The Criminal, Czolgosz

     IN THE current number of the MEDICAL NEWS we present to our readers a full report of the trial, execution, autopsy and mental status of Leon F. Czolgosz, the assassin of President McKinley, together with a report of the anatomical measurements made during life by the Bertillon system, and of the postmortem findings, including anatomical measurements of the head, face, skull, etc., also a graphic anatomical description of the hemicerebra, with plates of the drawings and of photographs—full face and profile—of a postmortem plaster cast of the head, which altogether present a very comprehensive study of the physical, mental and moral status of the most remarkable criminal magnicide of the age.
     The joint report of Dr. Carlos F. MacDonald and Mr. Spitzka, aside from its historic importance, is replete with interest to the medical jurist and forms a valuable contribution to the study of criminal psychology. The report is also of interest, negatively, to the psychopathologist as showing that the assassin, Czolgosz, was neither a lunatic nor a so-called degenerate. On the contrary, his history and all the facts in the case, as stated, make straightway [sic] for sanity and full responsibility for his act. Moreover, it is gratifying to note that all of the mental experts who examined Czolgosz—three for the people and two for the defence—one of the latter having been selected by the Bar Association with special reference to his competency—agreed unanimously that he was sane and responsible, thus leaving no room for reasonable doubt respecting his mental status. Surely the snap diagnosis of insanity which has already been gravely proclaimed in certain quarters, and which necessarily is based only on exaggerated and sensational newspaper reports, should have no weight against the opinions of the official, and presumably competent, experts, based on personal examinations of the culprit and accurate knowledge of all the facts and circumstances in the case, opinions that are fully sustained by the postmortem findings.