MEDICAL AND SURGICAL ASSOCIATION. 31 



dispute between Dr. Milligan and the Phrenologist is the relationship 

 existing between the outer table and subjacent diploe'on the one hand, 

 with the inner or vitreous table,'as it is termed in the passage just quoted, 

 on the other. A genuine specimen of the Phrenological tribe exhibits 

 so much versatility in argument, — such an extraordinary facility 

 in changing the grounds of his position upon all occasions in which 

 THE SCIENCE seems to be in danger, that we really hesitate to place 

 our index upon any one opinion as a certain and indubitable tenet of 

 the sect. We believe, however, that, although every Phrenologist is con- 

 stantly differing from every other, and each one not unfrequently differing 

 from himself, we shall express the general views of the majority of 

 these singularly curious philosophers, when we say that the external table 

 of the skull in the thickness of its own substance, conjoined with the 

 expansion of the subjacent diploe, bears such a relationship to the internal 

 table, as to render it possible to ascertain the configuration of individual 

 portions of brain, by the external configuration of corresponding portions 

 of the exterior table. Now it is here that Dr. Milligan meets the 

 Phrenologist, by shewing that the causes which act in the developement of 

 the external table, and consequently of its irregularities of surface, are 

 alike independent of the brain and of the inner table of the skull ; at 

 the same time, that those which are concerned in the production of the 

 diploe, with its variations in expansion, seem to be, in part at least, 

 equally unconnected either with the brain or with the more solid portions of 

 its bony coverings. " A single glance of the eye," he observes, ** or a 

 touch of the finger, evinces that, in many places where the brain recedes, 

 the outer table projects ; in others, as in the orbit, behind the mastoid 

 process, behind the condyloid process, and behind the foramen magnum, 

 where the outer table recedes, the brain on the contrary projects." — 

 *' As the inner table everywhere adheres closely to the brain, whilst at some 

 points the outer table recedes two inches from it, and in others, approaches 

 within a quarter of a line, it is evidently not modified by the only inter- 

 jacent body, the internal table, so as to bear in its expanded parts any 

 certain or fixed relation to the brain within. Taking these two facts 

 together, they aflford an unanswerable demonstration of the fallacy of the 

 averment, that augmented developements of the external table, correspond 

 to internal developements of the surface of the brain, or of the organs 

 marked thereon, at their pleasure, by writers on phrenology." 



The author's views of the formation of the outer table and its pro- 

 jections are detailed at length in the following passage : — " Considered 

 in relation to the brain, the membranes, the inner table, and the diploe 

 itself, the outer table presents no other definite organization beyond that 

 of an irregular envelope, which is in some places as thin as a wafer, in 

 others thicker than all the rest of the cranium. But, if we view it from 

 without, we find that every particle of its surface is adapted to some 

 purpose which it has to answer in combination with the soft parts with 

 which it is in contact. Many processes are levers for the muscles ; others 

 are merely scabrous surfaces for their insertion ; others are condyles for 

 joints ; others, organs of hearing ; others, organs of fixation ; others, of 

 protection ; and all this in direct reference to the organs in contact, but 

 without the least relation, that can be discovered, to the encephalon. 

 Hence we are forced to conclude that its projections solely originate under 

 the influence, and for the completion of functions that are all external 

 to the cranium ; and the same thing must necessarily be inferred of the 

 external table, which is merely their substratum.'* 



The diploe or intermediate cancellated structure, he considers to be 

 merely a cellular tissue connecting the two tables of the cranium, and 

 chiefly destined to increase the elasticity of the whole. 



