excessive pre-occupation with self, the tendency to put mystical interpretations on the simplest facts, the abuse of symbolism and of special words which are used as an almost exclusive mode of expression. Such, on the physical side, are prominent ears, deficiency of beard, irregularity of teeth, excessive asymmetry of face and head, which may be very large or very small, sexual precocity, smallness or disproportion of the body, lefthandedness, stammering, rickets, phthisis, execssive fecundity, neutralized afterwards by abortions or complete sterility, with constant aggravation of abnormalities in the children.[1]
Without doubt many alienists have here fallen into exaggerations, especially when they have sought to deduce degeneration from a single fact. But, taken on the whole, the theory is irrefutable; every day brings fresh applications and confirmations. Among the most curious are those supplied by recent studies on genius. The signs of degeneration in men of genius they show are sometimes more numerous than in the insane. Let us examine them.
Height.—First of all it is necessary to remark the frequency of physical signs of degeneration, only masqued by the vivacity of the countenance and the prestige of reputation, which distracts us from giving them due importance.
The simplest of these, which struck our ancestors and has passed into a proverb, is the smallness of the body.
Famous for short stature as well as for genius were: Horace (lepidissimum homuneulum dicebat Augustus), Philopœmen, Narses, Alexander (Magnus Alexander corpore parvus erat), Aristotle, Plato, Epicurus, Chrysippus, Laertes, Archimedes, Diogenes, Attila, Epictetus, who was accustomed to say, “Who am I? A little man.” Among moderns one may name, Erasmus, Socinus, Linnæus, Lipsius, Gibbon, Spinoza, Haüy, Montaigne, Mezeray, Lalande, Gray, John Hunter (5ft. 2 in.), Mozart, Beethoven, Goldsmith, Hogarth, Thomas Moore, Thomas Campbell, Wilberforce, Heine, Meissonnier, Charles Lamb, Beecaria, Maria Edgeworth, Balzac, De Quincey, William Blake
- ↑ Magnan, Annales Médico-psych., 1887; Déjerine, L’Hérédité dans les Maladies Mentales, 1886; Ireland, The Blot upon the Brain, 1885.
