1
00:00:00,973 --> 00:00:07,964
This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture.

2
00:00:07,964 --> 00:00:18,949
The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations, but not necessarily the only ones to the mysteries we will examine.

3
00:00:31,932 --> 00:00:40,920
Ancient legends tell of abandoned children reared in the wild by wolves, apes or other beasts.

4
00:00:45,913 --> 00:00:51,905
In 1800, a naked boy was seen running wild in the forest of La Bacine, France.

5
00:00:53,903 --> 00:00:56,899
His background unknown.

6
00:01:00,893 --> 00:01:04,888
Abandoned as an infant, he had somehow managed to survive.

7
00:01:07,884 --> 00:01:10,880
Could such a child be civilized?

8
00:01:20,867 --> 00:01:27,857
Rome, the busiest center of modern Italy, still clings with pride to its heritage as the eternal city.

9
00:01:31,852 --> 00:01:34,848
Even its name has a romantic origin.

10
00:01:36,845 --> 00:01:43,836
Legend tells us that Romulus and Remus, the founders of ancient Rome, were suckled by a wolf mother.

11
00:01:45,833 --> 00:01:51,826
Notions such as this do not begin and end in ancient Rome, but continue throughout history.

12
00:01:53,823 --> 00:01:58,816
Many people believe it is possible for human children to be raised by other animals.

13
00:01:59,815 --> 00:02:05,807
We observe the movements and interaction of the great apes and see mirror images of our own behavior.

14
00:02:12,798 --> 00:02:20,787
They seem so human that they give rise to fancies such as Tarzan of the apes and Mowgli the jungle boy.

15
00:02:29,775 --> 00:02:38,763
Yet, even though apes appear humanoid, they can be ferocious killers, more likely to devour a Tarzan than to be friendly.

16
00:02:41,759 --> 00:02:46,752
Many biologists believe these animals would certainly not raise a helpless infant.

17
00:02:48,750 --> 00:02:55,740
How much truth is there to stories of wild children and how close is the Hollywood image to reality?

18
00:02:58,737 --> 00:03:03,730
What happens if a child is raised completely devoid of human contact?

19
00:03:04,729 --> 00:03:12,718
In this century alone, there are at least 20 photographed cases of children who have lived with animals in their social structure.

20
00:03:14,715 --> 00:03:17,711
This is Issa, the monkey boy of Ceylon.

21
00:03:18,710 --> 00:03:22,705
Found in 1973, he was reportedly abandoned by his family.

22
00:03:23,703 --> 00:03:30,694
This little boy was found scrambling up a tree with a family of apes in the desolate grasslands of Burundi, Africa.

23
00:03:32,691 --> 00:03:41,679
In Syria, this boy was captured running with gazelles. His captors, riding in a jeep, claim they clocked his speed at 50 miles per hour.

24
00:03:42,678 --> 00:03:45,674
Why he was exiled, no one knows.

25
00:03:46,673 --> 00:03:52,665
Why have these particular children either been abandoned by their families or expelled from society?

26
00:03:53,663 --> 00:03:58,657
Many authenticated cases of wild children involve youngsters with some physical deformity.

27
00:03:59,655 --> 00:04:05,647
There are societies which see physical deformities as being proof of being possessed by evil spirits.

28
00:04:06,646 --> 00:04:11,640
These deformed youngsters then often are killed or, as we have seen, cast out.

29
00:04:12,638 --> 00:04:18,630
A plastic surgeon from Glasgow, Scotland rescued the so-called Jungle Boy of Peru.

30
00:04:19,629 --> 00:04:25,621
The newspapers sensationalized the story of the child and Dr. Ian Jackson.

31
00:04:26,620 --> 00:04:30,614
It's very difficult to find out what the true story was.

32
00:04:31,613 --> 00:04:40,601
We have been in Peru subsequent to him coming here and we've tried very hard to find out how he eventually got to the hospital.

