BRAIN WEIGHTS AND INTELLECTUAL CAPACITY. 243 

 BRAIN WEIGHTS AND INTELLECTUAL CAPACITY. 



By JOSEPH SIMMS, M. D. 



HAVING been for thirty years a lecturer 011 man and his char- 

 acter as evinced by his form, features, head, and gestures, and 

 having made observations on the subject in all parts of North Amer- 

 ica, in continental Europe and Great Britain, and parts of Asia, 

 Africa, and Australia, I should not be deemed presumptuous when I 

 present a few facts regarding the relations of mind and the size and 

 forms of heads and weights of brains. It has been observed by many 

 persons versed in the branches relating to the subject that men with 

 the largest brains are not those of most talent, power, or intellect; but 

 many such have been only ordinary or inferior men, or even idiots; 

 while some men of most powerful and comprehensive minds have 

 had unusually small brains. Esquirol's assertion that no size or form 

 of head or brain is incident to idiocy or to superior talent is borne 

 out by my observations. 



After long and careful research in the great libraries and mu- 

 seums of the world, I have collected a table of brain weights of 

 eminent men, along with which are entered, in my original docu- 

 ment, the occupation of the subject, age at the time of determination, 

 and the source whence the item is derived. These can not be given 

 within the limits of this article, and only the briefest and most gen- 

 eralized summary of the main features can be indicated. The largest 

 weight of brain in the whole list is that of the Russian novelist Tur- 

 genieff, whose brain weighed, at the time of his death, at sixty-five 

 years of age, 71 ounces.* It is a considerable step from him to the 

 next in order, the English mechanician and author, Knight, whose 

 brain weight at the age of fifty-eight was 64 ounces. Then follow 

 the Scottish physician Abercrombie, 63 ounces; General B. F. But- 

 ler, 62 ounces; and the Scottish general Abercromby, 62 ounces. 

 Another group of nine, including weights from 58.6 ounces to 54 

 ounces, includes Jeffrey, Scottish judge and author, Thackeray, 

 Cuvier, George Combe, United States Senator Atherton, Spurzheim, 

 and the Scottish physician Simpson. The next group, 53.6 to 50, 

 is larger, including twenty-one names, among which are Daniel 

 Webster, Agassiz, Napoleon I, the Scottish divine Chalmers, the 

 mathematicians De Morgan and Gauss, the anthropologist Broca, 

 and the generals Skoboleff and Lamarque. The last group, 49.9 

 to 40 ounces, contains twenty-five names, including those of the 

 philosopher Huber, Grote, Babbage, the anthropologist Bertillon, 



* Medical Times and Gazette, Loudon, England, November 1*7, 18S3. 



