Chapter VIII: Relative Racial Brain-Weight and Size (2)

─────┬────────────────────────────────────┬────────────────────┬────────
│ │ │
Sex. │ Race. │ Authority. │Weight.
│ │ │
─────┼────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────┼────────
│ │ │
M. │African, Mozambique │Peacock │ 43.80
M. │ „ │ „ │ 45.80
M. │ „ Buenos Ayres │ „ │ 44.00
M. │ „ Congo │ „ │ 46.25
M. │ „ │ „ │ 42.80
M. │ „ │Sœmmering │ 45.40
M. │ „ │Tiedemann │ 35.20
M. │ „ Congo │C. Luigi Calori │ 44.40
M. │ „ │Barkow │ 50.80
M. │ „ │ „ │ 45.90
M. │ „ │ „ │ 38.90
M. │ „ │Sir A. Cooper │ 49.00
F. │Hottentot Venus │Marshall │ 31.00
F. │Bushwoman │ „ │ 30.75
F. │ „ │ „ │ 31.50
F. │ „ │ „ │ 31.00
F. │ „ │Flower and Murie │ 38.00
F. │African │Peacock │ 46.00
F. │ „ │ „ │ 41.00
│ │ │
─────┴────────────────────────────────────┴────────────────────┴────────

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.

On the general question of cranial development as an index of cerebral capacity, Professor Welcker assigns a standard, which was accepted by Dr. Thurnam, thus: “Skulls of more than 540 to 550 millimetres in horizontal circumference (the weight of brain belonging to which is 1490 to 1560 grms., or 52.5-55 oz. av.), are to be regarded as exceptionally large. The designation of _kephalones_, proposed by Virchow, might commence from this point. Men with great mental endowments fall, for the most part, under the definition of kephalony. If we consider the relations of capacity, 1800 grms. (63.5 oz.) appears to be the greatest attainable weight of brain within a skull not pathologically enlarged.” But the brain of Cuvier—the heaviest healthy brain yet recorded,—exceeded this. Its weight is stated by Wagner as 1861 grms., or 65.8 oz.; but this M. Broca corrects to 1829.96 grms. Even thus reduced it exceeds the limits assigned by Professor Welcker to the normal healthy brain. But a curious commentary upon this is furnished by the fact that the modern English skull which Dr. Davis selects as presenting the most striking analogy to the Neanderthal skull—“the most ape-like skull which Professor Huxley had ever beheld,”—though marked not only by the prominence of the superciliary ridges, but by great depression of the frontal region, appears to have a cubical capacity equivalent to that of Dr. Abercrombie, whose brain is only surpassed by that of Cuvier among the ascertained brain-weights of distinguished men.[174] Its capacity is 94 oz. of sand, or 113 cubic inches, equivalent—after making the requisite deduction for membranes and fluids,—to a brain-weight of 63 oz.

I have attempted in the following table to reduce to some common standard such imperfect glimpses as are recoverable of the cranial capacity of some distinguished men, of whose actual brain-weights no record exists:—

TABLE III

CRANIAL CAPACITY OF DISTINGUISHED MEN

────────────────────┬────────┬──────────┬───────────────┬─────────────── │ │ │ │ │Length. │ Breadth. │Circumference. │ Estimated │ │ │ │ Brain-Weight. │ │ │ │ ────────────────────┼────────┼──────────┼───────────────┼─────────────── │ │ │ │ Dante │ — │ — │ — │ 51.3 Robert the Bruce │ 7.70 │ 6.25 │ 22.25 │ — Burns │ 8.00 │ 5.95 │ 22.25 │ — Scott (head) │ 9.00 │ 6.40 │ 23.10 │ — Heinse │ — │ 5.30 │ — │ 48.0 Bünger │ — │ 5.00 │ — │ 49.8 Ugo Foscolo │ 6.90 │ 5.70 │ 20.50 │ 48.4 │ │ │ │ ────────────────────┴────────┴──────────┴───────────────┴───────────────

