Cesare Lombroso

Cesare Lombroso , born the November 6th 1835 with Vérone, dead the October 19th 1909 with Turin, is a professor of Legal medicine Italian, known for its theses on the morphotype of the criminals and his innate character.

Biography

He studies medicine with Padoue, Vienna and Pavia and takes the direction of the lunatic asylum of this last city starting from 1864, which gives him an important matter with its research. He obtains the pulpit of Legal medicine of the university of Turin in 1876, year of the publication of his work the delinquent Man ( Uomo deliquente ), in which it defends the thesis according to which the delinquency would be definitely more frequent at certain people carrying physical characteristics, which would be in favor of the innate character of certain behaviors. He is opposed thus to the sociological designs where the deviances would be consequences of the medium. For that, it looked further into research on Anthropologie related to the questions of criminality. Army medical officer, it will use his trade as place of observation privileged by studying mainly the delinquent soldiers by the realization of the anthropometric study of those. At the conclusion of work on thousands of craniums of criminals, it observes the frequency of certain characteristics, which enables him to deduce from them certain laws which convince it that the Criminalité is Inné E and can result from the physical characteristics. It advances until claiming that certain categories of delinquents have their own cranial characteristics, which makes it possible to distinguish them.

Its work is the subject of many republications which it supplements each time, moderating its results without however giving up its concept of “criminal born”. Its book has an important repercussion in the medium of legal medicine and the Criminologie. Its ideas cause several specialized magazines and are the subject of many debates, in particular with the congresses of criminal anthropology of which the first is held in Rome in 1885. The opposition comes primarily from the French anthropologist Alexandre Lacassagne, which defends the thesis of the dominating influence of the medium. Another French anthropologist, Paul Topinard, evokes on this occasion the lack of rigor of Lombroso in his measurements of craniums. The second congress is held in Paris in 1889 and Lombroso is the subject of attacks even more sharp on its methodologies. The third congress, in Brussels in 1895, sees the triumph of the sociologists, in the absence of the participation of Lombroso. The theory of unconscious of Sigmund Freud finishes discrediting that of Lombroso.

Lombroso written in 1899 the Crime, causes and remedies , where he recognizes finally the importance of social environment, even if he does not evacuate any idea of “innate nature”. It also published in 1877 a rough work entitled the Man of genius . Inquiring into 36 “geniuses”, Lombroso claimed to find evidence on the “madness” of personalities such as Baudelaire, Newton, Fénelon, Verlaine.

At the end of its life, it tries, vainly, to apply its methods during investigations of police force.

Writings of Lombroso

'' Études for a medical geography of Italy || Studi per una geografia medica of Italia '', Milano, Giuseppe Chiusi, 1865
the delinquent man || The uomo delinquente , 1876
'' Hhomme of genius '' || '' Genio E follia '', 3. ED ampliata, idiot 4 Appendici, Milano, Hoepli, 1877
most recent discovered and applications of the psychatrie and medical anthropology || The più recenti scoperte ED applicazioni beyond psichiatria ED antropologia criminale , Torino, Fratelli Bocca, 1893
'' Nouvelles studies on the genius || Nuovi studii sul genio '', Milano-Palermo, Sandron, 1902
'' Speech opening of the Life congress of criminal anthropology '', 1906.

References

Guy Bechtel, Be delirious racist and erudite insane , Pocket Agora, 2002

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