Eventually, his case was taken up by a physician, Jean Marc Gaspard Itard, who worked with the boy for five years and gave him his name, Victor.

[7] Shortly after Victor was found, a local abbot and biology professor, Pierre Joseph Bonnaterre, examined him.

He removed the boy's clothing and led him outside into the snow, where, far from being upset, Victor began to frolic about in the nude, showing Bonnaterre that he was clearly accustomed to exposure and cold.

The local government commissioner, Constans-Saint-Esteve, also observed the boy and wrote there was "something extraordinary in his behavior, which makes him seem close to the state of wild animals".

[8]: 17  Itard believed Victor had "lived in an absolute solitude from his fourth or fifth almost to his twelfth year, which is the age he may have been when he was taken in the Caune woods."

[9]: 10 It was clear that Victor could hear, but he was taken to the National Institute of the Deaf in Paris for the purpose of being studied by the renowned Roch-Ambroise Cucurron Sicard.

Sicard and other members of the Society of Observers of Man believed that by studying, as well as educating the boy, they would gain the proof they needed for the recently popularized empiricist theory of knowledge.

The Enlightenment caused many thinkers, including naturalists and philosophers, to believe human nature was a subject that needed to be redefined and looked at from a completely different angle.

At that time, the scientific category Juvenis averionensis was used, as a special case of the Homo ferus,[11] described by Carl Linnaeus in Systema Naturae.

Some believed a person existing in the pure state of nature would be "gentle, innocent, a lover of solitude, ignorant of evil and incapable of causing intentional harm.

Jean Marc Gaspard Itard, a young medical student, effectively adopted Victor into his home and published reports on his progress.

Itard wrote, "Under these circumstances his ear was not an organ for the appreciation of sounds, their articulations and their combinations; it was nothing but a simple means of self-preservation which warned of the approach of a dangerous animal or the fall of wild fruit.

[18]: 61  This new interest and moral obligation towards the deaf and mute inspired Itard to nurture and attempt to teach Victor language.

"[10]: 139–140 Shattuck critiques Itard's process of education, wondering why he never attempted to teach Victor to use sign language.

[21]: 212  Aroles notes that Victor showed characteristic signs of mental derangement, like grinding of the teeth, incessant rocking back and forth, and sudden, spasmodic movements.

[21]: 211 In March 2008, following the disclosure that Misha Defonseca's best-selling book, later turned into film Survivre avec les loups ('Survival with the Wolves'), was a hoax, there was a debate in the French media (newspapers, radio, and television)[22][23] concerning the numerous uncritically believed false cases of feral children.

According to French surgeon Serge Aroles, author of a general study of the phenomenon of feral children based on archives,[21] almost all of these cases are fakes.

In his judgment,[21]: chapter XXXI  Victor of Aveyron was not a genuine feral child; in Aroles' view, the scars on his body were not the consequences of a wild life in the forests, but rather of physical abuse at the hands of his parents or whoever initially raised him.

Humans need to be nurtured at least until the age of 5 or 6; it is inconceivable that any child, including Victor, could survive on his own, in the wild, younger than that.