The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1896-05-07
A PLEA FOR REFORM N CRIMINAL JURISPRUDENCE

men who make no pretensions to science,
and they are VIGOROUSLY averse to being
advised.
| knowledge. acquired in whatever way,
is applied in the various arts, and made
subseryient to mans wants. In enlight-
ened governments there are heads of de-
partments whose function it is to gather
and formulate the knowledge bearing
upon their respective interests. This is
true of everything except mans most
vital interests-his health and well being,
and the preservation of Il healthy stand
ard of race. In this great country there
is no department of public health, and
state medicine is a nullity. The vast
store of knowledge CLEANED by laborers in
the field is not utilized in framing laws for
the protection of the public health and
morals and race preservation.
In this head Judge Benjamin Abbott, in
apologizing for the jurists and the want
ity (Ref. Blk Med. Sci, page 122), says:
THE rude division into idiots and luna
ties of two centuries ago survives in
Jurisprudence today. Jurispru-
dence has had no peculiar methods of
studying the subject, but has been accus-
toned to follow the course of medical sci
ence, and to accept, sometimes, indeed
only after long hesitation and inquiry, the
results which skilful and experienced
aienists have united in declaring estab-
lished."
Jurisprudence has not studied the sub
ject, yet will not accept the conclusions
of those who have; here's confession OF
bigotry and intolerance.
Judge Abbott here uttered a pregnant
truth, one which has wider application,
tI.,, h., = i. thn
key to the problem, why our criminal and
insanity laws are n failure.
TO confess that the Jurisprudence Of in
sanity has not been revised in 200 years,
because jurists will not accept the CON
illusions of scientific investigators in this
field when in the meantime insanity has
bene studied in all its phases, and subdi-
vided and classified till now there are nine
forms of idiocy and six forms of madness
known to alienists, would indicate that
one or other of the forms of idocy or
mania had seized upon our rulers and law
makers. Our statutes belong to past
ages.
Granting that the system is failure,
wrong in conception, too narrow in scope,
and ineffective for the ends sought to ac-
complsh, what should be done to rene
dy it? :,
The thinking members of the medical
profession are being rapidly converted to
the belief that crime is disease; that hab-
itual criminals are sick persons, and that
their condition calls for Il more enlighten-
ed method of management. sThey know
that many, if not most of them, are sub
jects of hereditary TRANSMISSION OF vicious
and are victims OF vicious
environments. 1t is beginning to be ap-
II. l.,tn rha re 1st
come, precisely such change as has taken
place with insanity and inebriety. 1t
has not been very long ago that drunken
ness was regarded as criminal oifense,
or rather, as msdemeanor-and was
punished; nor since the insane were re-
garded as monsters-or possessed OF
devil" that was to be exercised only by
blows and by ht-jackets; nor since
the moor dement, or idiot and the harmless
maniac were. by law, burned as witch
es." an act for which civilization is not
vet done blushing. Opinion has changed
radically, as regards these unfortunateS;
and with it, the system of dealing WIN
them. The insane, and in some states,
the inebriate, now find rcpose and tender
care and rational treatment in the great
institutions of an cnlighten-
ed age: and so opinion is fast changing
with reference to crime and criminals, ana
the mission of science is to bring about a
change in their status ana
Professor Flint, in his pa
nor, saws IN. y. Med. Journal, Feb. 10,
1866:
"Crime is a disease of our social organ
ization. 1t is true that it is ineradlca-
Bile, but it may be restricted within mlich
limits than at present exist.
Crime calls for intelligent and scientlhc
.pip "a
abolished, all criminals are not hope
lessly affected with crime. Crime
may be constitutional disease, as IN
the born criminal, or it may be due, IN
individual cases, to surroundings. teach
ing or eXample-a sort of contngion. III
has been abundantly shown that Grim
mails may be divided into two great
classes, the durable and the incurable;
but the disease which we call crime mas
nearly as many phases and varieties as
are presented by the nosological cata-
Iogue. Society needs the aid OF COM
petent men to undertake the task of sep
arating the durable from the incura BILE
to restore the former to usefulness and
to protect our social organization against
the latter. Jurists-so-called lawgivers,
and those who execute the laW-naNe
failed In my opinion, the only hope
is in the medical profession
The problem is, how can these views
be impressed upon those who are en-
trusted with the enactment of the stat
utes? The utter failure of the State
Medical association in Texas to awaken
in the minds of legislators a just appre-
citation of the dangers attending the in
practice of medicine or the
sale of nostrums deleterious
to the public health, gives but little as
surance that anything the medical pro-
fession of this state might bring before
them upon this subject would receive
more respectful consideration.
State medicine is the application in
the aggregate of the principles of med
ical and sanitary science to the proven
ton, cure, mitigation or relief of evils
which affect the social body, and the
prevention of these evils to posterity. 1t
bears the same relation to the state or
society that the individual physician bears
to his clientele; and embraces, of course,
measures of prophylaxis against future
ills as against existing evils
On the subject of marriage, Judge G.
III. Reeves of Plymouth, Ind, in work
called 1.-THE Prison Question" the most
logical exposition of the subject 1 have
ever seen, says: .....
I'm regulating marriage, the law says
that none shall marry within the third
degree of consanguinity, and in some
states the fourth, because marriage be-
tween blood relations is likely to pro-
duce offspring deformed or diseased,