Part 38

The influence of race on the volume, weight, disposition, and relative proportions of the different subdivisions of the human brain, and so of brain on the character of races, has thus far been very partially tested. But the diversities of race head-forms—brachycephalic, dolichocephalic, platycephalic, acrocephalic, etc.—are now well-recognised, though their relation to cerebral development still requires much research for its elucidation. The ancient Roman forehead, as illustrated by classic busts, and confirmed by genuine Roman skulls, was low but broad, and the whole head was platycephalic. The Greek had a high forehead, and the works of the Greek sculptors show that this was regarded as typical. But contemporary with the classic races were the Macrocephali of the Euxine and the Caspian Seas, who, like many modern tribes of the New World, purposely aimed at depressing a naturally receding forehead, and thereby exaggerated the typical forehead characteristic of certain ancient barbaric races.

In the case of hybrids the interchange of physical and mental characteristics of the parents, including modifications of head-form, is a familiar fact. The English head-form appears to be an insular product of intermingled Briton, Teuton, and Scandinavian elements, which has no continental analogue; and its subdivisions, or sub-types, vary with the ethnical intermixture. The Scottish head appears to exceed the English in length, while the latter is higher. Where the Celtic element most predominates, the longer form of head is found; but even in the most Teutonic districts the difference between the prevailing head-form and that of the continental German is so marked that the latter finds it difficult to obtain an English-made hat which will fit his head.[166] Here the diversities of head-form are accompanied with no less marked differences of individual and national character.

Professor Welcker determined the average capacity of the German male skull as 1450 cubic centimetres, equivalent to 88 cubic inches, and representing an average brain-weight of 49 oz. Dr. Davis, by a similar process, assigns to the Germans, male and female, the larger mean brain-weight of 50.28 oz.; but by combining the means of both sexes, as derived from his own tables and those of Huschke and Wagner, we obtain a mean weight of German brain of 1314 grms., or 46.37 oz. The results of an extensive series of observations by Dr. Broca, on the male French skull, yield a mean capacity of 1502 cubic centimetres, or 91 cubic inches, representing an average brain-weight of 50.6 oz. Morton, taking his average from five English skulls, gives the great internal capacity of 96 cubic inches; while Davis arrives at a capacity of only 90.9 cubic inches from the examination of thirty-two skulls, male and female; and for the Scottish and Irish, each of 91.2 cubic inches, from an examination of thirty-five skulls. But unfortunately the Davis collection, so rich in other respects, derived its chief English specimens from a phrenological collection; and, along with a few large skulls, contains “many small and poor English examples.”[167] The average weight of the English brain may therefore, as Dr. Davis admits, be assumed to be higher than the mean determined by him. “Still a comparison with actually tested weights of brains shows that there cannot be any material error.” The average brain-weight of twenty-one Englishmen, as given by him, is 50.28 oz., that of thirteen women is 43.13; and of the combined series, 47.50. The results determined by the same process in relation to the other nationalities of Europe are exhibited in detail in Dr. Davis’s tables, printed in the _Philosophical Transactions_.

Such averages are, at best, only approximations to true results; and when obtained, as in Morton’s English race, from a very few examples, or in Davis’s, from exceptional skulls, collected under peculiar circumstances or for a special purpose, they must be tested by other observations. According to Dr. Morton, for example, the mean internal capacity of the English head is 96 cubic inches, while that of the Anglo-American is only 90 cubic inches. Such a conclusion, if established as the result of comparison of a sufficiently large number of well-authenticated skulls, would be of great importance in its bearing on the influence of change of climate, diet, habits, etc., as elements affecting varieties of the human race. But determined as it was in the Morton collection, from five English and seven Anglo-American specimens, it can be regarded as little more than a mere chance result. Ranged nearly in the order of mean internal capacity of skull, the following are the results arrived at, mainly by gauging the skulls in various collections available for such comparisons of different races of mankind. In presenting them here, I avail myself of Dr. Thurnam’s researches, augmenting them with other data subsequently published, including results deduced from Dr. Davis’s minute reports of his own extensive collections, and taking Tiedemann’s capacity of 92.3 for the European skull as 100.

