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9 Medico-Legal J. 1 (1881-1882)

handle is hein.journals/medlejo9 and id is 1 raw text is: IS CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY A SCIENCE ? * By WfLLIAM W. IRELAND, M. D., Preston Pans, Edinburgh, Scotland. The habitual criminal has in all civilized times at- tracted to himself considerable amount of disrespectful attention, principally from those who were engaged in the preparation and administration of the law; but of late years the study of this variety of human fraility has been taken up by medical men, alienists, and an- thropologists who have used in their inquiries the scien-- tific methods with which they were already accustomed.- If criminal anthropology be not a new branch of- knowledge, at least it is characterized by a new way of presenting knowledge that is every year attracting more and more attention. There are already two separate re- views entirely devoted to this subject, one in Italian,t and the other in FrenchT, besides numerous papers ap- pear in periodicals dedicated to insanity or general medicine, and sketches of the requisite shallowness have even appeared in popular magazines. The number of books on this subject which have appeared in differ- ent European languages would fill a large book-case- The professors of the new science have held several col- lective scientific conferences, and have attracted the. notice of the general public by the boldness of their- claims and the open contempt with which they treat the time hallowed ways of keeping under malefactors. As one of the most eminent of the new school, Professor Benedikt of Vienna, remarked in my hearing: No, * Read before the Medico-Legal Society, May Meeting, 1891. f Archivio di Psichiatrica Scienze Penale, ed Antropologia. t Archives de l'Anthropologie criminelle et des Sciences Penales, ParisL