The Forbidden Experiment: The Story of the Wild Boy of Aveyron

The true story of the nineteenth century’s so-called “Wild Boy of Aveyron”—an abandoned French child who lived for years alone in the wilderness before being brought under the care of an innovative young physician.

“Before dawn on January 9, 1800, a remarkable creature came out of the woods near the village of Saint-Sernin in southern France.” So begins Roger Shattuck’s book about the so-called Wild Boy of Aveyron—a child abandoned by his caretakers and captured, years later, while scavengin...