116 
Kaspar Hauser. 
there would never be a war. He had begun to live only five 
years before, and wanted to live longer. 
His fear of a knife or any other sharp instrument was proverbial ; 
he could not even see the scissors pointed at him without turning 
pale ; the slightest cut or wound of any kind made him ill, ang 
to suppose that a person of so timid a disposition would deliber- 
ately stab himself in so horrible a manner was the height of 
absurdity. In refutation of this decision Meyer and others 
asserted that Dr. Albert was influenced by certain high person- 
ages, and he retorted by declaring that, on the contrary, he had 
heen offered bribes to be silent, or to give adverse testimony, 
Dr. Heidenreich prepared a long and carefully written report, 
which was strongly in favour of the theory that Kaspar Hauser 
had been imprisoned from infancy to maturity, and was finally 
murdered; but the influence of the opposite party was sufficiently 
strong to prevent the immediate publication of the article. 
In January, 1834, about a month after Kaspar Hauser’s death, 
Ludwig Feuerbach wrote to Professor Daumer (in answer to a 
request for information) that he had visited Dr. Heidenreich and 
shown him Daumer’s letter, and Dr. Heidenreich had replied 
that his report of Kaspar Hauser’s wound and of the autopsy had 
not yet been printed, because the committee of investigation 
thought it best not to make such a paper immediately public, 
therefore he could not give Professor Daumer any information 
upon the subject. Feuerbach, however, added that if Daumer, 
in preparing his defence, wished to refer to Heidenreich he could 
say that the position, direction, and depth of the wound showed 
that it could not have been self-inflicted, and that the forthcom- 
ing reports of the physicians would substantiate that opinion and 
place it beyond doubt. 
Daumer followed the suggestion of his friend, and his state- 
ments made a great uproar in the suicide party. Heidenreich 
seems to have been frightened by the tumult, for he made haste 
to declare in print that he was not acquainted with Professor 
Daumer, and had never made him any personal declaration upon 
the subject; at the same time he did not contradict the substance