304 MENTAL FACULTIES. 



M. Lepelletier. 1 A patient of a M. Pierquien had an extensive caries 

 of the os frontis, with perforation of the bone, which exposed the brain 

 covered by its membranes. When she slept soundly, the organ sank 

 down; when she dreamed, or spoke with feeling, turgescence and 

 marked oscillations were perceptible ; when the brain was pressed upon, 

 she stopped in the middle of a sentence or a word, and when the pres- 

 sure was removed, she resumed the conversation, without any recollec- 

 tion of the experiment to which she had been subjected. An important 

 difference in the effect is, however, noticed in such cases according to 

 the suddenness or tardiness with which the pressure is made. Whilst 

 a sudden compression suspends the intellectual and moral manifesta- 

 tions for a time; slow pressure, produced by the gradual formation of 

 a tumour, may exist without exhibiting, in any manner, the evidences 

 of its presence. Accordingly, the anatomist is at times surprised to 

 discover such morbid formations in the brains of persons who have never 

 laboured under any mental aberration. 



A negative argument in favour of this function of the brain has been 

 deduced from the fact, that disease of other portions of the body, even 

 of the principal organs, may exist and pass on to a fatal termination, 

 leaving those faculties almost unimpaired. Such is proverbially the 

 case with phthisis pulmonalis; the subject of which may be flattering 

 himself with hopes never to be realized, and devising schemes of future 

 aggrandizement and pleasure until within a few hours of his dissolution. 



The intellectual faculties differ in each individual, and vary mate- 

 rially with the sex. The brain is, in all these cases, equally different. 

 Much may depend upon education; but it may, we think, be laid down 

 as an incontrovertible position, that there is an original difference in 

 the cerebral organization of the man of genius and of him who is less 

 gifted; and that, as a general rule, in the former the brain is much 

 more developed than in the latter. Whilst the brain of the man of 

 intellect may measure from nineteen to twenty-two inches in circum- 

 ference, that of the idiot frequently does not exceed thirteen, or is not 

 greater than in the child one year old. It was an ancient observation, 

 that a large development of the anterior and superior parts of the 

 head is a characteristic of genius; and, accordingly, we find, that all 

 the statues of the sages and heroes of antiquity are represented with 

 high and prominent foreheads. In the older poets, we meet with many 

 evidences, that the height of the forehead was regarded as an index of 

 the intellectual or moral character of the individual. Thus Shakspeare: 



"We shall lose our time, 

 And all be turn'd to barnacles, or to apes, 

 With foreheads villanous low." 



CALIBAN, in " TEMPEST." Act iv. 



And again : 



"Ay, but her forehead's low, and mine's as high." 



JULIA, in the " Two GENTLEMEN OF VERONA." Act iv. 



The relation between the size of the head and the mental manifesta- 

 tions has, indeed, interwoven itself into our ordinary modes of speech. 



1 Physiologic Medicale, &c., iii. 242, Paris, 1832. 



