which is generally referred to in the States not having a board of control system-that very little elasticity, or scope of initiative, is left to the superintendent or head of an institution. Our experience in Minnesota has proven entirely to the contrary, and I think you will find by conversation with the heads of our institutions that there never has been the slightest fear on their part that suggestions might not be received. On the contrary, suggestions that have come from them to the board receive attention. We have been enabled, we believe, to keep abreast with the times.

Adjourned, 12:00 noon.

THURSDAY AFTERNOON SESSION.

American Association of Clinical Criminology.

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY AND CRIME.

ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT.

DR. DAVID C. PEYTON, SUPERINTENDENT INDIANA REFORMATORY, JEFFERSONVILLE, IND.

According to the opinion of some of the best thinkers, the underlying cause of crime is mental abnormality. Many believe that there is associated with the mental peculiarity a concurrent structural anomaly-the so-called stigmata of degeneracy. Peculiar mentality, however, inay exist without this degenerative twinship. Both are generally regarded as biologic retrogressions, and due to the same cause, which is doubtless some vice of constitution, and suggests a likelihood of the existence of an inferior biologic type, which the Italian school has stigmatized with the name anthropological inferiority.

The soundness of the mind largely determines the integrity of the life. The integrity of the mind, together with life's environmental influences, determines the ethical relationship of the individual's conduct toward normally constituted society. It is impossible to contemplate an anti-social reaction upon the part of the individual without thinking at the same time of a pathological mind rather than an exaggerated state of physiology. As to whether this pathology is a positive entity and of such a character as to be determined by the microscope in a post-mortem examination, or whether it is an abnormality that can be determined only by the individual's ethical appreciation, can be ascertained only from the nature of the anti-social reaction and a careful examination of the mental life.

The title of this paper suggests a discussion of heredity and en

vironment, which are the two general classifications of causes of mental pathology and criminal tendency. Hereditary influences on the mental life are so positive in character that it is scarcely necessary to do more than mention the fact. It is well to understand, however, that it is in this class of cases that we more often find the distinct pathology, and it is also in this class of cases that we are more likely to have the question of permanency entering markedly into the situation.

The more interesting, I think, of the two causes of the mental abnormality is the environmental. Of course the question of permanency depends materially upon the virulency of the influences present, and the age at which the mental life is subjected to them. We all recognize that it is the young and plastic mind that is quickly and deeply impressed by the influences of life and the nature, duration and constancy in action of these influences as a rule determine the character of the future life. It is a mooted question as to whether it is possible for influences of vicious kind to result in permanent psychopathology or whether such impressions are less firmly fixed and capable of being removed by the wholesome influences of normal living.

It is not difficult for the medical mind to comprehend the existence of a criminalistic tendency as the result of environment. In the physical constitution we often find a previously healthy individual who has been subjected to tubercular infection, and the tuberculosis thus contracted is certainly as disastrous as though the individual had inherited a tubercular tendency. I can see no reason why the mental life, which is so much more susceptible to all kinds of influences, should not be just as susceptible to the inimical forces of bad environment as is the physical body to the contagion of bacterial life. The human mind continues all through life to reflect impressions made upon it during the early and more impressionable years, and it is impossible to subject the mind of the child to prolonged contact with the more vicious experiences without having as a result a permanent and positive abnormality.

Considerable thought has been given to a differentiation between an exaggerated physiology and pathology in their relation to anti-social reactions. It is well known that an exaggerated

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physiology becomes in fact pathology. This occurs in the brain as elsewhere. Nothing in the human anatomy is more definitely known than the physical changes which take place in the circulatory apparatus as the result of prolonged vascular engorgement. The resiliency of the blood-vessels remains undisturbed through the ordinary physiological disturbances of the blood pressure, but when this increased blood pressure is indefinitely prolonged, as a result of certain disturbances of metabolism, this vascular resiliency is lost, and the walls of the blood-vessels become thickened and hardened, and we have thus established permanent pathological changes. In all cases of pathology the question of nutrition enters very largely, and the brain is no exception to this general rule. I cannot doubt the fact that in every instance of a positive mental pathology the element of nutrition is an important factor. It is my belief that the many physical defects so frequently suggested as causes of abnormal ethical views or actions are in fact the result of a malnutrition of the central nervous system rather than being the causative factors of the so-called criminal tendencies. This idea is the central one in the theory of Marro.

All feeble-minded individuals are potentially vicious, and if after the establishment of a permanent mental abnormality, whether the results of heredity or environment, these individuals are subjected to influences of anti-social character, we must naturally expect that their reactions will be of like kind. So it is that the child, as a result of his heredity or environment, after a permanent fixation of this character of experiences, is certain to continue his anti-social reactions whenever he is subjected to the character of forces primarily establishing the mental pathology. Just when the line of demarcation between the transitory and permanent or the curable and incurable pathology shall have been passed, of course no one can assume to say with so many elements entering therein. To determine this question, therefore, the test of time and treatment must be resorted to; hence the value of modern reformative principles. While it is true that we find the element of permanency more frequently in the mental pathology of hereditary origin, yet it is equally true that we have many cases where the pathology of environmental origin is just as permanent and hopeless.

ILLUSTRATIVE CASES.

The first case is a young man now twenty-three years of age, the son of a well-to-do clothier, having stores in two of our largest cities. This boy was given all the advantages that any boy could ask; he was sent to a good preparatory school near home, and while there was given money and clothes to a greater extent than his friends had. His associates had been of the best and his habits good until he reached the age of seventeen, when he began to frequent cafes and other places in which the lights burned brightly until the morning hours. The fascination of these places and the over-development of the sexual life led him away from friends and family at a fast rate. The amount of money demanded was more than he could well obtain, and he began writing checks upon his father, who unfortunately had never exercised sufficient control over the boy to do anything now. A suspended sentence was placed over him by request of the father, but that did no good, and he had to be brought to the reformatory. Twice he has been paroled and placed in good positions, but each time the call of the underworld has been too strong and he has been returned after repeating his old offense, writing checks with the use of his father's name. He has fairly good intelligence and recognizes the trouble he has caused his parents, but he does not feel it. His ethical sense is undeveloped. There had not been a development of inhi bitions and he now believes that he cannot control himself, so quite naturally he cannot.

The next case is the son of excellent parents, the father being a foreman in a large manufacturing shop, and two brothers holding good positions. The home was everything that could be asked, but truancy led this boy into a group where from an early age he was prepared for an anti-social career. He had begun smoking heavily by the age of nine, had gained an extensive knowledge of things that he was not yet ready to know, and during his early adolescent years he took to drinking. By the time he had completed the eighth grade, all ambition and desire other than for the present was gone. The pleading of the mother could not induce him to continue his preparation for some valuable lifework. After holding a number of positions for short times, and spending all his money on him