Some of the examples adduced in the above table appear to exhibit instances of mental endowment of high character, without the corresponding degree of cranial, and consequently cerebral development. The following table exhibits recorded examples of a series of actual brain-weights of distinguished men. It seems to lend confirmation to the idea that great manifestation of mental endowment is correlated, in the majority of observed cases, to a brain above the normal average in mass or weight. But even here intellect and brain-weight are not strictly in uniform ratio. Several of the following brain-weights, including that of Tiedemann, are furnished by Wagner, in the _Vorstudien des Menschlichen Gehirns_; but in an elaborate table of brain-weights given in the _Morphologie und physiologie des Menschlichen gehirns als Seelenorgan_, the brain of Byron is classed above all except Cuvier; while Vogt gives the same place, by estimate, to Schiller’s, as next in rank to that of the great naturalist among highly developed brains. Dr. Thurnam states his authorities for others, when producing them in his valuable contribution to the _Journal of Mental Science_ “On the Weight of the Brain.” For that of Webster he refers to “the unsatisfactory article on the brain of Daniel Webster, _Edin. Med. Surg. Journ._, vol. lxxix. p. 355.” Dr. J. C. Nott, in his “Comparative Anatomy of Races” (_Types of Mankind_, p. 453), says: “Dr. Wyman, in his _post-mortem_ examination of the famed Daniel Webster, found the internal capacity of the cranium to be 122 cubic inches, and in a private letter to me, he says: ‘The circumference was measured outside of the integuments before the scalp was removed, and may, perhaps, as there was much emaciation, be a little less than in health.’ It was 23¾ inches in circumference; and the Doctor states that it is well known there are several heads in Boston larger than Webster’s. I have myself, in the last few weeks, measured half a dozen heads as large and larger.” The circumference, it will be seen, exceeds the corresponding measurement of Scott’s head, taken under similar circumstances. But the statement of 122 cubic inches as the internal capacity of Webster’s skull seems open to question. If correct, instead of 53.5 oz. of brain-weight as stated in the following table, it is the equivalent of a brain-weight of fully 65 oz., or one in excess even of that, of Cuvier. The brain-weights of Goodsir, Simpson, and Agassiz, are given in the following table from the reported autopsy in each case:—

TABLE IV

BRAIN-WEIGHTS OF DISTINGUISHED MEN

─────┬────────────────────┬─────────────────────────┬──────┬──────┬──────
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ Age. │Oz. │Grms.
│ │ │ │ │
─────┼────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼──────┼──────┼──────
│ │ │ │ │
1│Cuvier │Naturalist │ 63 │64.5 │ 1830
2│Byron │Poet │ 36 │63.5? │ 1799
3│Abercrombie │Philosopher, Physician │ 64 │63. │ 1785
4│Schiller │Poet │ 46 │63.? │ 1785
5│Goodsir │Anatomist │ 53 │57.55 │ 1629
6│George Brown │Statesman (Canadian) │ 61 │56.3 │ 1595
7│Harrison │Chief Justice │ 45 │56. │ 1586
8│Spurzheim │Phrenologist, Physician │ 56 │55.06 │ 1575
9│Simpson │Physician, Archæologist │ 59 │54. │ 1530
10│Dirichlet │Mathematician │ 54 │53.6 │ 1520
11│De Morny │Statesman │ 50 │53.6 │ 1520
12│Napoleon I. │General, Statesman │ 52 │53.5 │ 1516
13│Daniel Webster │Statesman │ 70 │53.5 │ 1516
14│Campbell │Lord Chancellor │ 80 │53.5 │ 1516
15│Agassiz │Naturalist │ 66 │53.4 │ 1512
16│Chalmers │Author, Preacher │ 67 │53. │ 1502
17│Fuchs │Pathologist │ 52 │52.9 │ 1499
18│De Morgan │Mathematician │ 73 │52.7 │ 1493
19│Gauss │Mathematician │ 78 │52.6 │ 1492
20│Broca │Anthropologist │ — │52.5 │ 1488
21│Dupuytren │Surgeon │ 58 │50.7 │ 1436
22│Grote │Historian │ 76 │49.75 │ 1410
23│Whewell │Philosopher │ 71 │49. │ 1390
24│Hermann │Philologist │ 51 │47.9 │ 1358
25│Tiedemann │Physiologist │ 80 │44.2 │ 1254
26│Hausmann │Mineralogist │ 77 │43.2 │ 1226
│ │ │ │ │
─────┴────────────────────┴─────────────────────────┴──────┴──────┴──────

