#cesare lombroso

[galeru]

After death--what?

by Lombroso, Cesare, 1835-1909.

❧ig

[thaoeatworld]

Meeting A Racist Skeleton

CW: human remains, racism, sexism, homophobia, and strong language

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Yesterday my partner and I met up at a museum I never expected us to meet up at: Il museo di antropologia di criminale or Il museo di Cesaro Lombroso. Oddly sharing the building space with two other museums, namely Il museo della frutta (the museum of fruit) and Il museo della anatomia humana (the museum of human anatomy) this museum wasn't exactly one of Turin's most attractive tourist destinations.

Nonetheless, my friends had recommended it to us, and Antonio crudely joked that it was important that I witness "anthropology's mistakes". Given that many high schoolers in the region end up in Torino to visit its many museums, many people I knew had already been there. As an anthropologist and sociologist who was mildly infatuated with deviance during my undergrad years, this seemed like the place for me to visit. I kept thinking: just exactly, how did dear Cesaro embarrass us anthropologists even more than I was already aware of?

For those who are not familiar with anthropology, or if you are but happened to miss the historical summary of this terrible guy, Cesare Lombroso is the guy who charted criminality using skull measurements. So-called anthropometry as indicators of a person's likelihood towards committing crime. Using the corpses of several prisoners, both Italian and not, Lombroso sought to quantify physical characteristics that signaled criminality. From the size of one's brow bone to the presence of tattoos, it seemed like Lombroso was suspicious of any type of physical or expressed cultural difference. Hence, those prone to being free of crime were both white, and arguably boring.

In Victorian wood glass cases, very reminiscent of my experience at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, were skulls of actual Italian prisoners he studied. While not all the skulls were identifiable, there were a number of actual identified prisoner's skulls being displayed. Super duper creepy, in my opinion. Alongside those, were a selection of coloured wax maschere mortuarie (death masks) tagged with details like the name of the prisoners, their number, their home province, and their crime in large capital letters. Murders. Rapists. Document Falsifiers. It was very unnerving to see their faces from their deathbed, eerily replicated by both Lombroso and the other mortuary figures/anatomists he partnered with.

There were photographs of the dead prisoners, back from when they were still alive (of course). Weapons collected from the crimes of the prisoners-- think crucifixes with hidden knives, iron keys, and blunt objects. Personal artefacts like clothes or even crafts they made during the imprisonment were artfully arranged. Among the most silly, if not personal for me, was a selection of photographs of prisoners from French Indochina that were donated to Lombroso's cause by another questionable colonial French scientist. As Anto and I opened the digital touch display, a giant photograph of a Cambodian man appeared. Herein, Lombroso wrote notes about what the "Asian" criminal was like in comparison to other European ones. Che stronzo.

Beside Lombroso's anthropometric instruments were his collection of animal skeletons, which he used to base his ideas of racial hierarchy. He was a valiant believer in the idealised pure White man, which reigned over the "others" which he organised into categories of colour. "Black/brown" being at the bottom, followed by "yellow", "semite" and so fourth.

He then also accrued different characteristics about the impure/criminal white man, so all I took away from this is that you had to be both white and not do anything interesting in your life to begin with. Furthermore, being born into a working class/poor economic situation apparently doomed you to committing crime. Nonetheless, I don't think anyone was safe from his harsh, very poorly-conceived designations. However, in my opinion, being not-white and not-a-man, made your judgments way harsher.

Unsurprisingly, even hearing a voice actor recant Lombroso's racial purity hierarchy made me nauseous. Don't even get me started on his commentary about women, but most especially lesbians. He had this whole disgustingly confused notion that yes, women deserved rights, but they're actually still biologically inferior to men. They're just not able to be smart, he thought. He wrote and spoke a lot about how women criminals were even more evil and devilish than their man counterparts, being sure to emphasis how much he hates prostitutes. Prostitutes, as he believed, were more prone to the crime of homosexuality. Hah, okay. Calm down Cesaro, we get it. Nobody likes you...and for good reason!

