FASHION IN DEFORMITY 



73 1 



mon is it in the neighborhood of Toulouse, that a special form of head 

 produced in this manner is known as the " deformation Toulousaine." 

 Of the ancient notices of the custom of purposely altering the form 

 of the head, the most explicit is that of Hippocrates, who in his trea- 

 tise, "De Aeris, Aquis et Locis," about 400 b. c, says,* speaking of 

 the people near the boundary of Europe and Asia, near the Palus 

 Moeotis (Sea of Azov) : "I will pass over the smaller differences 

 among the nations, but will now treat of such as are great either from 

 nature or custom ; and first, concerning the Macrocephali. There is 

 no other race of men which have heads in the least resembling theirs. 

 At first, usage was the principal cause of the length of their head, but 

 now Nature cooperates with usage. They think those the most noble 

 who have the longest heads. It is thus with regard to the usage : im- 

 mediately after the child is born, and while its head is still tender, 

 they fashion it with their hands, and constrain it to assume a length- 

 ened shape by applying bandages and other suitable contrivances, 

 whereby the spherical form of the head is destroyed, and it is made to 

 increase in length. Thus, at first, usage operated, so that this consti- 

 tution was the result of force ; but in the course of time it was formed 

 naturally, so that usage had nothing to do with it." 



B 



Fig. 7. Skulls artificially deformed according to Similar Fashions : A, from an 

 ancient tomb at Tiflis ; B, from Titicaca, Pern. (From specimens in the Museum of the 

 Koyal College of Surgeons.) C, from the Island of Maliicollo, New Hebrides. 



Here Hippocrates appears to have satisfied himself upon a point 

 which is still discussed with great interest, and still not cleared up^- 

 the possibility of transmission by inheritance of artificially produced 

 deformity. Some facts seem to show that such an occurrence may 

 take place occasionally, but there is an immense body of evidence 

 against its being habitual. 



Herodotus also alludes to the same custom, as do, at later dates, 

 Strabo, Pliny, Pomponius Mela, and others, though assigning differ- 

 ent localities to the nations or tribes they refer to, and also indicating 

 variations of form in their peculiar cranial characteristics. 



Recent archaeological discoveries fully bear out these statements. 

 Heads deformed in various fashions, but chiefly of the constricted, 



* Sydenham Society's edition, by Dr. Adam, vol. i., p. 207. 



