There are some men whose task it is to gather, to grind and to sift facts for scientific pabulum; and there are others whose function it is to furnish the leaven. Of the latter class was Cesare Lombroso, who died last month within a few days of his seventy-third birthday.
Lombroso was born in 1836 of Venetian parents. Like most men of genius, he displayed remarkable intellectual power and originality long before his majority, and to the end of his life his mind was in constant ferment with new ideas. His youthful studies ranged over archeology, the natural sciences, poetry and history, and a natural bent carried him into the ranks of students of medicine. In 1859 he became a soldier and later an army surgeon. From the year 1862, while instructor in mental diseases at the University of Pavia, he conducted clinical investigations of insanity and collected materials for