TABLE II

RATIO OF CUBICAL CAPACITY OF SKULLS OF DIFFERENT RACES

────────────────────┬────────────────────┬────────── │ │ Race. │ Authority. │Capacity. │ │ ────────────────────┼────────────────────┼────────── │ │ European │Tiedemann │ 100.0 Asiatic │Davis │ 94.3 African │ „ │ 93.0 American │Tiedemann │ 95.0 „ │Davis │ 94.7 „ │Morton │ 87.0 Oceanic │Davis │ 96.9 Chinese │ „ │ 99.8 Mongol │Morton │ 94.0 „ │Tiedemann │ 93.0 Hindoo │Davis │ 89.4 Malay │Tiedemann │ 89.0 American Indian │Morton │ 91.0 Esquimaux │Davis │ 98.8 Mexican │Morton │ 88.5 Peruvian │Wyman │ 81.2 „ │Morton │ 81.2 Negro │Tiedemann │ 91.0 „ │Peacock │ 88.0 Hottentot │Morton │ 86.0 Javan │Davis │ 94.8 Tasmanian │ „ │ 88.0 Australian │Morton │ 88.0 „ │Davis │ 87.9 │ │ ────────────────────┴────────────────────┴──────────

The tables of Dr. Morton and Dr. Davis furnish materials for drawing comparisons between diverse nations of the great European family; but though they are of value as contributions to the required means for ethnical comparison, they fall far short of determining the average cranial capacity of the different nationalities. Whilst, for example, the tabular data in the _Thesaurus Craniorum_ show a mean internal capacity of 94 cubic inches for the combined Teutonic family, the Finns yield the higher mean capacity of 96.3 cubic inches. Again, Dr. Thurnam found that the results of the weighing of fifty-nine brains of patients at the Friends’ Retreat near York, mostly persons of the middle class of society, yielded weights considerably above those which he subsequently obtained from testing those of pauper patients in Wilts and Somerset. But this has to be estimated along with the undoubted ethnical differences which separate the population of Yorkshire from that of Somerset and Wiltshire. An interesting paper in the West-Riding Asylum Reports gives the results of the determination of 716 brain-weights, rather more than half being males. The average is 48.149 oz. for the male, and 43.872 for the female brain; whereas the average weights of 267 male brains of a similar class of patients in the Wilts County Asylum, as given by Dr. Thurnam, is 46.2 oz., and of 213 female brains, 41.0 oz. The results of the observations carried on by Dr. Boyd at St. Marylebone yield, from 680 male English brains, a mean weight of 47.1 oz., and from 744 female brains a mean weight of 42.3 oz.; whereas Dr. Peacock determined, from 183 cases in the Edinburgh Infirmary, the weight of the male Scottish brain to average 49.7, and that of the female brain to average 44.3 oz. Here the results are determined by so numerous a series that they might be accepted as altogether reliable, were it not that in the former case they are based to a large extent on a purely pauper class; whereas the patients of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh include respectable mechanics and others from many parts of Scotland, among whom education is common. It is not to be doubted, indeed, that a considerable difference in the form and size of the head, and no doubt also in brain-weight, is to be looked for amongst English, Scotch, Irish, German and French men and women, according to the county or province of which they are natives, and the class of society to which they belong.

The comparative ratio of the cubical capacity of the skull, or the average brain-weight, in so far as either is indicative of ethnical differences among members of the European family of nations, has thus to be determined by numerous examples; or dealt with in detail in reference to the different nationalities. Even in single provinces or counties, social position, and probably education, must be taken into account; so that a series of observations on hospital and pauper patients may be expected to fall below the general average; and fallacious comparisons between European peoples may be based on data, correct enough _per se_, but unjust when placed alongside of a different class of results. The great mass of evidence in reference to brain-weight has thus far been mainly derived, in the case of the sane, from one rank of life. A comparison of the results with those derived from the insane of various classes of society shows less discrepancy than might have been anticipated. But there are certain cases of hydrocephalous and other abnormally enlarged brains which have to be rigorously excluded from any estimate of the size or weight of the brain, either as a race-test or as an index of comparative mental power.