Overall, it was a good museum visit. Indeed, science does progression from trial and error. It was good to see an anthropologist who did such incredibly poor work get corrected with time. Acknowledged for how stupid all his frameworks were. It's not to diminish the impact his work made...which I feel still lingers to this day within toxic hate group rationalities, but for the most part, we acknowledge what he did/believed in were actual mistakes.

The best part of the museum was actually meeting the material remains of Lombroso himself. At his death, he donated his body "to science" as they say. His brain and skeleton was given to his peers to dissect and do what they want. As I stared with absolute malice and hate at this man's skeleton, I pointed it out to Anto who commented "oh wow he was so short!" This made me laugh because of its randomness. It was nice to see that he was very much dead, even though I knew he was. Lombroso was such a stain on anthropology, but at least we can attempt to learn and remember his mistakes in future work. May we never forget the racist skeleton man.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"LOMBROSO'S THEORY UPSET." Toronto Globe. December 4, 1913. Page 6. --- The dogmas of one generation, it has been truly said, are ofttimes the exploded fallacies of the next. The latest theory to collapse under the test of critical examination is that of Lombroso, who hold that every criminal carries about with him the outward and visible signs in face and body of his degenerate tendencies. Lombroso held that "literally from top to toe, in every organ and structure of his body, from the quality of his hair to the deformity of his feet, the criminal is beset with definite, morbid physical stigmata." On this theory writers of fiction in the past have based many detective stories, and it is still the confident belief of many reputable citizens. Modern scientific investigations, however, prove this theory to be false.

The results have been recently published of minute investigations by the medical officers of English prisons into the physical characteristics of a large number of criminals. Three thousand male convicts were carefully examined and measured. Similar measurements were taken of one thousand undergraduates at Cambridge University. The results showed "that the only difference in cephalic characters, was 24 mm. in head breadth in favor of Cambridge. This difference is almost negligible. A comparison was also made with nine hundred and fifty-nine Oxford undergraduates. In head diameter the Oxford men had the advantage of the criminals by anything from 12 mm. to 2 mm. in breadth of head. Cambridge defeated Oxford by about the same measure by which Oxford defeated the criminals; but the criminals and the Oxford men were both, in an equal degree, longer-headed than the Cambridge men."

It will be observed that these investigations leave little room for vainglory on the part of either of the ancient seats of learning, and are distinctly flattering to the convicts. Dr. Goring of Parkhurst Convict Prison carries the comparisons farther. He compares the head heights of criminals with those of the college staffs at Cambridge, and can discover no difference between them. The head circumference of the criminals, the finds, are almost identical with those of the students of Aberdeen University. The conclusion arrived at as a result of these interesting comparisons is that there is no such thing as an anthropological criminal type, and that crime does not betray itself, as Lombroso contended, by physical stigmata. A famous Irish University professor states that of the thousands of students who have passed through his hands in the last forty years, at least ten achieved notoriety in the annals of crime. As students, however, they were in no way distinguishable from their classmates who attained to eminence in the Church or at the Bar. The mystery of crime only deepens as the result of these scientific investigations, for no explanation is forthcoming of the apparent fact that there is a type of person who physically, mentally, and morally is prone to commit crime.

[ginogirolimoni]

“In ogni epoca della storia dell’umanità sono esistiti matti, visionari, folli, nevrotici gravi e individui che la psichiatria definirebbe malati di mente, i quali hanno svolto funzioni importantissime, e non di rado quando, a causa della loro origine, erano per avventura investiti dei pieni poteri”.

(Sigmund Freud, 1930, Introduzione allo studio psicologico su Thomas Woodrow Wilson, in OSF, Vol. XI, Bollati Boringhieri, 1989, p. 40).

