Anatomical Characters of the Human Brain. 17 



exists. My weighings of the frontal lobe were made in three series 

 and each time I did not know the race or sex of the individual whose 

 brain was being tested until it had been broken and weighed, lucre 

 M-ere 6 white and 6 negTO brains in the first series and the racial 

 difference found in it was very marked, — 41 per cent of frontal lobe 

 in negro brains and 44 per cent in white brains. In the next series 

 of the brains, the white and the negro brains came closer together and 

 in the third series of about 10 brains this difference was lost alto- 

 gether. It is evident, as Schwalbe and Pfitzner^'^ have pointed out, 

 that a percentage to be of any significance must not change as the 

 records increase in number. 



As it is generally believed that the brains of men of genius are 

 of complex configuration, so it is also believed that the brains of 

 lowly races are of a simple and embryonic type. Thus Parker^^ 

 says that the Sylvian fissure in the negro is 5/8 inches (16 mm.) 

 shorter than in the white and the central sulcus is simpler, straighter 

 and less undulated. He also found a negro brain in which there was 

 a complete connection between the fissures of Sylvius and Rolando. 

 He states that the occipital fissures are ape-like with a well marked 

 perpendicular fissure. The negro brain as it presents itself in this 

 country, he says, bears an unmistakably nearer relation to the ape 

 type than does the white, being also more foetal in character. 



To anyone who is familiar with the negro brain the statements 

 of Parker appear to be careless and superficial. His observations 

 upon the length and form of the fissures of Sylvius and Rolando can 

 not be taken seriously in the light of recent studies of these fis- 

 sures, and they strike one rather as an opinion supported by a strong 

 personal prejudice, as are so many of the observations upon the gyri 

 of sulci. Furthermore, other students of the negro brain found no 

 such difference and state that they are practically like the white (see 

 Tiedemann, Luschke and Marshall.) Schwalbe, ^^ who reviews the 

 work of Parker, states expressly that racial differences in the negro 



"Schwalbe and Pfitzner. Morph. Arbeiten, Vol. 3. 



^^Parker, A. J. Cerebral convolvitions of the negro. Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci., 

 Phila., 1878. 

 "Schwalbe. Neurologie, 1881, p. 575. 