33
00:04:41,600 --> 00:04:52,585
As far as we can make out, he was suffering from some kind of illness which was slowly destroying the middle of his face.

34
00:04:53,584 --> 00:04:57,578
I presume he lived in the jungle. Again, we really don't know about this.

35
00:04:58,577 --> 00:05:08,564
He was taken to a mission hospital or a mission camp and the missionary said that they couldn't do anything for him.

36
00:05:08,564 --> 00:05:21,547
Dr. Jackson adopted the boy and brought him to Scotland where with a program of surgery, he is gradually rebuilding the boy's face and helping the boy adapt to his new life.

37
00:05:22,545 --> 00:05:28,537
Shandev, an Indian boy who growls, is believed to have been brought up by a pack of wolves.

38
00:05:29,536 --> 00:05:32,532
In India, there is a long tradition of wolf children.

39
00:05:32,532 --> 00:05:36,527
These photographs were taken in the 1920s by the Reverend Singh.

40
00:05:37,525 --> 00:05:43,517
He claimed that these two girls, Amala and Kamala, had been kept alive by wolves.

41
00:05:46,513 --> 00:05:51,507
However, the most famous wild child of all is the Wild Boy of Averon.

42
00:05:52,505 --> 00:06:00,495
In the year 1800, the people of La Bacine, France caught glimpses of a naked boy living wild in the forest.

43
00:06:01,493 --> 00:06:06,487
He looked about ten years old, but nobody knew anything about his past.

44
00:06:07,485 --> 00:06:12,479
Where had he come from? Had he been abandoned? How had he managed to survive?

45
00:06:14,476 --> 00:06:19,469
Sometimes he would come close to the village to steal potatoes from the fields.

46
00:06:20,468 --> 00:06:24,463
He seemed as unaffected by the cold of winter as by the heat of summer.

47
00:06:25,461 --> 00:06:32,452
Captured, he was placed in the care of the National Institute for the Deaf and Dumb in Paris.

48
00:06:35,448 --> 00:06:43,438
For much of the time, the Wild Boys seemed totally apathetic, but occasionally there were strange outbursts of emotion.

49
00:06:43,438 --> 00:06:56,420
If the sun suddenly came out, he gave every impression of wanting to escape through the window.

50
00:07:04,410 --> 00:07:11,400
Parisians had expected him to be the epitome of their concept of the noble savage, much like our modern-day Tarzan.

51
00:07:12,399 --> 00:07:21,387
The reality was disillusioning. The authorities quickly classified him as a congenital idiot and the public lost interest.

52
00:07:24,383 --> 00:07:35,368
There was one consultant at the institute, Jean-Etat, who believed that possibly the boy's apparent idiocy was only due to his lack of contact with other human beings.

53
00:07:36,367 --> 00:07:45,355
The methods which Dr. Itar was to develop over the next six years represented some of the world's earliest experiments in clinical psychology.

54
00:07:47,353 --> 00:07:53,345
To start with, Dr. Itar simply studied the boy's behavior and recorded his observations.

55
00:07:54,343 --> 00:08:01,334
The boy seemed unable to relate in any way to other human beings and tended to totally ignore their presence.

56
00:08:06,327 --> 00:08:10,322
All his moments of pleasure derived from an enjoyment of nature.

57
00:08:11,321 --> 00:08:15,315
Unlike people in society, vision was not his most important sense.

58
00:08:16,314 --> 00:08:21,307
He possessed an awareness of smells which were passed undetected by others.

59
00:08:27,299 --> 00:08:31,294
He appeared to make no distinction between pleasant smells and foul ones.

60
00:08:35,289 --> 00:08:37,286
вам не duż так tribes did much.

61
00:08:46,274 --> 00:08:51,267
Putting snuff up his nose produced no effect whatsoever.

62
00:08:51,267 --> 00:09:05,249
He was unable to recognize his own reflection.

63
00:09:05,249 --> 00:09:11,081
Nor could he differentiate between a picture and the real object.