Freud ci vuole dire non soltanto che sono esistiti dei folli molto gravi che hanno raggiunto i massimi vertici del potere e hanno preso decisioni importantissime e scatenato immani catastrofi, come il 28° presidente degli Stati Uniti Woodrow Wilson.

Ma che il potere in sé attira molto i matti più gravi, e non di rado essi “per avventura” (notate la finezza stilistica) emergono su persone più equilibrate (fa certamente riferimento ad Hitler, che proprio nel 1930 porta il partito nazional socialista al 18% dei voti, divenendo il secondo partito in Germania e che nel gennaio del 1933 divenne il Cancelliere del Reichstag.

Da ciò che si vede e si sente in ambito politico in Italia e nel mondo, non solo dovremmo rivalutare l’acume di Freud per capire il nostro tempo, ma sorge qualche dubbio di aver messo in disparte Cesare Lombroso troppo precipitosamente.

[bernamegeh]

Cesare Lombroso Hayatı ve Eserleri

Cesare Lombroso (d. Ezechia Marco Lombroso; 6 Kasım 1835 – 19 Ekim 1909), Yahudi asıllı İtalyan kriminolog ve hekim. İtalyan Pozitivist Kriminoloji Okulu’nun kurucusu, genelde kriminolojinin babası olarak bilinir. Lombroso, 6 Kasım 1835’te Verona, İtalya’da doğdu. Babası bir avukat, annesi ise bir öğretmendi. Lombroso, 1853’te Pavia Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi’ne girdi. 1858’de tıp doktoru…

[spider-xan]

Regarding Mina's description of Dracula and why it's problematic, a good starting point would be to read the Wikipedia article for physiognomy, which is the outdated pseudoscience of face reading that is unfortunately rooted in racism, antisemitism, ableism, etc., and was very popular during the Victorian era as a way to judge moral character based on facial features.

So when Mina says 'His face was not a good face', she is not just saying that Dracula is ugly (though concepts of ugliness and beauty are not value-neutral either), but that she can tell that he is evil based on his facial features; note that one of the facial features she singles out is a 'beaky nose', which comes from Cesare Lombroso's idea that among other traits, hawk-like noses are a marker of criminality on the basis of criminals being evolutionary throwbacks who are less evolved than non-criminals; many of these allegedly 'criminal' and 'degenerate' facial features are obviously racialized and not associated with Gentile whiteness, but in opposition to it.

Stoker was definitely interested in physiognomy and uses it as a narrative device to show how certain heroic characters are intelligent, perceptive, and educated on the latest (pseudo)sciences (the modernity theme again) - namely Mina and Van Helsing, but also Jonathan to a lesser degree; we will definitely see this idea come up several more times, including explicit references to Lombroso himself.

It is also important to remember that linking physical appearance and morality still happens today - think about how many people say they can tell someone is a bad person bc they're ugly or that 'People get the face they deserve' where good people age gracefully and bad people age poorly, even though aging has nothing to do with personal character.

[segretecose]

i’ve literally been sitting here for 10 minutes fully speechless i cannot for the life of me even fathom how anyone could think up something as gross as that angel vs witch post like leaving alone the feminism part for the moment bc i’m not sure these women can even be saved but the scientific racism? the actual 1800 cesare lombroso physiognomy phrenology scientific racism actual fucking rassenlehre antisemitism? i don’t want to make it sound like i’m surprised at the fact that white supremacism goes hand in hand with these coquette anti feminist movements or whatever because im not but girl. GIRL?????

[3hookers]

Lombroso Theory & Eugenics.

The Lombroso Theory was created by Cesare Lombroso, ‘the father of modern criminology.’ He argued the idea that criminals could be identified through deformities and physical features.

Phrenology is the belief that the brain is made of different ‘zones’ which creates a persons personality traits and characteristics. For example, someone who is more destructive would have a bump on their ear where the ‘trait resided.’ People believed that this could prove how someone would act later on in life, and was used as ‘evidence’ against people who were accused of crimes.