Were it possible to select from among the great intellects of all ages an adequate series of representative men, and ascertain their brain-weights, or even the cubical capacity of their skulls, one important step would be gained towards the determination of the relation between size of brain and power of intellect. But we have little other data than such hints as the busts of Æschylus, Pericles, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and other leaders of thought may supply. Malcolm Canmore—Malcolm of the great head, as his name implied,—stands forth with marked individuality from out the shadowy roll of names which figure in early Scottish history. Charlemagne, we should fancy, merited a similar designation. But the portraits of his modern imperial successor, Charles V., show no such loftiness of forehead. Judging from the portraits and busts of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Cromwell, Napoleon, and Scott, their brains must have considerably exceeded the ordinary size. In the report of the _post-mortem_ examination of Scott, the physicians state that “the brain was not large.” But this, no doubt, means relatively to the internal capacity of the skull in its then diseased condition. The intermastoid arch, as already noted, shows a remarkably exceptional magnitude of 19 inches, whereas the average of fifty-eight ancient and modern European skulls, as given in the _Thesaurus Craniorum_, is only 14.60. The portraits of Wordsworth and Byron show an ample forehead; and the popular recognition of the “fair large front” of Milton’s typical man as the index of superior intellect is an induction universally accepted. But, on the other hand, examples of intellectual greatness undoubtedly occur with the brain little, if at all, in excess of the average size. On the discovery of Dante’s remains at Ravenna in 1865, the skull was pronounced to be ample, and exquisite in form. But its actual cubical capacity and estimated brain-weight fall considerably below those of the highest ascertained brain-weights of distinguished men. Again, looking at the casts of the skulls of Robert the Bruce and the poet Burns, the first impression is the comparatively small size of head, and the moderate frontal development in each. Robert Liston, the eminent surgeon, remarked of the former: “The division of the cranium behind the meatus auditorius is large in proportion to that situated before it. The skull is also remarkably wide and capacious in that part, whereas the forehead is rather depressed”;[168] and more recent observers have not hesitated to recognise in it a reversion to the Canstadt type of the primitive European savage. Other characteristics so markedly indicate the elements of physical rather than intellectual vigour, that Liston expressly pointed out the analogy to “the heads of carnivorous animals.” The Bruce was indeed pre-eminently distinguished for courage and deeds of personal prowess; but it was no less by statesmanlike qualities, calm, resolute perseverance, and wise prudence, that he achieved the independence of his country.

George Combe, the phrenologist, to whom the original cast of Burns’s skull was first submitted, thus states the case in reference to the frontal development of the poet: “An unskilful observer looking at the forehead might suppose it to be moderate in size; but when the dimensions of the anterior lobe, in both length and breadth, are attended to, the intellectual organs will be recognised to have been large. The anterior lobe projects so much that it gives an appearance of narrowness to the forehead which is not real.”[169] The actual dimensions of the skull are, longitudinal diameter, 8 inches; parietal diameter, 5.95; and horizontal circumference, 22.25.

In the year 1865 the bones of Italy’s greatest poet, Dante, were submitted to a minute examination under the direction of commissioners appointed by the Italian Government to verify the discovery; and careful measurements were taken of the skull. Dr. H. C. Barlow, describing it from personal observation, says: “The head was finely formed, and the cranium showed, by its ample and exquisite form, that it had held the brain of no ordinary man. It was the most intellectually developed head that I ever remember to have seen. The occipital region was prominently marked, but the frontal was also amply and broadly expanded, and the anterior part of the frontal bone had a vertical direction in relation to the bones of the face” (_Athenæum_, September 9, 1865). But however intellectually developed and exquisite in form the poet’s skull may have appeared, the actual measurements fall short of the amplitude here assigned to it. The dimensions are as follows: Internal capacity, determined by filling the calvarium with grains of rice, 3.1321 lbs. av., or a little over 50 oz.; circumference, 52 cent. 5 mill.; occipito-frontal diameter, 31 cent. 7 mill.; transverse diameter, taken between the ears, 31 cent. 8 mill.; height, 14 cent. If the internal capacity is accepted without any correction, it would yield 57 oz., but if allowance be made, as in the actual weighing of the brain, for the abstraction of the dura mater and fluids, of say 8 per cent, this would reduce it to about 52.5, or nearly the same weight as that of the mathematician, Gauss. Professor Welcker deducts from 11.6 to 14 per cent, according to the size of the skull; Dr. J. B. Davis recommends a uniform deduction of 10 per cent. If we apply the latter rule, it will reduce the estimated weight of Dante’s brain to 51.3 oz.[170]

Another interesting example of the skull of an Italian poet is that of Ugo Foscolo, a cast of which was taken on the transfer of his remains to the Church of Santa Croce at Florence. Though only fifty years old at the time of his death, the skull was marked by “the entire ossification of the coronal, sagittal, and lambdoidal sutures, and that atrophy of the outer table, manifested by a depression on each side in the posterior half of each parietal, leaving an elevated ridge in the middle, in the position of the sagittal, which is but rarely observed except in extremely advanced age.”[171] Sir Henry Holland, who knew the poet intimately, describes him as resembling in temperament the painter Fuseli, “passionately eccentric in social life.” Full of genius and original thought, as the writings of Foscolo show him to have been, he “was fiery and impulsive, almost to the verge of madness.”[172] He died in England in obscurity and neglect; but a regenerated Italy recalled the memory of her lost poet, and transferred his remains to Santa Croce’s consecrated soil. The estimated size of his brain is given as 1426 cubic cents., equivalent to 87 cubic inches internal capacity, which corresponds to a weight of brain of 48.44 oz. The longitudinal diameter is 6.90; the parietal diameter 5.70; the intermastoid arch 15.0; and the horizontal circumference 520 mm., or 20.5 inches. The brain capacity of the poet was thus little more than the European mean deduced by Morton from the miscellaneous examples in his collection.

