08/14/2025
On January 9, 1800, a boy emerged from the forest near the town of Saint-Sernin in southern France. Unable to speak, he seemed to have been living alone in the surrounding woodland, subsisting on scavenged food. The boy’s story became a sensation. Labeled “The Wild Boy of Aveyron” by the French press, he was sent to the National Institute for the Deaf in Paris, declared a hopeless case, and left to languish. One day, however, an inquisitive young doctor named Jean Itard took notice of the boy. Itard began to spend time with him, and soon the two found ways to interact. With games and toys Itard engaged the boy’s senses and imagination, developing methods of education—some of which went on to form a basis for special education and the Montessori method—that brought the boy out further. For a while Victor, as Itard named him, made progress, but soon the experiment stalled.
The Forbidden Experiment tells the story of a tragic young man and the extraordinary doctor who tried, however imperfectly, to help him. It is a story of compassion, like the case studies of Oliver Sacks, a figure whom Itard foreshadows. It is also a story that leads Shattuck to ask deep questions about the human animal: What is language, how do we acquire it, and what do we become if we are deprived of it?