64
00:09:11,081 --> 00:09:13,997
He appeared to be completely impervious to temperatures.

65
00:09:13,997 --> 00:09:19,550
He would put his hand in boiling water to grasp a potato without apparently feeling

66
00:09:19,550 --> 00:09:26,740
the scalding heat.

67
00:09:26,740 --> 00:09:30,575
He gave the impression of deafness.

68
00:09:30,575 --> 00:09:37,246
An unexpected loud noise produced no effect.

69
00:09:37,246 --> 00:09:44,357
But Itar found the slight sound of a walnut being cracked caused an instant reaction.

70
00:09:44,357 --> 00:09:47,473
So he concluded that the boy could hear perfectly.

71
00:09:47,473 --> 00:09:57,380
But his reactions were selective.

72
00:09:57,380 --> 00:10:04,370
Long months of patient care went by and slowly a change began to take place.

73
00:10:04,370 --> 00:10:08,844
The boy became cleaner and tidier, learning to dress himself.

74
00:10:09,843 --> 00:10:13,119
For the first time in his life, he learned to play.

75
00:10:13,119 --> 00:10:22,746
And although he could not speak, he now had a motive for wanting to make himself understood.

76
00:10:22,746 --> 00:10:32,053
At this late stage in his life, he was beginning the childhood which the severity of his existence in the wild had denied him.

77
00:10:32,053 --> 00:10:49,231
He was discovering his imagination.

78
00:10:49,231 --> 00:10:55,143
How much further could he progress?

79
00:10:55,263 --> 00:11:02,373
At the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb, Dr. Itar and his wild child pupil forged the head.

80
00:11:02,373 --> 00:11:06,887
The doctor's work and the child's learning progressed more quickly now.

81
00:11:06,887 --> 00:11:18,911
They had the additional influence of the boy's governess, Madame Guerin.

82
00:11:18,911 --> 00:11:24,544
Through his actions, the boy gained the ability to express himself with increasing clarity.

83
00:11:24,544 --> 00:11:29,497
But speech eluded him.

84
00:11:29,497 --> 00:11:36,048
Dr. Itar noticed that one sound, O, always attracted the boy's attention.

85
00:11:36,048 --> 00:11:43,638
So Dr. Itar gave him a name which included this sound.

86
00:11:43,638 --> 00:11:50,269
From now on, he was called Victor.

87
00:11:50,269 --> 00:11:58,698
Anxious for Victor to speak, the doctor decided to concentrate on O, the French word for water.

88
00:11:58,698 --> 00:12:07,606
Perhaps Victor could say O as easily as he recognized the sound.

89
00:12:07,606 --> 00:12:37,566
O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O

90
00:12:37,566 --> 00:12:49,550
O, O, O, O, O, O, O.

91
00:12:52,586 --> 00:13:03,572
Undeterred, Ithar continued his experiment with another sound. And eventually, Viktor spoke his first word, the French word for me.

92
00:13:03,572 --> 00:13:06,049
What a nice new face.

93
00:13:08,246 --> 00:13:12,839
Next, guitar set about teaching Victor to recognize symbols.

94
00:13:13,039 --> 00:13:15,836
First by matching objects to drawings.

95
00:13:21,828 --> 00:13:23,066
And then...

96
00:13:26,381 --> 00:13:28,099
shapes to shapes.

97
00:13:28,698 --> 00:13:30,296
The doctor's goal?

98
00:13:30,496 --> 00:13:33,652
To develop Victor's memory of a sequence of shapes

99
00:13:33,852 --> 00:13:36,568
which in time would be replaced with letters.

100
00:13:36,768 --> 00:13:39,564
The letters then formed into words.

101
00:13:49,670 --> 00:13:54,025
To Victor, these exercises seemed pointless and boring.

102
00:13:54,105 --> 00:13:57,620
He could not appreciate the goals Dr. Itar had set.

103
00:13:57,820 --> 00:14:01,015
And now, the learning had ceased to be fun.

