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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



been studied and described by numerous travelers. The process com- 

 mences immediately after the birth of the child, and is continued for 

 a period of from eight to twelve months, by which time the head has 

 permanently assumed the required form, although during subsequent 

 growth it may partly regain its proper shape. " It might be sup- 

 posed," observes Mr. Kane, who had large opportunities of watching 

 the process, " that the operation would be attended with great suffer- 

 ing, but I never heard the infants crying or moaning, although I have 

 seen their eyes seemingly starting out of the sockets from the great 

 pressure ; but, on the contrary, when the thongs were loosened and 

 the pads removed, I have noticed them cry until they were replaced. 

 From the apparent dullness of the children while under the pressure, I 

 should imagine that a state of torpor or insensibility is induced, and 

 that the return to consciousness occasioned by its removal must be 

 naturally followed by a sense of pain." 



Nearly, if not all, the different fashions in cranial deformity, ob- 

 served in various parts of the world, are found associated within a 



Fig. 11 Cranium of Kofkeemo Indian, Vancouver Island, deformed by circular constriction 

 and elongation. (Museum of the Iloyal College of Surgeons.) 



very small compass in British Columbia and Washington Territory, 

 each small tribe having often a particular method of its own. Many 

 attempts have been made to classify these various deformities, but as 

 they mostly pass insensibly into one another, and vary according as 

 the intention has been carried out with a greater or less degree of per- 

 severance and skill, it is not easy to do so. Besides the simple oc- 

 cipital and the simple frontal compressions, all the others may be 

 grouped into two principal divisions. First (Figs. 8 and 9), that in 

 which the skull is flattened between boards or other compressors, 

 applied to the forehead and back of the head, and as there is no lateral 



