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Exhibit explores 19th-century ideas about criminals

Commentary. By Dick Levinson, amednews contributor. Sept. 24, 2001.

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"A policeman's lot is not a happy one." This observation, from Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Pirates of Penzance," sums up the difficulties confronting law enforcement officers in the 19th century.

When W.S. Gilbert penned this lyric in the 1870s, an officer was expected to arrest criminals without scientific tools such as fingerprints, DNA evidence or computer databases.

"A Natural History of Crime," an exhibit at the Mutter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, provides a window into the world of medical jurisprudence at a time when the accepted assumptions about human psychology and physiology were different from today. And it gives visitors a look at period medical instruments and implements.

Physicians were among the first expert witnesses in U.S. courtrooms. By virtue of their training and experience, physicians were well equipped to help juries establish the truth in cases that involved poison, rape, infanticide and feigned injuries. By the 19th century, there was growing emphasis on forensic medicine.

Today, it seems only logical that physicians are involved in helping to settle such issues as mental competence and criminal responsibility. Unfortunately, at a time when science was often unable to provide the definitive answers society demanded, pseudo sciences flourished.

As they had in the 18th century, physiognomists continued to study facial structures while phrenologists believed that the bumps and imperfections on the skull's surface provided the key to understanding an individual's personality. [...]