Brain of an alcoholic vagrant

Brain of an alcoholic vagrant

Canavan, Myrtelle M. (Myrtelle May), 1879-

Eugenics

Photographs

Dr. Myrtelle May Canavan, pathologist with the Massachusetts Department of Mental Diseases and a member of the staff of the Boston Psychopathic Hospital, displayed enlarged photographs of fifty brains of criminals and feeble-minded individuals at the exhibition attached to the meeting of the Second International Congress in 1921. The exhibition catalog entry states that the criminal brains “were, for the most part, either very long or very round, with well developed pattern, probably indicating that the criminal is potentially well endowed but improperly uses his endowment. Most of the crimes were minor ones—breaking and entering, drunkenness, vagrancy, now and then a major crime of murder. It was striking, perhaps fortunate, that the majority of these men were unmarried.” This specimen, no. 576, shows the brain of a Canadian alcoholic vagrant whose mother died insane. Dr. Canavan and Louise Eisenhardt published this series of photographs as The brains of fifty insane criminals : shapes and patterns, in 1942.

Photograph of the Brain of an alcoholic vagrant, N 15 53, #576, published in The brains of fifty insane criminals : shapes and patterns in 1942 and displayed at 2nd International Exhibition of Eugenics in 1921.

Canavan, Myrtelle M. (Myrtelle May), 1879-

1914

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Canavan, Myrtelle M. (Myrtelle May), b. 1879. Papers, 1898-1945. GA 10.20, box 4, folder 1

image

1 photographic print, mounted

still image

0001956

Gift of Dr. Canavan to the Library of Harvard Medical School, 1945