218 



THE NATTJRAL ITTSTOEY BETIEW. 



marked sub-scaplioid form is likewise not uncommon in tlie liigKer 

 races, tliougli in them it may be supposed usually to originate after 



Fig 2. Tertkal View of the Scaj^Jwcephalic Skull of a 3fan. 



birtli, and not during intra-uterine life. A pathological abnormal form 

 of skull, of less frequent occurrence, but which likewise appears to 

 depend on fusion of the parietals. during the foetal state, or the 

 earliest period of independent life, is the saddle-shaped skull, or 

 klinocephalus. According to Yirchow, this deformity usually arises 

 from ossification of the spheno-parietal sutures. In some cases, 

 however, klinocephalisra, combined w4th prominence of the supra 

 occipital, is developed in skulls in which the spheno-parietal sutures 

 are open, but in which the sagittal is entirely obliterated.* This is 

 the case in the remarkable skull of a Gentoo child, in the Museum 

 of the College of Surgeons (No. 5556). f It may be suggested that 



" There are also intermediate forms between marked scaphocephalus, and the 

 more ordinary forms of (lulichocephahis sf/?iostoticufi, which may owe their rise to a 

 fusion of the sagittal suture in tlie later foetal period, and in earliest childhood." — 

 Zwei seltnere Biffurm. 1863, p. 7. 



* Virchow, after defining the cause of klinocephalus, tells us that *' in an ex- 

 ample in his collection, the fusion of the spheno-parietal sutures is combined with 

 synostosis of the parietal bones, so that a prominence of the occipital scale is added 

 to the usual deformities of klinocephalism." — Ges. Ahliandl. p. 900. 



■j- In the Museum of Anatomy, at Cambridge, is the skull of a Negro of 

 Guinea, aged about 20 years, in which the same combination of klinocephalism 

 with synostosis of the parietals is seen. I am able to say positively, that the 

 spheno-parietal sutures are quite open, and that the sutures in general, with the 

 exception of the sagittal and apex of the lambdoid, are (j[uite as distinct as usual, 

 pei-haps rather more so. In this skull, as in that of the Gentoo, both the parietal 

 foramina arc well marked. The brachycephalous proportions of the fonner, (-86) 



