Hector Boetius says that a Scotch brigand and his wife and
children were condemned to death on proof that they killed and
ate their prisoners. The extreme youth of one of the girls
excused her from capital punishment; but at twelve years she was
found guilty of the same crime as her father and suffered capital
punishment. This child had been brought up in good surroundings,
yet her inherited appetite developed. Gall tells of an individual
who, instigated by an irresistible desire to eat human flesh,
assassinated many persons; and his daughter, though educated away
from him, yielded to the same graving.
At Bicetre there was an individual who had a horribly depraved
appetite for decaying human flesh. He would haunt the graveyards
and eat the putrefying remains of the recently buried, preferring
the intestines. Having regaled himself in a midnight prowl, he
would fill his pockets for future use. When interrogated on the
subject of his depravity he said it had existed since childhood.
He acknowledged the greatest desire to devour children he would
meet playing; but he did not possess the courage to kill them.
Prochaska quotes the case of a woman of Milan who attracted
children to her home in order that she might slay, salt, and eat
them.
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