decisions, the anthropological examination will prove of great
assistance to probation officers, superintendents of orphanages and
rescue homes and all those who are entrusted with the destinies of
actual offenders or candidates for crime. I have therefore decided to
devote this part of my summary to a minute demonstration of the methods
to be employed in these examinations, which should be conducted on the
one hand with the scientific precision that distinguishes clinical
diagnoses of diseases and on the other with special rules deduced from
the long experience of criminologists in dealing with criminals and the
insane, between whom there is so much affinity.

ANTECEDENTS AND PSYCHIC INDIVIDUALITY

The examination of a criminal or person of criminal tendencies should,
if possible, be preceded by a careful investigation of his antecedents.
Questions put to relatives and friends often bring to light facts
relating to his past life, and give an idea of the surroundings in which
he has grown up and the illnesses suffered by him during childhood
(meningitis, typhus, convulsions, hemicrania, giddiness, _pavor
nocturnus_, trauma). The prevalence of disease in the family (parents,
grandparents, uncles, cousins, etc.) should be elicited and note taken
not only of nervous maladies, but of arthritic, tuberculous, pellagrous,
and inebriate forms, including a tendency to morphiomania. Even goitre
should not escape notice, since it may indicate cretinism or any other
form of degeneration. The existence of criminality in the family is of
still greater importance, but it is extremely difficult to obtain any
information on this head, either from the patient himself or his
relatives. A certain amount of strategy must be used in eliciting facts
of this kind, by suddenly asking, for instance, whether a certain
individual of the same name, already deceased or confined in
such-and-such an asylum or prison, is any relation of the patient.

Next should be ascertained whether he is single or married, and in the
latter case, whether his wife is still living; also what profession or
professions he has exercised. In this connection it should be observed
that although criminals are generally successful in everything they
undertake, they are incapable of remaining constant to one thing for any
length of time.

Many persons, cooks, tavern-keepers, confectioners, etc., exercise
callings that have a deleterious effect on the nervous centres and