Читать книгу Convict Life at the Minnesota State Prison, Stillwater, Minnesota онлайн

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The technical terms used in the description of scars or marks are strictly medical. For instance, if a man has a scar on his left breast it is described as recitilnal, vertical, horizontal, inal—such a distance from the median [pg 16] line, and to the right, left, above or below the nipple. Scars on the fingers are described in the same terms, indicating the flange and joint, and so on through all parts of the body,—every mark, cut or bruise being measured in front, from the median line, and in the rear, from the spinal column, as stated.

With reference to the ears, there are certain external features by which scientists assert criminals may be instantly detected. Have you a criminal ear? Dr. D. S. Lamb, at one time curator in charge of the Army Medical Museum, says there is such a thing as a “criminal ear.” Anthropologists have been giving a great deal of study to this matter of late, and their data points to the conclusion that the term “ear-mark” is something more than a mere figure of speech. No one has two ears just alike; all ears are faulty in one way or another, that is, as to size, shape or position, and these organs do not stop growing when the body pauses in its development. At [pg 17] all events, chronic malefactors are apt to be disfigured by certain malformations of that organ. It has been proven that abnormalities in the ear structure are characteristic features of degenerates. Such abnormalities are commonly found in idiots, imbeciles and epileptics, and the prisons contain quite a number of inmates with such ears. The sloping ear is bad; it shows a tendency to reversion to the primitive animal ear which slopes. The great Napoleon, Lord Byron, Henry Clay and Alexander Hamilton had sloping ears. Another objectionable type is the “wing ear,” which projects wing-like from the head. This type of ear is said to indicate a tendency towards degeneracy; are found in one individual out of every five among sane persons, in two out of five among the insane and in three out of every five in criminals, occurring twice as often among men as among women.