Lombroso
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Lombroso. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
Cesare, cha'za-re lom-bro-zo (1836-1909), an Italian scientist. He was born at Verona and died at Turin. His name is connected with the most thorough investigations that have been made of the abnormal human being. Lombroso is noted especially for his studies on the causes of crime, his theory being that a criminal should be treated as a diseased person, and as such may, in some cases at least, be cured. While his theories have not been accepted entirely as yet, they have had a radical effect upon the old-time conception of the criminal. In 1862 Lombroso was made professor of psychiatry, that is, the study and treatment of mental diseases, at Pavia, and later became professor of medical jurisprudence and psychiatry at Turin. He published several books setting forth his views. The Criminal, The Man of Genius, The Anarchists, and The Causes of, and Contest Against, Crime are among them. Lombroso has taken an interest in the work of the Society for Psychical Research , and has been associated with other scientific men in investigating various psychic phenomena. Recognized as an authority on psychology, his opinions, had he reached definite conclusions, would have great weight. Like many others, however, Lombroso satisfied himself as to the genuineness of the phenomena, but failed to find for them any adequate explanation. Lombroso was a short, heavy, ill proportioned man, kind-hearted, but absent-minded and visionary. He would give to all who asked of him, and would have been penniless but for his wife. He was utterly regardless of dress, his wife running after him often, when he started for the university, to see that he wore a necktie or to take him his overcoat. His whole mind was given to his work. Whether his theories meet with general acceptance or not, their effect has been to awaken an interest in studying the causes that lead to crime, and in attempting to cure rather than to punish the criminal. See Psychical Research
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
CESARE (lōm-brōsō), an Italian scientist; born in Venice, 1836. He attained world-wide celebrity as an investigator of pathology, psychiatry, nervous diseases, criminology, and allied departments of science. His theory of a definite criminal type, the born criminal, is not any longer considered as having been established. His principal works CESARE LOMBROSO are: "Researches on Cretinism in Lombardy" (1859); "Genius and Insanity" (1864); "Clinical Studies on Mental Diseases" (1865); "Microcephaly and Cretinism" (1873); "The Criminal" (1875); "Love in Suicide and in Crime" (1881); "The Man of Genius as Related to Psychiatry" (1889); "Female Criminals" (1893); "Anti-Semitism" (1894); "The Anarchists" (1894); "Genius and Degeneracy" (1897); "Crime, Its Causes and Remedies" (1899); "After Death- What?" (1909); etc. He died in 1909.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's in 1910 could still say Lombroso's theories "have not been accepted entirely as yet"; Collier's in 1921 was already blunter, noting that the "born criminal" type is "not any longer considered as having been established." That judgement has hardened into consensus: Charles Goring's 1913 study of some 3,000 English convicts found no distinctive physical criminal type, and Lombroso's measurements of skulls, ears and jaws are now read as a cautionary tale about how anthropometry lent scientific cover to racial and class prejudice, and later to eugenics. What survives is the framing Aiton's praised — the idea that crime has causes worth studying empirically — which makes Lombroso the conventional starting point for the history of criminology rather than an authority within it. His anatomical collection, and his own preserved head, are displayed at the Museum of Criminal Anthropology in Turin, itself the object of protest campaigns demanding the return of southern Italian remains he collected. Note also that Aiton's is right about his birthplace, Verona, where Collier's says Venice.
Written for this edition, 2026.