104
00:14:02,014 --> 00:14:04,611
As the tasks became more complex,

105
00:14:04,810 --> 00:14:08,006
he became increasingly difficult and frustrated.

106
00:14:12,400 --> 00:14:15,995
Had Itar's revolutionary experiments reached their limit?

107
00:14:16,195 --> 00:14:19,191
Did Victor's learning abilities have boundaries

108
00:14:19,391 --> 00:14:21,189
that Dr. couldn't have?

109
00:14:22,187 --> 00:14:26,182
Itar persisted and slowly, Victor began to recognize words.

110
00:14:28,379 --> 00:14:32,174
The doctor would give him a piece of paper with the name of an article

111
00:14:32,374 --> 00:14:35,170
and the boy would fetch it from the next room.

112
00:14:40,563 --> 00:14:44,158
Dr. Itar then took the experiment one stage further.

113
00:14:45,356 --> 00:14:48,352
He locked the door to the door of the doctor.

114
00:14:49,351 --> 00:14:51,348
He locked the door to the room.

115
00:14:59,338 --> 00:15:03,332
What would Victor do when asked to find an item?

116
00:15:18,313 --> 00:15:20,310
Victor ignored Victor.

117
00:15:28,299 --> 00:15:33,293
Although similar objects were in the room with them, Victor ignored them.

118
00:15:33,293 --> 00:15:37,287
Itar suddenly realized that knife, box and book

119
00:15:37,487 --> 00:15:42,480
meant only those particular items they habitually used in their experiments.

120
00:16:03,253 --> 00:16:08,246
So Itar had to explain that a book was any book.

121
00:16:08,246 --> 00:16:13,200
يع محلي منن طечь

122
00:16:29,817 --> 00:16:35,210
Gradually, Victor's vocabulary increased to include the use of adjectives.

123
00:16:35,210 --> 00:16:45,037
Grand livre, petit livre, grand livre.

124
00:16:45,037 --> 00:16:56,023
And finally, the ultimate achievement, writing.

125
00:16:56,023 --> 00:17:10,004
Victor never learned to speak more than a few words, but he could write his needs.

126
00:17:10,004 --> 00:17:15,597
After six years of study with Dr. Itar, he moved out of the institute to live a long

127
00:17:15,597 --> 00:17:20,989
and reasonably normal life in the care of his governess.

128
00:17:20,989 --> 00:17:26,981
Dr. Itar had kept his journals faithfully throughout his association with Victor.

129
00:17:26,981 --> 00:17:33,053
Their publication revolutionized educational treatment of the mentally handicapped.

130
00:17:33,053 --> 00:17:39,125
As for the wild boy of Averon, certainly he could no longer be classed as an idiot or

131
00:17:39,125 --> 00:17:42,840
a savage.

132
00:17:42,840 --> 00:17:47,953
We have always been fascinated by creatures that lurk within our imaginations.

133
00:17:47,953 --> 00:17:53,626
Fantastic creatures which are half man, half beast.

134
00:17:53,626 --> 00:18:00,697
Where our ancestors marveled at mermaids and centaurs, we wonder about Yeti and the Sasquatch.

135
00:18:00,697 --> 00:18:04,651
If they exist, are these really wild men?

136
00:18:04,651 --> 00:18:08,886
Have they perhaps been reared by animal parents?

137
00:18:08,886 --> 00:18:14,878
Is it credible that a ferocious beast would actually suckle a man cub and defend it against

138
00:18:14,878 --> 00:18:15,876
other animals?

139
00:18:15,876 --> 00:18:22,587
For one answer, we went to a remote part of the Scottish Highlands where one man has

140
00:18:22,587 --> 00:18:28,100
devoted his life to the study of wolves and their behavior, Ian Brody.

141
00:18:28,100 --> 00:18:37,528
To my mind, it's quite possible that particularly a bitch who's lost a litter may well respond

142
00:18:37,528 --> 00:18:41,682
favorably to the cries of a human infant.