Lombroso’s most well-known book, The Criminal Man (or L’uomo delinquent) explains the idea of a ‘born criminal’ — the theory that people didn’t act out through free will and mental illness but rather that they were ‘atavistic’ or ‘born that way.’ As criminals were born in a certain way, Lombroso believed that they could be easily identified through their physical features (linking to Phrenology.) Parts such as head shapes, large jaws, noses and cheekbones were supposedly features of a criminal.

Lombroso’s ideas were used by eugenicists in order to ‘prove’ their beliefs (that aim to ‘improve’ the human race and future generations by ridding the people who didn’t have ‘good genes.’) They judged people to be inferior and people with better genes were further superior.

[djuvlipen]

Every European power viewed both Roma and Jews as exotic Asian foreigners who don't belong in Europe. Both groups faced a shared history of pogroms and expulsion. Both groups were blamed as scapegoats for the European plagues.

Yup. It's interesting too because other than that, Romani people and Jewish people are different in every way possible. Totally different language, different culture, different religion (Romani people are either Christian or Muslim, with only a very few being something else). And the oppression we face(d) have a different face too, it was true then and it is still true now. While Jewish people were discriminated in Romania, they were not enslaved in chattel slavery for 500 years there, as Romani people were. While Romani people were discriminated in Spain during the Inquisition, it is not comparable to the wave of killings and ethnic cleansings Spanish Jews faced. So we did experience oppression next to each other, but not *with* each other, turning us into witnesses of the other's oppression more than a fellow victim. If you get what I mean. Ari Joskowicz demonstrated this brilliantly in Rain of Ash.

The way antisemitism is conceptualized is also very, very different from the way anti-Romani racism is, although both evolved from a form of religious hatred (Romani people were/still are believed to be Pagans and non-Christian) to a form of scientific racism in the 1800s. Antisemitism is characterized by a sort of double-think; for antisemites, Jewish people are wealthy and controlling the world, but also a very poor people making up a plague of petty criminals. There is no such sort of double-think for Romani people. For people who are racist against Sinti and Roma, we are not just a part of a very poor people of filthy, petty criminals; we embody poverty and criminality itself. This is why Europeans will say "Gypsy" as a synonym for either "poor", "cheap" or "thief". This is why French and German Romantic writers turned "Bohemians" into an embodying figure of poverty. By doing so, they are also building on another common theme of anti-Romani racism: the representation of nameless, but very large masses of foreign invaders, which have been part of the anti-Romani racist register ever since Europeans saw poor, Brown travellers entering the continent centuries ago. So in Europe, poor masses and marginals will be thought of as a ramification of the Romani people; the poor and criminal will be identified with Romani people, because Romani people represent poverty and criminality. So if you read Third Reich orders about Romani people, you'll find the formula "Gypsies, half-Gypsies, and people who behave like Gypsies". Ironically, the man who pioneered anti-Romani hatred as scientific racism, who allegedly demonstrated the Romani race was a race of criminals, prostitutes and poor people, Cesare Lombroso, was Jewish.

So there's that. And as a result of those conceptual differencies, State persecution of Romani and Jewish people were carried out differently. In 1930s-40s Europe, antisemitism was a State matter, heads of state, governments and the entire political class felt so threatened by Jewish people that they all felt the need to chime in and organize big meetings around it. In comparison, Romani people were (unless it came to border control or marching on the USSR) usually thought of as a public health matter, as the matter of interior control and order, and so those big politicians delegated the handling of Romani people to smaller scale actors, local groups, local police, etc. Because anti-Romani persecution was less organized, it gave those local actors a larger leeway to do what they wanted, for better or for worse. That is why the architects of the Romani genocide weren't Hitler or Eichmann, but Himmler. And because State persecution of Romani people was more often relegated to local affairs, it is harder to track it down, more disorganized and chaotic.