Dr. Thurnam, in producing fifteen of the above examples, remarks: “Altogether, they decidedly confirm the generally received view of the connection between size of brain and mental power and intelligence”; and he adds his conviction that if the examination of the brain in the upper ranks of society, and in men whose mental endowments are well known, were more generally available, further confirmation would be given to this conclusion. The converse, at least, is certain, that no great intelligence or unwonted mental power is possible with a brain much below the average in mass and weight But while the above list exhibits a series of exceptionally high brain-weights of distinguished men, the relative weights in some cases—as in Napoleon—are calculated to excite surprise if viewed as an index of comparative intellectual capacity. On the other hand, those lowest in the scale, and below the mean weight, include men of undoubted eminence in letters and science; while the proofs are no less unquestionable that a large healthy brain is not invariably the organ of unwonted intelligence or mental activity.

In the _Philosophical Transactions_ of 1861, Dr. Boyd published an elaborate series of researches illustrative of the weight of various organs of the human body, including the weights of two thousand brains. Most of the healthy brains are those of patients in the St. Marylebone Infirmary, and have already been referred to as necessarily representing the indigent and uneducated classes of London. Here, therefore, if an unusually large brain is the index of intellectual power, every probability was against the occurrence of brains above the average size or weight. But the results by no means confirm this assumption. Among the patients in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, in like manner, though including the better class of artizans and others from country districts, we might still look for a confirmation of M. Broca’s assumption, based on extensive observations of French crania, “that, other things being equal, whether as the result of education, or by hereditary transmission, the volume of the skull, and consequently of the brain, is greater in the higher than in the lower classes.” But Dr. Peacock’s tables include four brain-weights, three of them of a sailor, a printer, and a tailor, respectively, ranging from 61 to 62.75 oz.; and so surpassing all but two, or at the most three, of the heaviest ascertained brain-weights of distinguished men. Tried by the posthumous test of internal capacity, three skulls of nameless Frenchmen, derived from the common cemeteries of Paris, in like manner showed brains equalling in size that of Cuvier. The following are the maximum brain-weights among the St. Marylebone patients apparently unaffected by cerebral disease:—

TABLE V

MAXIMUM BRAIN-WEIGHTS—ST. MARYLEBONE

───────────────┰─────────────────────┰─────────────────────
┃ ┃
AGE. ┃ MALE. ┃ FEMALE.
┃ Oz. Grms. ┃ Oz. Grms.
┃ ┃
───────────────╂─────────────────────╂─────────────────────
┃ ┃
7-14 ┃ 57.25 1622 ┃ 52.00 1473
14-20 ┃ 58.50 1658 ┃ 52.00 1473
20-30 ┃ 57.00 1615 ┃ 55.25 1565
30-40 ┃ 60.75 1721 ┃ 53.00 1502
40-50 ┃ 60.00 1700 ┃ 52.50 1488
50-60 ┃ 59.00 1672 ┃ 52.50 1488
60-70 ┃ 59.50 1686 ┃ 54.00 1530
70-80 ┃ 55.25 1565 ┃ 49.50 1403
80 ┃ 53.75 1523 ┃ 48.00 1360
All Ages. ┃ ┃
7-80 ┃ 60.75 1721 ┃ 55.25 1565
┃ ┃
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The stature, or relative size of body, has already been referred to as an element in testing the comparative male and female weight of brain; and it is one which ought not to be overlooked in estimating the comparative size and weight of the brains of distinguished men. From my own recollections of Dr. Chalmers, who was of moderate stature, his head appeared proportionally large. The same was noticeable in the cases of Lord Jeffrey, Lord Macaulay, Sir James Y. Simpson, and very markedly so in that of De Quincey. The philosopher Kant was also of small stature; and Dr. Thurnam refers to the observation of Carus that he had a head not absolutely large, though, in proportion to the small and puny body of that eminent thinker, it was of remarkable size. Among the large-brained artizans of the Marylebone Infirmary, on the contrary, the probabilities are in favour of a majority of them being men of full muscular development and ample stature. Nevertheless, with every allowance for this, it still remains probable, if not demonstrable, that from the same humble and unnoted class, examples of megalocephaly could be selected little short in cerebral mass, and apparently in brain-weight, of the group of men whose large brains are recognised as the concomitants of exceptionally great mental capacity and intellectual vigour. Unless, therefore, we are contented to accept the poet’s dictum, “Their lot forbad,”[175] and assume that “chill penury repressed their noble rage, and froze the genial current of the soul,” it is manifest that other elements besides those of volume or weight are essential as cerebral indices of mental power. Dr. Thurnam, after noting examples that had come under his own notice of brain-weights above the medium—but which, as those of insane patients, may be assigned to other causes than healthy cerebral development,—adds: “The heaviest brain weighed by me (62 oz., or 1760 grms.) was that of an uneducated butcher, who was just able to read, and who died suddenly of epilepsy, combined with mania, after about a year’s illness. The head was large, but well-formed; the brain of normal consistence; the _puncta vasculosa_ numerous.” In cases like this, of weighty brain with no corresponding manifestation of intellectual power, something else was wanting besides an ampler sphere. The mere position of a humble artizan or labourer will not suffice to mar the capacity to “make by force his merit known,” which pertains to the “divinely gifted man.”