Dr. J. C. Gustav Lucae, in his _Zur Organischen Formenlehre_, furnishes views and measurements of two other skulls of men of known intellectual capacity. One of these is Johan Jacob Wilhelm Heinse, the author of _Ardinghello_, a work of high character in the elements of æsthetic criticism, though as a romance fit to rank with _Don Juan_ in subjective significance and morality. He wrote another romance entitled _Hildegard_; in addition to numerous articles and translations of Petronius, Tasso, etc., which won for him the high commendation of Goethe, and the more guarded admiration of Wieland. His skull, as figured by Dr. Lucae, shows the frontal suture still open at the age of fifty-three, at which he died. The internal capacity of the skull is stated as 41.4 oz., equivalent to 1173 grms. In this, as in other examples hereafter referred to, Dr. Lucae has gauged the capacity of the skull with peas, and gives the weight in “unzen.” In the results deduced from them here the _unzen_ are assumed to be Prussian ounces, the lb. of 12 oz. equal to 350.78348 grms. As already noted, the determination of the internal capacity of the skull by varying tests, such as pease, rice, and sands of diverse degrees of fineness, leads to uncertain results. In those here deduced from the data furnished by Dr. Lucae, the unzen have been tested by a series of experiments made with a view to correct the error necessarily resulting from the fact that peas do not entirely fill the cavity. The results show that 82.5 grms. of ordinary sized peas occupy the space of 100 grms. of water. Deducting 10 per cent for membranes and fluids, the estimated brain-weight of Heinse is 1379 grms. or 48.7 oz. av. The dimensions of the skull are given thus:—

───────────────┬──────────┬──────────┬────────── │ │ │ │ Height. │ Length. │ Breadth. │ │ │ ───────────────┼──────────┼──────────┼────────── │ │ │ Fore part │ 4.9 │ 4.00 │ 4.1 Middle part │ 4.1 │ 3.11 │ 5.3 Hind part │ 3.9 │ 3.60 │ 4.1 │ │ │ ───────────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────

The other example produced by Dr. Lucae is that of Dr. Christian Heinrich Bünger, Professor of Anatomy in the University of Marburg. In this skull the frontal suture is still more strongly defined at the age of sixty than in that of Heinse. The internal capacity of the skull is stated as 42.8 oz., equivalent to 1213 grms., which, dealt with as above stated, yields 1410 grms. or 49.8 oz. av. Other dimensions of the skull are given as follows:—

───────────────┬──────────┬──────────┬────────── │ │ │ │ Height. │ Length. │ Breadth. │ │ │ ───────────────┼──────────┼──────────┼────────── │ │ │ Fore part │ 4.8 │ 4.1 │ 4.2 Middle part │ 4.9 │ 4.1 │ 5.0 Hind part │ 3.7 │ 3.1 │ 4.1 │ │ │ ───────────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────

The premature ossification of the sagittal suture, by arresting the expansion of the brain laterally, is a frequent source of abnormal elongation of the head. On the other hand the frontal suture, which ordinarily closes in the man-child before birth, though persistent in the lower animals, is occasionally found to remain open in man till maturity, as in the two notable cases here described. Darwin refers to it as a case of arrested development. “This suture,” he says, “occasionally persists, more or less distinctly, in man after maturity, and more frequently in ancient than in recent crania; especially, as Canestrini has observed, in those exhumed from the Drift, and belonging to the brachycephalic type. In this and other instances the cause of ancient races approaching the lower animals in certain characters more frequently than do the modern races, appears to be that the latter stand at a somewhat greater distance in the long line of descent from their early semi-human progenitors.”[173] It may be permissible to express a doubt as to this relative frequency of the occurrence of the frontal suture in ancient and modern races, since the great naturalist does not state it as a result of his own observations. Not only am I led to do so from repeatedly noting its occurrence in modern crania; but its effect can in no way favour arrested development. It must rather admit of the free expansion of the frontal lobes of the brain, the decrease of which in a progressive ratio is characteristic of the orang, chimpanzee, and baboon.