1902.] OLIVER— BLINDNESS FROM MALFORMATION OF SKULL. 173 



however, are greater at the base of the skull. There is always a 

 marked tendency to cranial asymmetry, the most pronounced 

 abnormality consisting in a premature ossification of the spheno- 

 basilar bones. In these cases the distance from the glabellar point 

 to the occipital foramen is said by some to be quite short ; by 

 others this shortening is denied. Curiously, such subjects are said 

 to never shed tears. Investigations, however, especially as to the 

 •condition of the secretory apparatus in these cases, should be made 

 before any such dogmatic assertion as this can be hazarded. 



It must be remembered that this communication does not deal 

 with monstrosities such as cyclocephales, in which it is stated there 

 is a circumscribed impairment of development and growth from 

 mechanical pressure, exerted in some instances by the amniotic 

 hood, an increase of intracranial pressure, resulting in rupture of 

 the early cerebral vesicle, or an arrested development of the anterior 

 vesicle as one of the results of anomalies in the amnion. This 

 form of malformation presents several varieties. The first type of 

 a true cyclopic monstere is that exhibiting the rhinocephalic mal- 

 formation. Such an individual is represented by a head containing 

 two more or less completely fused rudimentary eyes in a single orbit, 

 the nose consisting in a proboscis situated above the orbit When 

 there is a complete fusion of the orbital cavities and eyeballs with- 

 out the vestige of a nose or a proboscis, the variety receives the 

 designative term of cyclocephalus. Should the lower part of the 

 face be additionally affected and the integument overlying the im- 

 perfectly developed superior and inferior maxillary bones hang in 

 folds, the condition is known as stomacephalus.^ 



The artificial deformation of the skull of the infant in all manner 

 of fantastical ways, which has been practiced by many tribes 

 throughout the world before even the time of Hippocrates, is inter- 

 esting in the fact that although of necessity the three great portions 

 of the combined visual apparatus — the receiving, the transmitting 

 and the discharging — must in every instance have been more or less 

 pressed upon and distorted, yet probably by reason of the distortion 



1 These type-forms do not strictly include the nose-headed or ethmocephalic 

 form of monster, in which there are two eyes and two orbital cavities, the nose 

 being represented by a proboscis that is provided with either one or two nostrils. 

 Neither do they include the monkey-headed or cebocephalic variety, in which 

 there are two orbital cavities and two eyeballs, but not any nose, the intra- 

 •ocular region being both narrow and flat. 



