in general is rectilinear, more rarely undulating, with horizontal base, of medium length, rather large and frequently deviating to one side, and he describes several varieties. Thus the typical thief’s nose is rectilinear, often incurved, short, large, and often twisted, with lifted base. The sexual offender presents the most rectilinear nose, though he shows the undulating profile of nose more frequently than any other group of criminals, of medium length and rather large. Ottolenghi believes that his observations help to show, both in the skeleton and in life, an anatomical relationship between criminals against the person and epileptics and monomaniacs; also a relationship between thieves and sexual offenders and cretins. His observations are full and interesting, but the matter needs further investigation; the anthropological importance of the nose has scarcely yet been fully realised.
Most writers on criminals speak of the pallor of the skin; this has been noted at a very remote period by Polemon, l’Ingegneri, and other early physiognomists. Marro has found it in 14 per cent. of his criminals, as against 3 per cent. among the ordinary population. He considers that it is related to habitual cerebral congestion. Pallor is also caused (as Colajanni points out, and testifies to from personal experience) by prolonged imprisonment, even under favourable circumstances. It is probable that the influence of this cause has not yet been eliminated with sufficient care.
Ottolenghi has investigated the wrinkles on the faces of 200 criminals as compared with 200 normal persons. He finds that they are much more frequent and much more marked in the criminal than in the non-criminal person, and this must have struck many persons who have seen a large number of criminals or photographs of criminals. The relative frequency is especially marked in zygomatic and genio-mental wrinkles, while the foreheads, even of youthful criminals, and when the face is in a state of repose, sometimes present a curiously marked and scored appearance. The precocity of these wrinkles is worthy of note. “We found young criminals of fourteen,” Ottolenghi remarks, “with wrinkles more evident and marked than are met with in many normal men above thirty. It is these precocious wrinkles which give to young criminals that aspect of premature virility which Lombroso and Marro have already noticed.” “It is worthy of note,” he remarks also, “that the part of the face which, by the prevalence of wrinkles, shows more active expression in criminals as in other degenerated persons, is that corresponding to the region of the nose and mouth—that is to say, the less contemplative, more material, part of the face; and, in fact, we see that, with the exception of some murderers, who have a surly look and corrugated forehead, the typical delinquent presents habitually in the more rational and contemplative part of his face the least degree of active expression, this corresponding to his limited psychical sensibility.”