The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1899-08-08

At the meeting of the medical society
last evening, Or. Brewer of Chicago,
gave an address on the subject Of in
sanity Tie first spoke very highly Of
the management of the Insane Asylum
here. commencing the ont door treat
ment which the climate made possible.
and speaking of the absence of violent
types of insanity among the Hawaiians.
or the relation of insanity to Grimm
olOgN Or. Brewer said:
MY own personal fad is criminology,
and | have long made study of the
criminal viewed from medical stand
point. A perusa Of the reports of your
attorney general tells me that crime is
on the increase here as it is in the Unit
ed States. Now, there must be way
devised to stop this increase, this CON
tinuaI increase of crime, and | believe
the only way is to view il from the
purely medical standpoint. Mind you, 1
do not for one moment decry the work
| either of the church or the state, but !
am firmly convinced that the medical
men will have to solve the difficulty i'm
the end. Physicians should study this
question and by SO doing they win be
| able to throw more light on il as time
! goes by. The habitual criminal dis
tingushed from the occasional is an
abnormal man, and from this grade
comes the principal class of law break
ers. / studied the photographs of Grim
inals in Oahu prison and found the same
general characteristics as elsewhere.
| There is a marked resemblance between
the physiognomy of habitual criminals
and the insane in general | may term
it the same stigmata of degeneracy.
| While criminal is not necessarily in
sane he is very close to it. Criminals are
the product of depraved heredity al
COhOliSm and poor nutrition. Some OF
criminal a ~
my view of thinking, especially those
which fix the penalty for the crime aC-
cording to the value of the thing stolen.
Just as if a man who steals a 81 bill
from a table would not as readily steal
500 one. The great mistake is in not
considering the condition of the Crimi-
nal instead of the enormity of his
crime
Every day We hear of men being
committed to Jail for thirty, sixty or
ninety days, just as though the crime
in them could be cured i'm that short
time. We might just as well commit
a typhoid fever case to Jail for twenty
days and be just as likely to cure him.
The criminal must berestraned to eff
feet cure. Instead of giving him thirty
days send him up until he is reformed
if reformation be possible. Heredity is
the most powerful factor in the propa-
cation of crime and the time is fast APP
preaching when the law will step in
with an iron hand and stop it's propa-
CATION.
The children of degenerates and
criminals can be made fairly good citi-
zens under proper environments. | be-
lieVe that the law should take helpless
children and care for them. In Chicago
there was recently opened a court espe-
cially for the trial of Juvenile offenders.
and the institution of that court was
due to the efforts of medical men, who,
like myself do not believe that they
should be brought into contact with
hardened criminals Why, even in Rus
STA juvenile offenders are sent to a sort
Of manual training school where they
have Il trial for their offense. If found
innocent, they are sent home if guilty.
they are taught some useful trade and
detained until they thoroughly master
ii, besides being given a good common
school education. When they become
expert enough to earn a living at their
trade they are given 800 each and two
suits of clothes and sent forth to be-
come good citizens"