Arkwright, Franklin, Watt, Stephenson, Farraday, Hugh Miller, and others of the like type of self-made men, are not rare. Among the large-brained artizans, scarcely one can have had a more limited sphere for the exercise of mental vigour than the poet Burns, the child of poverty and toil, who refers to his own early years as passed in “the unceasing moil of a galley-slave.” In his case the very means essential to a healthy physical development were stinted at the most critical period of life. His brother Gilbert says: “We lived sparingly. For several years butcher’s meat was a stranger to the house; while all exerted themselves to the utmost of their strength, and rather beyond it, in the labours of the farm. My brother, at the age of thirteen, assisted in thrashing the crop of corn, and at fifteen was the principal labourer on the farm.” Such premature toil and privations left their permanent stamp on his frame. “Externally, the consequences appeared in a stoop of the shoulders, which never left him; but internally, in the more serious form of mental depression, attended by a nervous disorder which affected the movements of the heart.” He had only exchanged the toil on his father’s farm for equally unremitting labour on his own, when the finest of his poems were written; nor would it be inconsistent with all the facts to assume that the privations of his early life diminished his capacity for continuous mental activity; as it undoubtedly impaired his physical constitution. But, while the possession of a brain much above the average in size might have seemed to account for his triumph over the depressing influences of his limited sphere, the fact that his brain appears to have been below the average size, points to some other requisite than mere cerebral mass as essential to intellectual vigour.

The brain is influenced in all its functions by the character and the amount of blood circulating through it, and promptly manifests the effects of any deleterious substance, such as alcohol or opium, introduced into its tissues. It depends, like other portions of the nervous system, on an adequate supply of nourishment. In both respects the brain of the Ayrshire poet was injuriously affected, in so far as we may infer from all the known circumstances of his life.

The human brain is large in proportion to the body in infancy and youth; and the opinions of leading anatomists and physiologists early in the present century favoured the idea that it attained its full size within a few years after birth. Professor Sœmmering assumed this to take place so early as the third year. Sir William Hamilton explicitly stated his conclusion thus: “In man the encephalon reaches its full size about seven years of age”; and Tiedemann assigns the eighth year as that in which it attains its greatest development. But the more accurate and extended observations since carried on rather tend to the conclusion that the brain not only goes on increasing in size and weight to a much later period of life; but that it is healthfully stimulated by habitual activity, and under exceptionally favouring circumstances it may increase in weight long after the body has attained its maximum.

The largest average brain-weights, as determined by observations on the brains of upwards of 2000 men and women in different countries of Europe, have indeed been found in those not above twenty years of age; and from a nearly equal number of English examples, Dr. Boyd determines the period of greatest average weight to be the interval between fourteen and twenty years of age; but this includes cases in which death has ensued from undue or premature brain development.

