Ardu (in the same number of the Archivio) gave the result of observations (undertaken at Lombroso’s suggestion) as to the frequency of abnormalities among prostitutes.  The subjects were seventy-four in number and belonged to Professor Giovannini’s Clinica Sifilopatica at Turin.  The abnormalities investigated were virile distribution of hair on pubes, chest, and limbs, hypertrichosis on forehead, left-handedness, atrophy of nipple, and tattooing (which was only found once).  Combining Ardu’s observations with another series of observations on fifty-five prostitutes examined by Lombroso, it is found that virile disposition of hair is found in fifteen per cent. as against six per cent. in normal women; some degree of hypertrichosis in eighteen per cent.; left-handedness in eleven per cent. (but in normal women as high as twelve per cent. according to Gallia); and atrophy of nipple in twelve per cent.

Giuffrida-Ruggeri, again (Atti della, Societa Romana di Antropologia, 1897, p. 216), on examining eighty-two prostitutes found anomalies in the following order of decreasing frequency:  tendency of eyebrows to meet, lack of cranial symmetry, depression at root of nose, defective development of calves, hypertrichosis and other anomalies of hair, adherent or absent lobule, prominent zigoma, prominent forehead or frontal bones, bad implantation of teeth, Darwinian tubercle of ear, thin vertical lips.  These signs are separately of little or no importance, though together not without significance as an indication of general anomaly.

More recently Ascarilla, in an elaborate study (Archivio di Psichiatria, 1906, fasc.  VI, p. 812) of the finger prints of prostitutes, comes to the conclusion that even in this respect prostitutes tend to form a class showing morphological inferiority to normal women.  The patterns tend to show unusual simplicity and uniformity, and the significance of this is indicated by the fact that a similar uniformity is shown by the finger prints of the insane and deaf-mutes (De Sanctis and Toscano, Atti Societa Romana Antropologia, vol. viii, 1901, fasc.  II).

In Chicago Dr. Harriet Alexander, in conjunction with Dr. E.S.  Talbot and Dr. J.G.  Kiernan, examined thirty prostitutes in the Bridewell, or House of Correction; only the “obtuse” class of professional prostitutes reach this institution, and it is not therefore surprising that they were found to exhibit very marked stigmata of degeneracy.  In race nearly half of those examined were Celtic Irish.  In sixteen the zygomatic processes were unequal and very prominent.  Other facial asymmetries were common.  In three cases the heads were of Mongoloid type; sixteen were epignathic, and eleven prognathic; five showed arrest of development