246 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



asylum in England one out of every dozen brains examined showed 

 a weight of 55 ounces or more. 



In Nachrichten, of Gottingen, 1860, pp. 70-71, Dr. Rudolph 

 "Wagner gave a table of thirty-two persons whose brains he ex- 

 amined, among whom were five distinguished men; but the largest 

 brain weight recorded in it, 55.9 ounces, has opposite to it the legend, 

 " Idiotic grown man." 



To this list we might have added a large number of persons whose 

 brains weighed less than 53 ounces. Yet the brains of Daniel Web- 

 ster, Agassiz, Xapoleon I, Lord Byron, Baron Dupuytren, General 

 Skoboleff, and other famous men concerning whose large brains 

 much has been said, weighed less than this; and we might have 

 appended hundreds of brain weights of idiots, imbeciles, and other 

 insignificant persons, from 53 ounces down to 49 ounces — probably 

 about the average weight in central Europe. In support of our con- 

 tention is, further, an observation by Dr. Rudolph Wagner in 

 Nachrichten, February 29, 1860, pp. 71, 72, that " very intelligent 

 men certainly do not differ strikingly in brain weight from less 

 gifted men." 



Dr. Clendenning presents in the Croonian Lectures the following 

 entries of brain weights of male subjects of different ages, the tend- 

 ency of which is to show that the male encephalon loses, after it is 

 grown, more than an ounce every ten years: 



15 to 30 years 50.75 ounces. 



30 to 50 " 49.66 " 



50to 70 " 47.1 



70tol00 " 41.5 " 



A number of other eminent anatomists have given similar evi- 

 dence of decrease in brain weight as intellectual power increases. 



The "Professor at the Breakfast Table," the late Dr. O. W. 

 Holmes, a learned man and experienced physician and professor of 

 anatomy in Harvard University for thirty-five years, says : " The 

 walls of the head are double, with a great chamber of air between 

 them, over the smallest and most crowded organs. Can you tell 

 me how much money there is in a safe, which also has thick walls, by 

 kneading the knobs with your fingers? So, when a man fumbles 

 about my forehead, and talks about the organs of individuality, size, 

 etc., I trust him as much as I should if he felt over the outside of 

 my strong box, and told me that there was a five-dollar or a ten- 

 dollar bill under this or that rivet. Perhaps there is, only he doesn't 

 know anything about it. We will add that, even if he knows the 

 inward dimensions of the strong box, he could not thence determine 

 the amount of cash deposited in it." 



The internal size of Spurzheim's skull was in cubic inches exactly 



