five5 February 1975In the land of the ogres. - Transition from the monster to the abnormal (Panormal). - The three greatfounding monsters of criminal psychiatry. - Medical power and judicial power with regard to the notion of the absence of interest. - The institutionali'tation ofpsychiatry as a speciali d branch ofpublic hygiene and a particular domain of social protection. - Codification of madness as social danger. - The motiveless crime (crime sans raison) and the tests of the enthronement ofpsychiatry. - The Henriette Cornier case. - The discovery of the instincts.IT SEEMS TO ME, then, that the character of the monster with histwo profiles, cannibalistic and incestuous, dominated the early years of penal psychiatry or criminal psychology. The mad criminal makes his appearance first and foremost as a monster, as an unnatural nature. The history I would like to relate this year, the history of abnormalindividuals (les anormaux), begins quite simply with King Kong; that is to say, from the outset we are in the land of the ogres. The dynasty of abnormal Tom Thumbs has its roots in the figure of the ogre. Historically they are his natural descendants, the only paradox being1that the little abnormal individuals, the abnormal Tom Thumbs, endup devouring the great monstrous ogres who served as their fathers. The problem I would now like to consider is how it came about that over the years the stature of these monstrous giants was gradually
