The Wild Boy of Aveyron

Résumé du livre

This text is a translation of a young doctor's five year account working with a patient described as a wild boy taken in the woods of the Department of Aveyron. A specimen of primitive humanity, human only in shape; a dirty, scarred, inarticulate creature who trotted and grunted like beasts, ate with apparent pleasure the most filthy refuse, was apparently incapable of attention or even of elementary perceptions such as heat or cold, and spent his time apathetically rocking himself backwards and forwards like the animals at the zoo. Expert opinion thought that the boy's wildness was a fake and that he was an incurable idiot. The author, however, came to the conclusion that the boy's condition was curable and the boy was consequently placed under the young doctor's care.