Other evidence leaves no room for doubt that cases are not rare of the growth, or increased density of the brain up to middle age; while the observations of Professor Welcker indicate this process extended to a later period of life. The average brain-weights, as given by Boyd, Peacock, and Broca, from healthy or sane cases, along with those of Welcker, include the weights of 47 male brains from ten to twenty years of age, giving an average of 49.6 oz., or 1405 grms.; and of 112 male brains from twenty to thirty years of age, giving an average of 48.9 oz., or 1384 grms.; and the results of a nearly equal number of female brains closely approximate. They embrace English, Scotch, German, and French, men and women. Dr. Welcker’s results indicate the period of maximum brain-weight to be between 30-40, as shown in the following table:—

TABLE VI

AVERAGE WEIGHT OF THE BRAIN AT DIFFERENT AGES

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AGE. ┃ MALE. ┃ FEMALE.
┃ Oz. Av. Grms. ┃ Oz. Av. Grms.
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From 10-20 ┃ 47.5 1346 ┃ 43.1 1221
20-30 ┃ 49.5 1404 ┃ 44.1 1251
30-40 ┃ 49.5 1404 ┃ 44.8 1272
40-50 ┃ 48.6 1379 ┃ 43.5 1234
50-60 ┃ 48.1 1365 ┃ 43.5 1234
60-70 ┃ 46.1 1306 ┃ 42.8 1213
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In the female examples, amounting to thirty-one between seventy and eighty years of age, and six between eighty and ninety, the continuous diminution of brain-weight corresponds with the increasing age; but in the male examples, sixty-five cases between sixty and seventy years of age yield an average brain-weight of 46.1 oz., while twenty-seven cases between seventy and eighty years of age give 47.9 as the average; falling in the next decade to 43.8.

It may be inferred from the number of cases pointing to an early attainment of the highest average brain-weight, not that the brain differs from all other internal organs of the human body in attaining its maximum before the period of puberty; but that physical as well as mental vigour are dependent on the maintenance of a nice equilibrium between the brain and the other organs while in process of development. The observations of Dr. Boyd, including the results of 2614 _post-mortem_ examinations of sane and insane patients of all ages, showed that the average weight of the brain of “still-born” children at the full period was much greater than that of the new-born living child. It is a legitimate inference, therefore, that death in the former cases was traceable to an excessive premature development of the brain. Again, when it is shown from numerous cases that the highest average weights of brain in both sexes occur not later than twenty years of age, it appears a more legitimate inference to trace to exceptional cerebral development towards the period of adolescence, the mortality which rendered available so many examples of unusually large or heavy brains, than to assume that the normal healthy brain begins to diminish at that age.

It is a fact familiar to popular observation that a large head in youth is apt to be unfavourable to life. A tendency to epilepsy appears to be the frequent concomitant of an unusually large brain; and with the congestion accompanying its abnormal condition, this may account for the weights of such diseased brains as have been repeatedly found in excess of nearly all the recorded examples of megalocephaly in the cases of distinguished men. But a greater interest attaches to a remarkable example of healthy megalocephaly recorded in the _British Medical Journal_ for 1872. The case was that of a boy thirteen years of age, who died in Middlesex Hospital from injuries caused by a fall from an omnibus. His brain was found to weigh 58 oz. He had been a particularly healthy lad, without any evidence of rachitis, and very intelligent. This is a strikingly exceptional case of a healthy brain, at the age of thirteen, exceeding in weight all but two of the greatest ascertained brain-weights of distinguished men.

From the evidence already adduced of relative cubical capacity of the skulls of different races, it appears, as was to be expected, that there is a greater prevalence of the amply-developed brain among the higher and more civilised races. But all averages are apt to be deceptive; and the progressive scale from the smallest up to the greatest mass of brain is by no means in the precise ratio of an intellectual scale of progression. The results of Dr. J. B. Davis’s investigations, based on the study of a large, and in many cases a seemingly adequate number of skulls, bring out this remarkable fact, that, so far from the Polynesians occupying a rank in the lowest scale, as affirmed by Professor Vogt, the Oceanic races of the Pacific generally rank in internal capacity of skull, and consequent size of brain, next to the European.

But it is of more importance for our present inquiry to note that, as exceptionally large and heavy brains occur among the most civilised races, in some cases—and in some only—accompanied with corresponding manifestations of unusual intellectual power; so also it becomes apparent that skulls much exceeding the average, and some of remarkable internal capacity, are met with among barbarian races, and even among some of the lowest savages. Taking the crania in the elaborate series of tables in Dr. J. B. Davis’s _Thesaurus Craniorum_, with an internal capacity above 100 cubic inches, they will rank in order as follows:—

Chinese 111.8
Maduran 110.6
Marquesan 110.6
Kanaka 108.8
Javan 107.
Negro 105.8
Australian 104.5
Kafir 104.5
Bakele 103.3
Tidorese 103.3
Bhotia 102.7
Bodo 100.9
Hindoo 100.9
Sumatra 100.9

