Victor, the wild boy of Aveyron, (died 1828). The first sighting of Victor was in 1797 in woods near Toulouse, in the Averyon region of France. He was briefly captured, but escaped. It was not until January 1800 that he returned. He lacked speech and it is thought that he was a feral child who had grown up wild in the woods. He lived with the French doctor Jean Marc Gaspard Itard, who attempted to teach him to speak, but Victor only ever learnt two words: milk and God. This is considered evidence for the linguistics theory that there is a crucial period of childhood when language must be aquired. Artwork from Education d'un homme sauvage (J. M. G. Itard, Paris, 1801).