143
00:18:41,682 --> 00:18:47,554
It's not necessarily conclusive that she would do so, but it does suggest it's possible.

144
00:18:47,554 --> 00:18:49,591
It is man's oldest friend, after all.

145
00:18:49,591 --> 00:18:50,750
It's also our oldest enemy.

146
00:18:50,750 --> 00:18:53,826
So we brought it into the house.

147
00:18:53,826 --> 00:18:57,341
It's quite likely a reverse adoption could take place.

148
00:18:57,341 --> 00:19:02,654
In the same way that a human baby cries, the mother then feeds it at her breast.

149
00:19:02,654 --> 00:19:11,243
Well, if the child cries and the wolf is prepared to allow it to suckle, then the cry is satisfied

150
00:19:12,042 --> 00:19:15,477
no more crying, no more problems.

151
00:19:15,477 --> 00:19:20,071
I think man and wolf being two social animals get on very well together.

152
00:19:20,071 --> 00:19:22,308
I think this is highly unlikely.

153
00:19:22,308 --> 00:19:28,460
And the reason I say this is that the human infant is the poorest of all survivors.

154
00:19:28,460 --> 00:19:34,652
Therefore, if a child is abandoned as an infant, there is no doubt that that child will probably

155
00:19:34,652 --> 00:19:41,123
die or be killed by predators, particularly in a wild area of country.

156
00:19:41,123 --> 00:19:45,996
But I think what happens if a child is going to survive, then he probably is older, he

157
00:19:45,996 --> 00:19:49,632
finds some way of surviving for himself.

158
00:19:49,632 --> 00:19:52,228
And because of that, he naturally becomes wild.

159
00:19:52,228 --> 00:19:53,706
He's got to steal.

160
00:19:53,706 --> 00:19:56,423
He's got to kill if necessary.

161
00:19:56,423 --> 00:19:58,779
He's got to keep himself warm.

162
00:19:58,779 --> 00:20:02,095
He's got to hide away from other wild animals.

163
00:20:02,095 --> 00:20:10,204
And so it's simply a striving for survival that will condition his behavior.

164
00:20:10,204 --> 00:20:16,476
But I really can't imagine that these children have been brought up by animals.

165
00:20:16,476 --> 00:20:22,428
In search of has investigated isolated societies where survival is not taught, but must be

166
00:20:22,428 --> 00:20:31,736
learned by trial and error.

167
00:20:31,736 --> 00:20:37,088
These children may be a link to the totally isolated wild children who had only animals

168
00:20:37,088 --> 00:20:44,199
to use as examples.

169
00:20:44,199 --> 00:20:49,112
Perhaps the closest modern counterpart to wild children is a California girl, Jeanne,

170
00:20:49,112 --> 00:20:51,509
who was discovered in 1970.

171
00:20:51,509 --> 00:20:55,025
Her story is recreated here for in search of.

172
00:20:55,025 --> 00:21:00,058
She had been kept in a small room, tied to a potty chair from the age of 20 months until

173
00:21:00,058 --> 00:21:02,295
she was nearly 14 years old.

174
00:21:02,295 --> 00:21:05,730
Her parents were charged with child abuse.

175
00:21:05,730 --> 00:21:07,848
Her father later committed suicide.

176
00:21:07,848 --> 00:21:11,882
Her mother was sentenced to prison.

177
00:21:11,882 --> 00:21:18,354
Since her release, Jeanne has begun learning basic skills, but progress is slow.

178
00:21:18,354 --> 00:21:24,226
Apparently, there is a time in our lives for learning such skills.

179
00:21:24,226 --> 00:21:39,885
If that period is missed, the full mastery of those skills may be lost forever.

180
00:21:39,885 --> 00:21:44,439
Coming up next, one week in time holds an amazing wealth of history as this week in

181
00:21:44,439 --> 00:21:49,592
history takes a look at the opening of the Panama Canal, VJ Day, and other extraordinary

182
00:21:49,592 --> 00:21:50,790
events.