So long as jurists and legislators will not study either psychology or
psychiatry, and will not submit all habitual criminals and all
dangerous men to an expert examination, all serious reform in this
domain will remain impossible. To improve the present state of affairs
a common understanding between jurists and alienists is urgent; but
this can only be attained by jurists making a study of psychology, and
a kind of practical clinic among imprisoned criminals. How can one
judge and condemn one's neighbor without having the least idea of the
state of mind of these pariahs of society? All the jurists who have
the welfare of humanity at heart, should support the _international
union of penal law_, and the efforts of men like Professor Franz von
Liszt, Gaukler of Caen, and many other courageous reformers.[8]

It is needless to say that it is not sufficient to combat the excesses
of criminal and dangerous individuals, such as sadists, for example,
by placing them under supervision and preventing them doing harm. It
is also necessary to attack the cause of the evil by preventing their
germs from being reproduced, degenerated as they usually are by the
blastophthoria of their alcoholic parents (vide Chapter I). The first
question, which is purely legal and administrative, does not concern
us here; but I may be allowed to say a few words on the second.

Zealous and advanced reformers have proposed castration in such cases,
which has provoked a general cry of indignation. This has been
discussed in certain American states. The hyperaesthetic sentiment of
our modern civilization cannot tolerate such ideas, while ancient
races such as the Islamites provided, and still provide eunuchs as
servants, who are free from danger for their wives, and think little
of hanging or decapitating men who cause them any trouble. In the
same way, we are dumb and impassive before the butcheries of war,
because they are fashionable, especially when we do not come in
contact with them. The Pope himself formerly procured eunuchs in order
to have soprano voices in his church, and did not hesitate to castrate
young boys for this purpose. The times change and we change with them!

For some years, however, castration has been employed as a remedy for
certain disorders both in men and women, especially for hysteria in
women. I admit here that, in an asylum which I superintend, I have
castrated a veritable monster afflicted with constitutional mental
diso