Among the European series the largest is an Irish cranium of 121.6 cubic inches, and next to it comes an Italian, 114.3, and an Englishman, 112.4; an ancient Briton from a Yorkshire Long Barrow, 109.4; an ancient Roman, 106.4; a Lapp, 105.8; an ancient Gaul, 103.7; a Briton of Roman times, 103.3; a Merovingian Frank, 101.5; and an Anglo-Saxon, 100.9. Those and other examples of the like kind are full of interest as showing the recurrence of megalocephalic variations from the common cranial and cerebral standard among ancient races; and among rudest savages as well as among the most cultivated classes of modern civilised nations. But the order shown in the above instances is derived from purely exceptional examples, and is no key to the relative capacity of the races named.

Opportunities for testing the size and weight of the brain among barbarous races are only rarely accessible to those who are qualified to avail themselves of them for the purposes of science. Some near approximation to the relative brain-weight of the English, Scotch, German, and French, may now be assumed to have been established. Dr. Thurnam instituted a comparison between those and two of the prehistoric races of Britain—the Dolichocephali of the Long Barrows, and the Brachycephali of the Round Barrows of England.[176] The results are curious, as showing not only a greater capacity in the ancient British skulls than the average modern German, French, or English head; but an actual average higher than that of all but five of the most distinguished men of Europe, whose brain-weights have been recorded. On comparing the ancient skulls with those of modern Europeans, as determined by gauging the capacity of both by the same process, the following are the results presented, according to the authorities named:—

TABLE VII

───────────────────────┬──────────┬──────────┬────────┬──────────┬──────── │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │Capacity. │ Brain- SKULLS OF MEN. │ No. │ Weight │ Cubic │ Centi- │ weight │ │ of Sand. │ In. │ metres. │oz. av. │ │ │ │ │ ───────────────────────┼──────────┼──────────┼────────┼──────────┼──────── │ │ │ │ │ Anc. British, L. │ 18 │ 82 │ 99 │ 1622 │ 54.0 Barrows │ │ │ │ │ Anc. British, R. │ 18 │ 80½ │ 98 │ 1605 │ 53.5 Barrows │ │ │ │ │ Mod. English, _Morton_ │ 28 │ 77 │ 94 │ 1540 │ 52.2 Mod. French, _Broca_ │ 357 │ 74 │ 91 │ 1502 │ 50.6 Mod. German, _Welcker_ │ 30 │ 72 │ 88 │ 1450 │ 49.0 │ │ │ │ │ ───────────────────────┴──────────┴──────────┴────────┴──────────┴────────

The highest average of any nationality, as determined by Drs. Reid and Peacock from the weighing of 157 brains of male patients, chiefly Scottish Lowlanders, in the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, is little more than 50 oz., or 1417 grammes; whereas the estimated average brain-weight in the ancient British skulls is 54 oz. for the Dolichocephali of the Long Barrows, which equals that of Sir James Simpson, and exceeds all but six of the most distinguished men adduced in Table IV. For the Brachycephali of the Round Barrows it is 53.5 oz., which is in excess of the brain-weights of Agassiz, Chalmers, Whewell, and other distinguished men, and exactly accords with that of Daniel Webster and Lord Chancellor Campbell. In so far, moreover, as this illustrates the cerebral capacity of ancient races, it is in each case an average obtained by gauging eighteen skulls, and not the cranial capacity of one or two exceptionally large ones. Dr. Thurnam does indeed suggest that the Barrows may have been the sepulchres of chiefs; nor is this unlikely; but the superior vigour and mental endowment which this implies fails to account for a cerebral capacity surpassing all but the most distinguished men of science and letters in modern Europe referred to in the above table. Rather may we conclude from this, as from other evidence, that quality of brain may, within certain limits, be of more significance than mere quantity; and that brains of the same volume, and agreeing in weight, may greatly differ in minute structure and in powers of cerebration.

