Five brains of alienated criminals. Neurological investigations of early twentieth century criminal anthropology

For the followers of criminal anthropology, during the second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, the association “anatomical anomaly – psyche anomaly” represented an immediate diagnostic tool to identify mental illness and consequently the tendency to become a criminal. In this article, we analyse a clinical report published in 1900 in which the author, Dr. Saporito, described five brains of alienated criminals from the Aversa asylum.