MEASUREMENT OF THE CONVOLUTIONS. 



571 



superior intellect, he selected those of Professor Gauss, a well-known mathematician 

 of eminence, and Professor Fuchs, a clinical teacher ; and as examples of brains of 

 ordinary persons, those of a woman of 29 and a workman named Krebs, all of which 

 he examined and measured with scrupulous care. 



The general result of R. Wagner's researches upon these and other brains may be 

 stated to be as follows. 1st. Although the greatest number of brains belonging to men 

 of superior intellect are found to be heaviest or largest, yet there are so many instances 

 in which the brains of such persons have not surpassed, or have even fallen below the 

 average size of the brains of ordinary persons, that superiority of size cannot in the 

 present state of our knowledge be regarded as a constant accompaniment of superiority 

 of intellect, even when due regard has been paid to the comparative stature and other 

 circumstances of the individuals. 



2nd. It would appear that, in the brains of certain persons of superior intellect, 

 the cerebral convolutions have been found more numerous and more deeply 

 divided than in those of persons of ordinary mental endowments and without culti- 

 vation. But numerous exceptional instances are also found of paucity of convolutions 

 coincident with superior intellect, which make it impossible at present to deduce any 

 certain conclusion with respect to the relation between the number or extent of the 

 convolutions and the intellectual manifestations in different persons. 



The careful measurement of all the convolutions and the intervening grooves in the 

 four brains above mentioned has been carried out by the younger Wagner, and the 

 tables and results of these measurements published by him as an appendix to his 

 father's treatise. (Hermann Wagner, " Maasbestimmuugen der Oberflache des 

 Grossen Gehirns," &c., Cassel und Gb'ttingen, 1864.) 



The following short table extracted from Hermann Wagner's memoir, and simplified 

 by the omission of small fractions and by the reduction of the measurements from 

 square millimetres to English square inches, may give the reader some idea of the 

 nature of the inquiry. 



Comparative measurement of the extent of surface of the Convolutions of the 

 Cerebrum and its lobes. 



WEIGHT OF THE SEVERAL PARTS OF THE ENCEPHALON. 



As the result of observations made in reference to this subject, on the brains of 53 

 males and 34 females, between the ages of twenty -five and fifty -five, Dr. J. Reid has 

 given the following table : 



Males. Females. Difference, 

 oz. drs. oz. drs. oz. drs. 



Average weight of cerebrum . . . . 43 15f 38 12 5 3| 



cerebellum . . ..54 4 12 7f 



pons and medulla oblongata 15f 1 



entire encephalon .50 3^ 44 8| 511 



With these results the observations of Huschke, derived from a special examination 

 of the brains of 22 females, and 38 males, mainly agree. 



p p 2 



