On the origins of anthropological criminology. Discussion on monomania (moral insanity)

This article presents a brief excurse into the history of the conception of one of the leading movements of criminological science – anthropological criminology. Analytical review of the opinion of leading psychiatrists and forensic pathologists of the early XIX century is given regarding the facts of commission of motiveless violent crimes by individuals without evident mental disorder, which were increasingly recorded by law enforcement of that time. This phenomenon was sequentially named “delirium-free mania”, “monomania”, “moral insanity”, and other terms. The methodology is based on the retrospective analysis of the discourse field formed in the early XIX century around the phenomenon of “monomania” (moral insanity) in Russian and foreign literature on law and forensic psychiatry. The materials presented in this article allow reallocating emphases in the scientific discourse on the origins of criminal anthropology branch within criminology. The main conclusion of the conducted research consists in the fact that beginning of the study of monomania (moral insanity) should be viewed as the starting point in formation of anthropological criminology – one of the two leading branches of criminological science (alongside sociology of crime). This conclusion is made on the basis of analysis of the rarest foreign and Russian literature, most of which has not been republished for approximately 200 years.  

Początki kryminologii w Polsce. Od ery prepozytywistycznej do pełnego pozytywizmu

The publication of Cesare Lombroso’s The Criminal Man in 1876 is generally considered the birth of criminology. The new science did not emerge all of a sudden but resulted from a longer process. Various attempts, feasible for the scientific method at successive stages of its development, were made to explain the reasons for criminality before the arrival of the era of positivism and contemporary science, and the construction of Lombroso’s theory of the born criminal. Franz Joseph Gall proposed the theory of phrenology, claiming that the shape of the brain is decisive for criminal tendencies. Philippe Pinel perceived the cause of crime in “mania without delirium”, and James C. Prichard in “moral insanity”. The developing social sciences and the positivist physicalism governing them made it possible to handle the statistical aspects of the phenomenon (A.M. Guerry, A. Quetelet). Such novel scientific information reached Poland mostly through physicians, yet was hardly interesting for lawyers brought up on the foundations of the classical school. In criminal law, they a priori rejected determinism together with the achievements of contemporary science. The first of the Polish lawyers to support the concept of determinism in human and social behaviours was professor of criminal law Józef MichałRosenblatt. He also realised that the new discipline of criminology, distinct from criminal law, was being born. In 1888 Ludwik Krzywicki, a social philosopher, teacher, and sociologist could have been the first to use the term “kryminologia”in Poland. He also challenged Lombroso’s theory, criticising it from Marxist and sociological positions. However, one of the most fascinating Polish criminologists of the late 19th century was professor of forensic medicine Leon Wachholz.

A Propensity to Murder: Phrenology in Antebellum Medico-Legal Theory and Practice

This essay explores the uses of phrenological theory in the realm of jurisprudence between the mid-1830s and 1850s, focusing in particular on the adoption and circulation of phrenological language within medico-legal circles through this period. The article begins by contextualizing medical jurisprudence in early America; at the same time that phrenology was gaining ground in the United States, theories of medical jurisprudence were in flux. I next turn to the concept of the propensities in phrenological theory and their relationship to theories of moral insanity developed in the same period. This article concludes with an exploration of explicit and implicit uses of phrenology, focusing on court cases featuring phrenological expertise or language. The article thus suggests both the uses of phrenology for the building of medico-legal expertise and the extent to which phrenological language around the propensities inflected lay and medico-legal discourse around criminal responsibility and insanity.

Alienism

This chapter uses the history of medicine and psychiatry to examine attitudes towards the creative or literary mind in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Accounting for existing scholarly work on subjects such as the nervous temperament and hysteria, the chapter draws from less familiar writing to demonstrate how trends in medical thinking and practice changed the connotations of madness in the period. These trends included the extension of the range of medical discourse; overlapping concepts of ‘partial insanity’ or ‘moral insanity’, which played a role in effecting this extension; and ‘moral management’ or ‘moral treatment’, which also created a wider interpenetration of medical and social or cultural values. Medical figures discussed include William Battie, William Perfect, Joseph Mason Cox, John Conolly, J. C. A. Heinroth, J. C. Reil, James Cowles Prichard, William Pargeter, Alexander Crichton, Thomas Arnold, Benjamin Rush, Pinel, Esquirol, the Tuke and Monro families, and Forbes Winslow.