i68 . Notes, ii. 7. ' • • 



21. Elsewhere (//. A.m. 7) A. says there are si)( bones in the skulj. Of these (//.^. 

 i. 7) the anterior is the Bregma, which alone covers the brain and is, on this account, • 

 the last to ossify. By this he clearly means the anterior fontenelle, which he considers 

 to be a separate bone. The posterior bone, covering the empty space, he calls Inium ; 

 clearly meaning the Occipital. Two others are placed above the ears, and are smaller 

 than the rest. By these he doubtless means the Temporals. The other two he does 

 not describe ; but they can be nothing else tlian the Parietals. The Frontal {-npiffui-Kov) 

 A. reckons as a bone of the face. 



22. This is the case with the superior races of man ; such as alone would have fallen 

 under A.'s observation. In them the posterior sutures close before the anterior, and 

 both close late. But in the inferior races, according to Gratiolet, the ahterior close 

 before the posterior, and both cloge early {Soc. Anthropol. 1861, p. 180). 



23. The erroneous notion that the use" of the sutures is to ventilate the brain is 

 repeated by Galen {Organ of Smell, 2; De Sanit. tuehdA, i. 13). Their real use is to 

 allow of the growth of the.encephalon, which can no longer increase in bulk when the 

 sutures are once closed. The greater development of the anterior lobes in civilized races 

 as compared with the posterior explains the facts given in the last note. 



24. I cannot' ascertain whether this be so, or not. 



25. This is an error. Doubtless.A. was led to it by the fact that in numerous animals 

 the sutures become more or less effaced it a very early age.. This is notably the case 

 with birds, fishes, and, of mammals, with the cetacea and elephants. 



26. "■ In woman the suture is circular; while in man there are three sutures on the. 

 t6p of the head which run together, in three-cornered fashion. A man's skull has 

 indeed been observed without any suture at all" {^H. A. iii. 7, 3). The latter statement is 

 borrowed from Herodotus, ix. 83. The three sutures meant are the Sagittal and the two 

 divisions of the Lambdoid, which run together and form three angles. The Coronal 

 suture would riot, be a suture of the cranium in A.'s view, because he makes the frontal 

 bone a bone of the face (cf. Note 21). The account then of the male skull is intelligible 

 .enough. Doubtless battle-fields would furnish from time to time specimens for observa- 

 tion, as in the case taken by A. from Herodotus. But it is difficult to account for 

 the statement as to the female skull. The sutures are really identical with those of the 

 male. Of course the opportunities of seeing a female skull would be much fewer than 

 of seeing a male skull ; for battle-fields would no longer be of service. Still it is not 

 impossible that A.'s statement may have been founded on some 'single observatiori. For 

 it is by r\o means uncommon for the sutures on the vertex to become more or less effaced 

 in pregnant women; so common indeed is it, that the naijie "puerperal osteophyte" 

 has been given to the condition by Rokitansky {Path. Anat.'iu. 208, Syd. Soc. Transl.). 

 A woman's skull may have been observed in which the Sagittal suture had thus 

 disappeared ; when the Lambdoid, with the lateral sutures, and the Coronal, might 

 fairly be described as forming together a circular suture. It must not be forgotten what 

 great difficulty there was in A.'s time in getting a sight of human bones. Even much 

 later Galen, it is said, went all the way to Egypt for the purpose of seeing merely a 

 bronze representation of the human skeleton {Ctevier, Hist. d. Sc. i. 59). A well-known- 

 story is told of Democritus, how he was in the habit of wandering about among tombs 

 and was therefore supposed by his fellow-citizens to be mad ; and how the great 

 Hippocrates was sent to see him, and, having heard his account, pronounced him not 

 only to be sane, but the sanest of men. Cuvier explains this strange habit of Democritus, 

 by supposing that his object was -to find "quelques pieces osteologiques " ! 



27. A. is ridiculed by Galen for having made the brain 110 more than a spongeful of 



