176 



MEMOIRS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



Out of 28 skulls showing the lateral posterior depression, 19 are flattened on the left side and 

 9 on the right. These deformities are illustrated in Figs. 1*0 and ;>(), which represent superimposed 

 outlines adjusted on the median line and the maximum occipital point. 



Thus we see that the skulls flattened on the left side are twice as many as those flattened on 

 the right. Eight-handed women carry the child usually on the left arm, and therefore suckle it 

 mostly at the left breast,* and right-handed people predominate greatly over the left-handed in all 



Jfo. J9.41.WS2. 



Flo. 28. Occipital depression. Group C. 



races. When lying on the hard cradle-board, then, the heads of the great majority of infants should 

 more frequently incline to the right than to the left, and should therefore, we would suppose, be 

 more likely to become flattened on the right side. In our mound skulls the, flattening is much 

 more frequent on the right side than on the left, in the proportion of 62 right to 39 left in 101 

 skulls in which lateral posterior flattening is found. 



' A. WYETII. "Anatomical Reasons for Dextral Preference in Man." 

 Society, Brooklyn, N. Y., Vol. II, 1880, p. 129. 



Annals of Anatomical and Surgical 



