Page:Sin and Crime.pdf/17

 crime and cerebral deficiency. Professor Saure, Professor Benedikt of Vienna, Dr. Flesch of Würzburg, Dr. Bordier of Paris, are quoted by Dr. Büchner in support of this thesis. Dr. Benedikt, after studying "the formation of the brain of a number of persons convicted of very serious crimes, pronounces it to have been defective in every one of them". Dr. Bordier examined the brains of 36 executed criminals, and "found that in almost all of them the parietal lobes were excessively developed at the cost of the frontal, a fact which points to a low grade of intelligence, together with a stronger tendency to violence. This is also the general condition of the brains of pre-historic men, so that its occurrence at the present day may be regarded in each instance as a case of atavism, or individual reversion to the state of former barbarism. Perfectly normal brains, according to the observer referred to, are very rare among criminals. In most of them are found asymmetry, prematurely ossified sutures, remains of old inflammation of the cerebral envelopes, an excessive fulness of blood in the vertex of the cranium, and so on" ("Force and Matter", pp. 474—476).

The results of injuries to, or disease of, normally developed brains throw much light on this question. Atrophy of the frontal convolutions leaves the sensory and motor apparatus unaffected, but is accompanied by idiocy; thus atrophy of these lobes causes a complete disappearance of intellect, while their small development is a mark of low intellectual capacity. Injury to the frontal lobes of a previously normal brain revolutionises the moral character. In the famous Phineas Gage case, in which a crowbar was sent through the frontal lobes, the man was entirely changed: "The equilibrium or balance, so to speak, between his intellectual faculties and animal propensities seems to have been destroyed. … A child in his intellectual capacity and manifestations, he has the animal passions of a strong man." "His contractors, who regarded him as the most efficient and capable foreman in their employ previous to his injury, considered the change in his mind so marked that they could not give him his place again." A boy drove a knife 3¼ inches into his forehead; at the age of 21 his memory was found to be "very defective. He is incapable of applying to any pursuit requiring mental activity " (Localisation of Cerebral Disease. Ferrier. Pp.