People have used this fact to argue the Romani genocide didn't happen. Because direct State orders related to Romani people specifically (ie, forced sterilization, deportation and extermination on the Eastern front) were less numerous than Jewish people. It's because they are not taking in the different history of antisemitism and anti-Romani racism, and because they think just because the two groups were persecuted by the Nazis, that persecution must be 100% identical. That is simply not the case. The Romani genocide only started to be recognized as such by academics in the 80s, because historians like Karola Fings, Frank Sparing and Herbert Heuss looked into local history.

So it is interesting that although Romani and Jewish people have been used as a racial scapegoat for centuries by Europeans, anti-Romani racism and antisemitism differ so greatly in how it was/is carried out, and how it was/is thought of

[boyfridged]

jurisprudence & criminology intro reading list.

this list is not an exhaustive guide to any of these fields. my main goal here is to propose some key concepts so that you can start exploring theory on your own. it should also go without saying that it is not composed merely of scholarship that i consider good or even truthful; getting familiar with historical themes is very much beneficial for the broader context. additionally, while jurisprudence and criminology are closely related fields, and having some general idea about jurisprudence makes studying criminology easier, it's not a requirement, so feel free to skip sections as you please. lastly: this is a mix of more theory-heavy and also relatively light reading; if something is difficult to understand, google and youtube are your best friends, and there's a good chance other texts will appear more accessible.

jurisprudence

one of the main questions of jurisprudence is: what is is the proper relationship between law and morality? the following texts focus mostly on that question.

main schools to explore:

legal naturalism notable names: ian fuller, john finis. (naturalist-leaning): patrick devlin. proposed readings: 1. devlin, p. (1959) morals and the criminal law, 2. fuller, l. (1964), the morality of law 3. finnis, j. (1980) natural law and natural rights.

legal positivism notable names: jeremy bentham, john austin, h. l. h. hart, joseph raz. proposed readings: 1, stanford encyclopedia of philosophy: the legal positivism entry, 2. hart, h. (1961) the concept of law, 3. hart, h. (1963) the legal enforcement of morality, 4. raz, j. (1979) the authority of law.

legal interpretivism notables names: ronald dworkin proposed reading: 1. stanford enclycopedia of philosophy: the intepretivism entry, 2. dworkin, r. (1978) taking rights seriously.

critical theory (generally legal positivist in the simplest terms, but not necessarily comfortable with that label) & sociology. notable names: max weber, emile durkheim, carol smart (feminism), achille mbembe (postcolony) proposed reading: 1. smart, c. (1989) feminism and the power of law. 2. hardar, p. (2008) law, orientalism and postcolonialism: the jurisdiction of the lotus-eaters.

criminology

main topics to explore:

biological theories (look: phrenology, degeneration theory, atavistic theory of crime.) notable names: cesare lombroso, b.a. morel. this is mostly historical content; most textbooks on criminology will have a section on it. google is also your best friend. original source texts are mostly pseudo-scientific so i recommend looking into them only if you're specifically curious.

functionalism & structuralism notable names: emile durhkeim, robert merton proposed readings: 1. durkheim, e. (1972) crime as normal behaviour, 2. merton, r. (1938) social structure and anomie

marxist criminology notable names: willem bonger, thorster sellin proposed readings: 1. bonger, w. (1916) criminality and economic conditions, 2. sellin, t. (1938) culture conflict and crime

control theory notable names: jackson toby, travis hirschi. proposed readings: 1. pratt, t. (2011). "key idea: hirschi’s social bond/social control theory." in: key Ideas in criminology and criminal justice.

labelling theory notable names: howard becker proposed readings: 1. goode, e. (2018) labeling theory.

penal theory

in terms of penal theory, you can find plenty reliable sources and reading lists online. here are some of my personal theory-heavy picks.

key readings:

the iep entry on punishment,

the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy entry on legal punishment,

carlen, p. (2013) against rehabilitation: for reparative justice.

davis, a. (2003) are prisons obsolete?

foucault, m. (1975) discipline and punish: the birth of the prison.

johnstone, g., (2002), restorative justice: ideas, values, debates,

johnstone, g. (ed.), (2007), handbook of restorative justice.

