208 STUDY OF BRAINS OF SIX EMINENT SCIENTISTS AND SCHOLARS. 



at the dissection of the body of the late King" in the Lancet of 1702. The following 

 is an extract therefrom : " The Brain was perfectly sound and without any signe of 

 distemper." 



The Brain-weight of Notable Men. 



In former contributions on the subject of brain-weight the writer has tabulated 

 over 100 brain-weights of notable men. The following list contains, in separate tables, 

 the brain-weights of 115 men of note together with 12 such which are either not well 

 authenticated or were not observed under proper conditions. In the case of Helm- 

 holtz, for example, we may only guess at the true figure owing to the extensive cerebral 

 hemorrhage which caused death. An error in transcribing the brain-weight figure for 

 Joseph Leidy probably made the original figure 45^ ounces instead of 54j ounces; as 

 will be seen in the writer's description of Leidy's brain, the higher figure is more likely 

 to approach the true weight. The brains of Harless, Dollinger and Gambetta were not 

 weighed until after preservatives had been used. 



Of the 115 men here tabulated, 7 died insane. Their brain-weights are placed in 

 a separate list and are not included in the recapitulations. 



The actual weight of the brains of each of the individuals in the table has doubt- 

 less been influenced to a varying extent by the conditions and causes of death. These 

 variations must, however, be disregarded here, except to mention that, as a general 

 rule, the figures are rather lower than they should be by reason of atrophy from old 

 age, or from wasting diseases, or both. In a few cases there is ample proof of this 

 diminution of weight, as for example, in that of the phrenologist and anatomist Gall, 

 who died at the age of 70, after a most active career, and whose brain had shrunken 

 considerably, weighing only 1198 gi'ams. The report of the autopsy mentions this 

 atrophy as well as the existence of "four or five ounces of fluid." The skull of Gall 

 had an internal capacity of 1692 cubic centimeters, from which we may fairly infer 

 that the brain must have weighed fully 1500 grams at maturity. Bischoff" for a like 

 reason would raise Tiedemann's 1254 grams to 1422 grams, and von Liebig's 1352 to 

 1450 grams at the least. At the autopsy on von Liebig there was found " considerable 

 fluid under the arachnoid " and that " the brain had already lost much in its nutrition 

 during the last days of life " may be deduced from the fact that it lost in weight very 

 rapidly after immersion in alcohol, namely, 34 per cent, in the first month and 50 per 

 cent, after about six years. Daniel Webster, with a ci'anial capacity of 1995 c.c, prob- 

 ably had a brain weighing 1735 grams, whereas after death it weighed over 200 grams 

 less. Spurzheim, with a skull capacity of 1950 c.c, which would indicate a brain- 

 weight of 1695 grams, had an actual weight of only 1559 grams. The brain of von 

 Pettenkofer, who died at the age of 82, showed. Dr. Bollinger writes, a mild degree of 



