The Republican journal., 1898-02-10
Crime and Criminals.
No. 4. Y

that crime is disease has been made. A
physician who should examine an adult
and find pulse p, regular, soft; tempera-
ture % 40; respiration 1S; skin moist,
would say that a healthy condition exist
ed; and such person would not be likely
to contract contagious disease even If
typhoid microbes were swallowed. On
examination of another and finding pulse
80, irregular, hard; temperature 96 IL;
respiration 16, he would say that the con-
dltions were not healthy, indicating low
vitality and that the patient would more
readily contract contagious diseases.
These conditions prevail morally, and
one who is morally normal does not
easily become a criminal; while another,
whose morality is low, is quite likely to
take to crime if associations bring him
in contact with it. In confirmation of
this theory the statement of Prof. Gates
may be cited. His article upon this ques-
ton is elaborate and far reaching, and is
here quoted as it must interest those who
have given this subject thought:
HOW TO STOP CRIME.
Prof. Elmer Gates, of the Smithsonian
Institution in Washington, after years Of
scientific investigation, declares that sci
ence will put an end to all crime.
This is the calm judgment of the deep
ly-learned man who has devoted his life
to research. Prof. Gates announces not
as possibility, but as fact, that the
murder in a mans brain can be removed
by the surgeons knife. If the disease
can be definitely placed it can be either
cut out altogether or treated so as to be-
come healthy, when the victim becomes IA
normal man. This is Prof Gates con-
tention. OF this theory he says:
analysis of any of the exertions OF
secretions from a person who has been
angry for half an hour show the existence
of certain ptomaines and catastates of a
poisonous character, but these p0isons
are different in kind from those obtained
from the secretions of a person who has
been sad for half an hour and so on with
the different evil emotions. The irasclble
the depressing, the malignant and the
fearful emotions create poisons in every
cell of the body, while Tie good emotions
augment the nutritlve changes in every
cell of the body. Emotion exerts a pro
found effect upon the chemical changes
which take place in the cells. The emo
lions modify profoundly the changes in
the vase motor circulation of the blood.
"Now the plan to cure the disease of
immortality of the mind is to build up the
brain with healthful chemical formations
which will crowd out Of power the chem
ical formations of wicked influence,
whether they are inherited or not. The
first step in curing a criminal consists in
discovering by psychologist analysis the
nber of wrong sensations memories and
wrong imag e. mem cries and other wrong
intellectual and emotive memories, and
then by a process of brain building to
put into the same parts of the brain in
stead of the wrong memories another Sc
ries of good memory structures consisting
of moral and scientifically acquired intel
lectual and emotive memories relating to
the same objects and acts as those from
which the wrong memories were acquired.
''This puts large and dominant num-
Der of normal cells in the very areas
where the evilly functioning cells were,
and then these new structures are kept
functionally alive oftener each day than
the evil ones can have chance to be ac-
liFe, anu Uuo IeSull Is ludu Tue lew SUIuC-
lures become completely dominant. A
criminal propensity is simply nothing
else than dominancy of evil memory
structures, and as soon as larger num-
Der of morally functioning structures are
put in the same part of the brain there
arises new dominancy, and if this new
dominancy is kept alive it will take the
blood away from the old structures, and
cause them to waste away. The time tuiU
come ,rhen criminals acW not be dlio1oed to
groW up as criminals but the State lrW see
to it that criminolIy- inclined children are
cured during early school gears" [Chi
cago Tribune.
If Professor Gates is correct his views
confirm the writer's theory, that crimi
mails should not be sentenced for a term
but for recovery, if ever; if not, to be per-
petually confined that propagation my be
prevented-their condition to be deter
mined by expert scientists who have
knowledge of such diseases. Our reform
atories do reform and cure morally to a
large per cent. males who are not too old
but who unfortunately go back to their
old associates to again fall. 1t is we'll
that we watch the young and while young
mould their moral life until they are
strong enough to go through after years
proof against immoral habits. CITIZEN.