[nitrosplicer]

Lombroso believed that genius and madness were closely linked, being two sides of the same psychobiological condition. A man of genius was a degenerate, an example of retrograde evolution, in whom madness was a form of biological compensation for excessive intellectual development. ... He asked himself: why not meet Lev Tolstoy, the supreme genius of world literature, in his natural habitat, to scrutinise his features and confirm his theory by seeing Tolstoy’s degenerative features with his own eyes?

.... But Tolstoy remained deaf to all these arguments, “he knit his terrible eyebrows” and hurled against Lombroso menacing flashes of his deep-set and penetrating eyes; finally he erupted exclaiming “All this is nonsense! All punishment is criminal!” According to him, human beings have no right to judge their fellows, and all forms of violence are inadmissible even if exercised with the aim of reparation of crime.

… On the evening of the 27th August, 1897, Tolstoy noted in his diary “Lombroso came. He is an ingenuous and limited old man”. And in January, 1900 he remarked, again in his diary, on the science of Lombroso: “All this is an absolute misery of thought, of concept and of sensitivity”.

…

In the definitive text of Resurrection , Tolstoy added, among other things, a detailed description of the legal processes and punishments current in Russia at the end of the century and the anthropological theories of Lombroso were discussed and roundly rejected as immoral. According to Tolstoy delinquency was not “evidence of degeneration of a delinquent type of monstrosity, as certain obtuse scientists explained them to the government’s advantage”.

Interesting article on how Cesare Lombroso (noted biological determinist and father of scientific racism) was obsessed with proving that Leo Tolstoy was evidence of his “theory of degeneration in geniuses.”

[audible-smiles]

I saw a post going around a few weeks back about Dracula as a text influenced by eugenics, but it assumed a base level of academic knowledge on the subject which I didn’t have, so I just wanted to post this juxtaposition (originally by Leonard Wolf in an annotated 1975 edition of the novel) of Bram Stoker’s description of the Dracula character with Cesare Lombroso’s description of the physical traits of the “born criminal”:

Harker will later name drop Lombroso and describe Dracula as “the criminal type”; his bad morals and behavior are directly related to his appearance.

[maaarine]

"Le haut potentiel intellectuel, c'est presque un gage de réussite scolaire.

Plus le QI est élevé, mieux on réussit à l'école, on a des millions de données là-dessus.

C'est vrai pour tous les niveaux, et toutes les disciplines, sauf éducation physique et sportive.

Ce qu'on risque si on [ne s'adapte pas aux enfants HPI], c'est que parce que c'est trop facile et qu'ils s'ennuient, ils vont être dégoutés de l'école et s'orienter vers des voies courtes, alors qu'ils seraient peut-être plus heureux en faisant des études plus longues.

A l'école, tout est organisé pour que quelqu'un qui est limité arrive quand même à comprendre.

Donc à chaque fois qu'on vous dit quelque chose, on va le travailler pendant trois semaines.

Et vous, vous avez compris au bout d'un jour, donc au bout d'un moment c'est désespérant.

Donc on peut imagine qu'un HPI s'ennuie, mais on n'imagine pas qu'il va rater l'examen.

On réussit mais c'est ennuyeux, et on est pressé que ça finisse, c'est ça qui peut se produire."

—

"Pourquoi alors dans l'imaginaire collectif circule cette image du petit surdoué émotionnellement instable, dyslexique, qui s'ennuie au fond de la classe, et qui accumule les mauvaises notes?

Pourquoi on s'imagine toujours qu'un enfant très intelligent est un enfant qui va mal et qu'il faut surveiller comme le lait sur le feu?

