400 Professor Flower [May 7, 



of the head, the most explicit is that of Hippocrates^ who in his treatise, 

 ' De Aeris, Aquis et Locis,' about 400 b.c, says,* speaking of the people 

 near the boundary of Europe and Asia, near the Palus Mceotis (Sea of 

 Azoff) : — " I will pass over the smaller diiferences among the nations, 

 but will now treat of such as are great either from nature or custom ; and 

 first, concerning the Macrocepliali. There is no other race of men which 

 have heads in the least resembling theirs. At first, usage was the 

 principal cause of the length of their head, but now nature co-operates 

 with usage. They think those the most noble who have the longest 

 heads. It is thus with regard to the usage : immediately after the 

 child is born, and while its head is still tender, they fashion it with 

 their hands, and constrain it to assume a lengthened shape by apply- 

 ing bandages and other suitable contrivances, whereby the spherical 

 form of the head is destroyed, and it is made to increase in length. 

 Thus, at first, usage operated, so that this constitution was the result 

 of force ; but in the course of time it was formed naturally, so that 

 usage had nothing to do with it." 



Here, Hippocrates appears to have satisfied himself upon a point 

 which is still discussed with great interest, and still not cleared up 

 — the possibility of transmission by inheritance of artificially produced 

 deformity. Some facts seem to show that such an occurrence may 

 take place occasionally, but there is an immense body of evidence 

 against its being habitual. 



Herodotus also alludes to the same custom, as do, at later dates, 

 Strabo, Pliny, Pomponius Mela, and others, though assigning different 

 localities to the nations or tribes they refer to, and also indicating 

 variations of form in their peculiar cranial characteristics. 



Eecent archaeological discoveries fully bear out these statements. 

 Heads deformed in various fashions, but chiefly of the constricted, elon- 

 gated shape, have been found in great numbers in ancient tombs, in the 

 very region indicated by Herodotus. They have been found near 

 Tiflis, where as many as 150 were discovered at one time, and at other 

 places in the Caucasus, generally in rock tombs ; also in the Crimea, 

 and at different localities along the course of the Danube ; in Hun- 

 gary, Silesia, in the South of Germany, Switzerland, and even in 

 France and Belgium. The peoj)le who have left such undoubted 

 evidence of the practice of deforming their heads have been supposed 

 by various authors to have been Avars, Huns, Tartars, or other 

 Mongolian invaders of Europe ; but later French authors who have 

 discussed this subject are inclined to assign them to an Aryan race, 

 who, under the name of Cimmerians, sj)read westward over the part 

 of Europe in which their remains are now found, in the seventh or 

 eighth century before our era. As the method of deformation in 

 European specimens is not always identical, it is by no means certain 

 that the custom may not have been in use among more than one nation. 

 Whether the French habit, scarcely yet extinct, of tightly bandaging 



* Sydenham Society's edition, by Dr. Adam, vol. i. p. 207. 



