38 ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 



ing a different peculiar national distinction and character. A strong; 

 inference in favor of phrenology may be drawn from this fact. 



The bones of the cranium increase in extent, thickness, and 

 weight, from the commencement trll the termination of their de- 

 velopment in adult age ; but after this time, and till old age, they 

 always diminish in these three relations. In advanced life we often 

 find them reduced to a mere shell, and perhaps perforated in some 

 places. They thus become much lighter than in middle life. 

 Meckel found the skull of a female, seventy years of age, weigh 

 but fourteen ounces, while that of a girl, twenty years of age, 

 weighed twenty-four ounces. In the early periods of life, the 

 whole form of the head is much rounder than at an advanced age ; 

 owing, perhaps, to the small development of the face, while the 

 skull developes in every direction. 



The size of the cavity formed by the bones of the skull is always 

 proportional to the size of the organs it lodges and protects. The 

 shape and size of the cranium depend on the brain, and not of the 

 brain on the cranium. The soft parts model and adapt to them- 

 selves the hard, and not the hard the soft. The brain is formed 

 before the case which contains it, and it is not till after several 

 years that the bones of the cranium become perfectly consolidated. 

 In a child of ten years of age, afflicted with dropsy in the head 

 from infancy, and which was exhibited a year or two since in this 

 city as a great curiosity, although the head measured thirty-two 

 inches in circumference above the caps, yet nearly the whole surface 

 was protected by a bony covering.* 



The face consists of fourteen bones, six pair and two single ones. 

 The two upper jaw-bones form the principal part of the face. 

 They meet in the middle line, forming the arch in which the upper 

 row of teeth are set, and extend backwards, forming the principal 

 part of the roof of. the mouth. A process runs up from each, 

 separating the cavity of the nose from that of the orbit. In order 

 that the face may be light, the body of the maxillary bone is not 

 solid, but excavated, the cavity communicating with the nose, as 

 will be seen in the description of that organ. The roof of the mouth 

 is completed by the two palate bones. The firm part of the nose, 

 from its, roof to its bridge, is formed of two small pieces, meeting in 

 the middle, called the nasal bones. These are liable to be broken 

 or knocked in by a blow, an injury which occasions great disfigure- 

 ment. The opening of the nose in front is seen in the skull to be 



* Lee. 



