MEASURING BODIES l6 5
accurately, the features of Down's syndrome in a boy under his
charge—a few accidental similarities with Orientals ("obliquely
placed" eyes and slightly yellowish skin), and a much larger num-
ber of dissimilar features (brown and sparse hair, thick lips, wrin-
kled forehead, etc.). Nonetheless, he concluded (1866, p. 261):
"The boy's aspect is such that it is difficult to realize that he is the
child of Europeans, but so frequently are these characters pre-
sented, that there can be no doubt that these ethnic features are
the result of degeneration." Down even used his ethnic insight to
explain the behavior of afflicted children: "they excell at imita-
tion"—the trait most frequently cited as typically Mongolian in con-
ventional racist classifications of Down's time.
Down depicted himself as a racial liberal. Had he not proven
human unity by showing that the characters of lower races could
appear in degenerates of the higher (1866, p. 262)? In fact, he had
merely done for pathology what Lombroso was soon to accomplish
for criminality—to affirm the conventional racist ranks by marking
undesirable whites as biological representatives of lower groups.
Lombroso spoke of atavisms that "liken the European criminal to
the Australian and Mongolian type" (1887, p. 254). Yet Down's
designation persisted to our day and is only now fading from use.
Sir Peter Medawar told me that in the late 1970s, he and some Asian
colleagues persuaded the London Times to drop "mongolism" in
favor of "Down's syndrome." The good doctor will still be honored.
The influence of criminal anthropology
Dallemagne, a prominent French opponent of Lombroso, paid
homage to his influence in 1896:
His thoughts revolutionized our opinions, provoked a salutary feeling
everywhere, and a happy emulation in research of all kinds. For 20 years,
his thoughts fed discussions; the Italian master was the order of the day in
all debates; his thoughts appeared as events. There was an extraordinary
animation everywhere.^ ^'lemagne was recording facts, not just playing diplomat.
irninal anthropology was not just an academician's debate, how-
^er avely. It was the subject of discussion in legal and penal circles
years. It provoked numerous "reforms" and was, until World