Parmi les fausses croyances qui ont construit ce stéréotype, il y a l'hypothèse du médecin italien Cesare Lombroso, qui a assuré avoir trouvé un lien entre la folie et le génie, une idée qui s'est ensuite répandue.

Mais la principale raison selon Nicolas Gauvrit, ce sont les biais d'échantillonnage des études portant sur le HPI.

Par exemple, une équipe de chercheurs de Lyon a publié en 2013 une étude dans laquelle ils trouvaient plus d'autisme, de schizophrénie, et de troubles anxieux chez les HPI.

Mais ils avaient en fait comparé des enfants ordinaires choisis dans une école du centre ville, à des enfants à haut potentiel sélectionnés à l'hôpital psychiatrique.

C'est caricatural, mais c'est la même logique que chez les psychologues de ville.

Les gens qui consultent un psychologue n'arrivent pas là par hasard. Ils ont, si ce n'est un trouble, au moins une difficulté.

Afin d'établir un diagnostique, on leur fait souvent passer un test de QI, et il arrive que le résultat dépasse 130.

On est donc face à un enfant HPI, qui a aussi un problème, et on fait le lien entre les deux."

Source: Faites des gosses: Votre enfant est-il vraiment HPI?

[no-side-us]

Dracula Daily Liveblog: October 28

Well, that's not too surprising. Galatz, or Galați as it's known today, is a city on the Danube River in eastern Romania. I've cobbled together a quick map to show where it is in relation to Varna:

It's been suggested that the Count has eaten the crew of the Czarina Catherine, but I guess not considering he probably couldn't steer the whole ship by himself. I wonder how the Count was able to convince the ship to change destinations. Did he bribe the crew? Threaten them? Hypnotism? It's interesting to think about.

There's a lot of implications to be made from Seward's little comment here, and I just know people are going to make them.

I'm not going to lie, the image I have in my head of Jonathan in this moment makes him look absolutely deranged. I'm imagining a hunter whose ecstatic there's going to be more to the chase, which is not what is depicted here, but it is what I'm imagining.

With all the vampireness and the gothic romance that's been happening, it's easy to forget that at the end of the day, Mina's just a little nerd. And I mean that affectionately. People imagine the Harkers as vampires being all mysterious and cool, but I like to think they'd spend their eternal lives gushing over the development of train technology and the changes to British law, like the little nerds they are at heart.

Does anyone know what Arthur means by this? Based on context clues, it looks like he's talking about some sort of express train, but I don't know.

In another story, this would be quite a flirtatious line.

I like how either Mina says she doesn't know anything about criminal philosophy or Van Helsing assumes she doesn't, but then a moment later:

She just name drops two authors of criminal works! Max Nordau published Degeneration (1892) which suggested that the "human race was deteriorating." And Cesare Lombroso published Criminal Man (1876), which claimed that "the criminal personality could be identified through physical characteristics."

What does Van Helsing mean by "Seventy-two only?" Is he referring to his own age? I can't imagine it'd be anything else, but it seems like an odd thing to mention.

You know, kudos to Seward for writing all that's happened today. We've all ragged on him for not wanting to record what's happened without his phonograph, but I feel like he did a great job detailing the day's events. He gets a thumbs up from me, and hopefully something more from the Professor.

[charmemma]

La Femme Nouvelle n'est que la face socialisée du monstre qui masque la nature nymphomane et criminelle de la femme émancipée. Car en cultivant son intellect, elle épuise un capital vital qu'une nature anabolique avait déjà diminué : l'utérus se dessèche et enfante d'avortons tarés. Rien de surprenant puisqu'en s'émancipant du contrôle masculin, elle répond à  un besoin endémique de sang lié aux menstruations. Non, ceci n'est pas affabulation. La médecine moderne acquiesce et systématise : De Cesare Lombroso à Paul Broca en passant par les intellectuels fin de siècle, nombreux sont ceux qui formalisent l'équation émancipation féminine = nymphomanie meurtrière. Et l'art de s'en mêler…