390 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE POSE OF THE BODY AS EELATED TO THE 

 TYPE OF THE CRANIUM AND THE DIREC- 

 TION OF THE VISUAL PLANE.* 



By GEORGE T. STEVENS, M.D.. Ph.D. 



NEW YORK. 



TT is a novel proposition that the position of the head in respect to 

 -*- the body or of the shoulders in reference to the back, that the 

 carriage of the whole body in walking and the attitude of a person in 

 conversation, should be governed in an important measure by the form 

 of the cranium. It will also, doubtless, be regarded as a bold assertion 

 to say that all these positions and attitudes and even the gait of in- 

 dividuals are largely modified, even in many instances controlled, by 

 the normal position of the eyes in respect to the cranium. Yet it is 

 not difficult to show that both these propositions are true and that the 

 truth contained in these statements is not only of importance as a 

 principle in art, but that it is of great practical value from the point 

 of view of the well-being of large classes of persons. 



From the standpoint of art the principle involved in these proposi- 

 tions shows the error of representing individuals who have certain 

 forms of crania in attitudes which, for persons with those special 

 cranial characteristics, would be unnatural and almost absurd. For 

 example, when Thorwaldsen represented Sir Walter Scott with his chin 

 elevated high in the air, he gave to the distinguished author of Waverley 

 a posture of the head which would have been not only painful, but 

 almost impossible for him to have maintained as a characteristic pose. 



From the more practical and more important standpoint it may even 

 be said that, owing to the position of the visual plane in respect to the 

 head, there may be comparative immunity from certain complaints 

 and diseases or a comparative predisposition to those very affections 

 according to the type of the head and the direction of the normal plane 

 of vision. 



In order to facilitate the examination of the topic, it will be neces- 

 sary to define some of the terms and some of the principles- which 

 enter into it. 



The term 'normal plane of vision' will be used, and it should at 

 the outset be understood exactly what is meant by the phrase. 



* An address delivered before the Section of Anthropology of The Amer- 

 ican Association for the Advancement of Science, at its session at Yale Univer- 

 sity, New Haven, December 27th, 1899. 