In the case of the ancient British Barrow-Builders we seem to have large heads and remarkable development of brain, without any indications of an equivalent in intellectual power; and although the estimated brain-weight derived from gauging the capacity of the empty chamber of the skull proceeds on the assumption of mass and weight agreeing, sufficient data exist to justify the adoption of this for approximate results. The average weight of brain of twelve male Negroes of undetermined tribes, deduced from gauging their skulls, has been ascertained to amount to 1255 grammes, or 44.3 oz. The actual weight of brain of the Negro of Guinea, described by Professor Calori, was 1260 grammes; and other examples vary considerably from the average. Mascagni gives 1458 grammes as the weight of one Negro brain weighed by him; equivalent to an actual brain-weight of 51.5 oz., which is greater than that of Dupuytren, Whewell, Hermann, Tiedemann, or Grote. Nevertheless, although the extremes are great, and are confirmed by a like diversity in measurements of the horizontal circumference and of internal capacity, the average result given above appears to be a fair and reliable one.

Thus far the inquiry into data illustrative of comparative size and weight of brain has dealt chiefly with the races of the eastern hemisphere. The compass is great in point of time in so far as it embraces savage and civilised peoples, including the barbarians of Europe’s Palæolithic era, along with modern tribes of Asia, Africa, and Australia, and some of the most notable among the prehistoric races of the British Isles. The compass is equally great in the range of intellectual development, when to those are added data illustrative of the average brain-weight of some of the leading nations of modern Europe, and a series of examples derived from noted instances of the highest exceptional types of intellectual power and activity in recent times. Some general conclusions of a comprehensive kind seem to follow legitimately from this evidence. Notwithstanding the prominence given to the assumed evidence of a low type of skull, depressed forehead, and poor frontal development, in the assumed primitive European Canstadt race, when we keep in view the enormous interval of time assumed to separate “those savages who peopled Europe in the Palæolithic age” from our own era, the amount of difference in size and apparent brain-weight is not remarkable. Compared with those of contemporary savage races it suggests no more than the accompanying development of the brain in a ratio with the intellectual activities of progressive civilisation, and even then the relative brain-mass of the lowest type is suggestive of latent powers only needing development. But the old and later races of the New World stand in a different relation to each other; and the process thus far employed when applied to determine the comparative cranial capacities of the native American races, discloses results of a different character, and widely at variance with those above described relating to the ancient races of Britain. On the continent of America the native ethnical scale embraces a comparatively narrow range, and any intrusive elements are sufficiently recent to be easily eliminated. The Patagonian and the Fuegian rank alongside of the Bushman, the Andaman Islander, or the Australian, as among the lowest types of humanity; while the Aztecs, Mayas, Quichuas, and Aymaras, attained to the highest scale which has been reached independently by any native American race. We owe to the zealous and indefatigable labours of Dr. Morton, alike in the formation of his great collection of human crania, and in the published results embodied in the _Crania Americana_, a large amount of knowledge derived from this class of evidence in reference to the races of the New World. In one respect, at least, those results stand out in striking contrast to the large-headed barbarian Barrow-Builders of ancient Britain. Dr. Morton subdivides the American races into the Toltecan race, embracing the semi-civilised communities of Mexico, Bogota, and Peru, and the barbarous tribes scattered over the continent from the Arctic circle to Tierra del Fuego. His latest views are embodied in a contribution to Schoolcraft’s _History of the Indian Tribes of the United States_, entitled “The Physical Type of the American Indians.” In treating of the volume of brain, he draws special attention to the Peruvian skulls, 201 in number, obtained for him from the cemeteries of Pisco, Pachacamac, and Arica. “Herera informs us that Pachacamac was sacred to priests, nobles, and other persons of distinction; and there is ample evidence that Arica and Pisco, though free to all classes, were among the most favoured cemeteries of Peru.” Dr. Morton accordingly adds: “It is of some importance to the present inquiry, that nearly one-half of this series of Peruvian crania was obtained at Pachacamac; whence the inference that they belonged to the most intellectual and cultivated portion of the Peruvian nation; for in Peru learning of every kind was an exclusive privilege of the ruling caste.” In reality, however, later additions to our knowledge of the physical characteristics of the ancient Peruvians tend to confirm the idea of the existence of two distinct races: a patrician order occupying a position analogous to the Franks of Gaul or the Normans of England, though more aptly to be compared to the Brahmins of India; and a more numerous class, constituting the labouring and industrial orders of the community, abundantly represented in the Pacific coast tribes of Peru, the cemeteries of which have furnished the larger number of crania to European and American collections.