Syphilis in Relation to Degeneracy [excerpt]

     Inquiring into the reports of Czolgosz, we find the assurance of the greatest experts, such as McDonald, Hurd and others, on his being of a sane mental condition. Yet considering the enormity and brutality of his offense, the cynicism shown, we cannot fail to see that he belonged to the class of the obnubilated, and of the morally insane. His photograph published by Harper’s Weekly, and the photographs of the casts accompanying the report of the post-mortem examination¹ show a slightly uneven development of the right eye, which is somewhat uneven with the left. In accordance with our views this scarcely perceptible dystrophy might have been the result of a periostitis of the orbits in his infancy, which would have had as cause a syphilitic taint. Moreover, in the examination, McDonald² wrote that he found two flat, unindurated cicatrices on the mucous surface of the prepuce, probably the result of previous chancroids. Here is an extremely important point for us, for nobody is able to distinguish whether a scar is the consequence of a chancroid or of a hard chancre. Nobody can persuade us that those cicatrices were not the result of syphilitic initial papules, as the door of entrance for the virus. He denied having contracted any venereal disease, but the cicatrices were there. The finding of all organs perfectly normal does not exclude the possibility of spirochaetæ in the system or of toxins in the blood, which affect the nervous centers.
     The blurred ideas of an ardent anarchist, which he proclaimed in his reply, “I don’t believe in the republican form of government, and I don’t believe we should have any rulers,” show clearly an exaltation and an extravagance bordering on the abnormal condition.