The Diary of the Wolf-Children of Midnapore (India)

Chapter II

November 24, 1920

AFTER a few days when they became stronger and able to stand bathing, on Wednesday, the twenty-fourth of November, 1920, we cut off the matted balls of hair from their heads, and they looked very different. Their age was guessed by me — the elder about eight years and the younger about a year and a half. We named the elder Kamala, and the younger Amala.

When I first saw them in the jungle, Kamala and Amala were very healthy and robust. But when I saw them on the twenty-third of October inside the stockade their health had deteriorated immensely due to their starvation. Before they recovered their former health, they were covered with a peculiar kind of sores all over the body. These sores ate up the big and extensive corns on the knee and on the palm of the hand near the wrist which had developed from walking on all fours. The sores had a very fearful appearance and went deep into the flesh. At times, they made them look like lepers. Besides attacking the knee and the palm, they extended to foot, elbow, and ankle. It was a dreadful sight to see them, as though they were nothing but lepers after all. Our medicines were carbolic soap, carbolic lotion, tincture of iodine, zinc and boric acids. My wife and myself used to wash the sores with carbolic lotion and carbolic soap and bandage them with boric cotton, and when the sores commenced forming granulations, we washed them with tincture of iodine lotion, wiped them dry, sprinkled them with boric and zinc acids, and bandaged them with cotton. We did everything ourselves and did not call a doctor through fear of exposure. To our great relief we found the sores forming granulations and becoming perfectly red in color. They took more than three weeks to heal up completely.

They were able to crawl

December 5, 1920

They got cured of the sores by the fifth of December, 1920. The children improved in health quickly, and became stronger day by day. I found them very fond of raw meat and raw milk. As mentioned before, they were kept on raw milk only. We could not give them anything else through fear lest they should get more ferocious and become unmanageable. They thrived well on that diet and vegetable food alone.

December 19, 1920

On the nineteenth of December, 1920, we found them able to move about a little, crawling on feet and hands, but not on all fours like before.They could not stand erect, although we tried our utmost to make them do so. Gradually as they got stronger, they commenced going on all fours, and afterwards began to run on all fours. When their health improved, they would run very fast, just like squirrels, and it was really a business to overtake them.

On the twenty-first of December, 1920, we found them very much attached to one of the foundlings, Benjamin by name. He had been picked up from among the dry leaves in the jungle on Wednesday, the eighth of January, 1919, a child of five months or so, and admitted into the Orphanage on the twelfth of January the same year under the name of Puta. He had a mournful history. This child was about a year old. He was just learning to walk by crawling, like the infants before commencing to walk. The wolf-children and he used to associate together in the room and were very friendly. We thought that this mixing up was a very good way to improve their mode of movements, and also very helpful in the future of their progress in articulation and habits.

December 31, 1920

But unfortunately, all of a sudden one day, on the thirty-first of December, Benjamin was bitten and roughly scratched by the wolf-children. After this Benjamin never came into their company and always tried to avoid them altogether. He was terribly frightened of them.

It is presumed that when they found some difference and understood that he was quite different in nature from them, then they commenced to dislike him. After this when they fully came to know that he was not one of them, then they fought with him, which frightened him so much that he left their company altogether and never approached them afterwards.

Chapter III

FROM the very beginning their aloofness was noticeable. They would crouch together in a corner of the room and sit there for hours on end facing the corner, as if meditating on some great problem. They were quite indifferent to all that was going on in the room. Their attention could not be drawn to anything. They sat there musing the whole time. If we tried at times to draw their attention to anything by touching them and pointing to something, they simply bestowed a forced look, as if looking at nothing, and would quickly turn their eyes again to the corner. We never kept them alone, but always purposely kept a few Orphanage children in the room for two reasons: first, to guard them, so that they might not run away; second, to associate them with the other children. The children would be playing, chattering, and moving about in the room, but those things did not interest them at all. They remained quite uninterested and indifferent.