114 MEMOIRS OP THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



We canuot claim rapidity as one of the advantages of the method we describe ; it occupies 

 more time, we fear, than any of the ways in which solid particles are employed ; but time and 

 trouble on the one hand should not be weighed too heavily against exactness and uniformity on 

 the other if it can be shown that this method possesses both of these advantages. If it eliminates 

 the muscular effort, it does not eliminate the personal equation in other respects, for it requires for 

 its proper performance a scrupulous care and a perfect patience. 



One of the most desirable objects to be attained by any system of measurement of the cranial 

 cavity is a comparability of the figures given by different persons in different parts of the world, 

 who have not had the advantage of studying under one master or taking personal instructions 

 in one particular laboratory. When this end is reached our data for generalization will be vastly 

 increased. The advocates of the various methods where solid particles are used do not claim that 

 they secure such universal comparability. Dr. Topinard says : " One must have seen the method 

 practiced that he wishes to follow. One cannot indicate in writing the force that must be put in 

 a tap of the hand or in a blow of the rammer. The forty-eight knocks that Mr. Ranke performs 

 on the platform, with his great measuring glass full, are difficult to repeat with the same effect.* 

 • • * It is not, however, certain that it [the method of Broca] is everywhere well understood 

 and rigorously practiced, and I, for my part, would not dare to unite in one list the figures obtained 

 here and there in its name. Amongst the authors in which I have full confidence in this connec- 

 tion I will quote M. Mantigazza, M. Schmidt, M. Ranke, M. de Torok, M. Merejkowski, and all 

 persons in general who have passed through the Broca laboratory."^ May we claim for the method 

 we describe any higher degree of comprehensibility ? May we hope that craniologists through- 

 out the world can, by the mere perusal of our description, follow our method exactly in all its de- 

 tails and arrive at the same results ? We can only offer conjectures, into which the elements of 

 hope and egotism must enter too largely to render them of any value. We cannot answer these 

 questions until some other students are found who will take the pains to give our method a trial. 

 Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 



W. MATTHEWS, 

 Assistant Surgeon, U. 8. A. 

 Surgeon John S. Billings, U. S. A., 



Curator Army Medical Museum. 



* Op. oit., p. 599. 



t Op. dt., p. (jy. The italics are our own. 



