Anatomical Characters of the Human Brain. 21 



is present in all Egyptians brains^^ and later he found it present 

 in negro, Syrian, Turkish and Greek brains and with a study of 

 literature he concluded that it is a normal feature of the adult human 

 brain. It would have been easy for Smith to draw a wrong conclusion 

 regarding this sulcus, for he began his study of it with the Egyptian 

 brain ; however, he did not end there. 



It may also be noted that Parker states that he found a negro 

 brain with a gyrus cunei on the surface as is the case in the simian 

 brain. Since Parker gives no illustrations it is difficult to ascertain 

 whether or not he saw only an annectent gyrus partly on the surface, 

 as described and pictured in Quain's Anatomy. ^^ This latter con- 

 dition I have also observed in both negro and white brains. Until 

 it is thoroughly investigated in a large number of specimens its 

 meaning still remains an open question. Probably it will faU, as do 

 other anatomical peculiarities of the negro when they are fully 

 investigated. 



I wish to add a remark regarding the anatomy of the negro. One 

 is often led to believe^^ that there are more anatomical anomalies 

 in the negro than in the European body. I have now had considerable 

 experience in the dissection of the negro and have yet to observe 

 that variations are more common in the negro than in the white. 

 In fact it seems as if excessive development of facial muscles and 

 other variations is more common in the white, but until a large 

 number of statistics are collected no definite statement can be made. 

 However, we have made many thousands of records of nerve varia- 

 tions and find in them no racial peculiarities.^® The misleading 

 statements are based upon a few dissections of negroes in which the 

 variations found are given as peculiarities of the race. An equal 



^'^Smith. Anat. Anz., XXIV, p. 216. 



"Quain's Anatomy, Tenth Edition, Vol. 3, p. 144 and Fig. 102. 



'^For example, Duckworth. Morphology and Anthropology, 1904. 



^'^In tabulating these nerves Bardeen and Elting (Anat. Anz., XIX, 1901, 

 p. 132) say that race seems to play no very marked part as a cause in the 

 number or kind of variations (see also Anat. Anz., XIX, p. 217). In his later 

 and more extensive publication Bardeen does not cong'der race in the tabu- 

 lation of nerve variations, presumably because it did not seem to influence 

 them (Amer. Jour. Anat, VI, 1907.) 



