100 



THE GROWTH OF THE BRAIN. 



TABLE 15. SHOWING THE PERCENTAGE OF WEIGHT OF THE 

 SUBDIVISIONS OF THE ENCEPHALON, THE RECORDS BEING 

 GROUPED ACCORDING TO STATURE. BASED ON TABLE 13. 



The constancy of the proportional development has 

 been heretofore insufficiently emphasised, but it is a 

 matter that must be recalled when the significance of 

 variations in the size of the encephalon is later discussed. 



Franceschi 1 is the only investigator who has taken 

 the trouble to study the combined weight of the 

 corpora striata and the thalami-optici. His method of 

 preparing this subdivision was to excise the basal 

 ganglia with the cortex of the insula attached, and 

 then with a scalpel dissect away both the cortex and 

 the white matter of the insula until the grey substance 

 of the ganglia could be seen clearly. The figures here 

 given are condensed from his Table 23. They show 

 a constant difference between the sexes, similarity of 

 the right and left sides, but no decrease with advanced 

 age. 



1 Franceschi, Sul peso dell' Encephalo, &c., Bull. d. Sc. Med di 

 Bologna, 1888. 



