BRAIN WEIGHTS AND INTELLECTUAL CAPACITY. 245 



Perhaps the most remarkable case in the table of great men's 

 brains is that of Gambetta, who was behind none of his compeers in 

 ability, and yet had the smallest brain of all. The first table of the 

 " Average Weight of the Human Body and Mind," compiled from 

 Dr. Boyd's researches among the sane, which was based on more than 

 two thousand post-mortem examinations, gives 45.9 ounces as the 

 average brain weight of boys from seven to fourteen years of age, 

 and 40.2 ounces as that of boys and 40.1 ounces of girls from four 

 to seven years of age. And this little brain of 40.9 ounces apper- 

 tained to a man, " a lofty, commanding, mental figure, standing out 

 in bold relief from the crowd of mediocrities which he dwarfs and 

 shadows," the embodiment of the French Republic, who steered it 

 through one of its most perilous crises, " the foremost Frenchman of 

 his time," who " established his claim to be placed in the very front 

 rank of European statesmen," and whose untimely death was spoken 

 of as " nothing less than the sudden extinction of a powerful indi- 

 vidual force, one of the most powerful, indeed, of such forces hitherto 

 operating in Europe." 



In illustration of the association of large brains with small minds, 

 we have compiled from various sources of recognized authority a list 

 of one hundred and twenty-five persons of ordinary or weak minds, 

 idiots, imbeciles, and criminals, whose brains were generally larger 

 than those of the distinguished men subjects of the preceding notes. 

 Of these, Rustan, an ignorant and unknown workman, appears with 

 a brain weighing 78.3 ounces; * the dwarfed Indian squaw who fol- 

 lows him, of 73.5 ounces ;f an illiterate and weak-minded man had a 

 brain of 71.3 ounces; % and a congenitally imbecile person cited by 

 Dr. Ireland, with one of 70.5 ounces.* Another imbecile cited by Dr. 

 Ireland had a brain of 63.2 ounces, and the brain of an idiot with a 

 large head, eighteen years old, who had an idiotic sister, weighed 62.8 

 ounces. The brain of the idiot, JSTo. 56 of the men in the table, 

 59.5 ounces, is exceeded in size by those of only five on the list of 

 famous men, while eleven persons recorded as idiots, imbeciles, and 

 children had brains heavier than his. An idiot boy of fourteen years, 

 very malicious, who never spoke, and who nearly killed his sister 

 with a pick, had a brain weight of 57.5 ounces. Thirty men out of 

 three hundred and seventy-five examined in the West Riding Asy- 

 lum gave brain weights of 55 ounces and upward, showing that 

 such weights are not so rare as some have supposed. In another 



* Brain Weight of Man. By Dr. Bischoff. Bonn, Germany, 1880, p. 13V. 



f Authority for this weight is the Medical Army Museum, Washington, D. C. 

 % This brain is kept in and its weight is recorded on the glass jar in the Pathological 

 Museum at Munich, Germany. 



* Idiocy and Imbecility. By Dr. Ireland. London, 1S11, p. *75. 



