206 DESCRIPTION OF FIGURES OF SKULLS. 



the sagittal is obliterated on the outside of the skull in the region 

 where such obliteration usually shows itself first, viz. in the region 

 of the foramina emissaria. On the right half of the frontal bone 

 there is a wound 3" long and 1" wide, sloping downwards from 

 a point, about an inch in front of the point where the sagittal meets 

 the coronal suture, very nearly to the point where the temporal 

 line passes from the lateral cranial wall on to the external orbital 

 process. The floor of the wound is formed for a little over 2" by 

 the diploe, the cavities of which are filled with black earth of the 

 same kind, apparently, as that which has given the entire exterior 

 surface of the skull its dingy appearance. The outer table forms 

 the lateral boundaries and the floor at either end of the wound. 

 The inner table of the skull does not appear to have been affected 

 by the blow, and the wound may be taken as an instance of ' un- 

 depressed gouged out fracture,' for accounts of which kind of injury 

 see 'United States Reports/ Circular No. 6, War Department, 

 Surgeon-General's Office, Washington, p. 12, Nov. t, 1865. A spear 

 or celt of metal if driven with force at a living head might very well 

 raise a splinter of bone out of the two external layers of the bony 

 cranium, especially if the recipient was lying on the ground and 

 rolled his head as much out of the way as he could as the blow 

 descended. The splinter would probably, in the first instance, be 

 left adhering to the scalp, and might have taken up its old place 

 again. Here it has been lost; but that the patient survived its 

 separation, at least from all connexion with the bone of which it 

 once formed a part, the state of that bone furnishes fair evidence. 

 On looking carefully with a lens at the edges of the wound formed 

 by the external table of the skull, it will be seen that, though the 

 meandering channels formed for themselves by plant rootlets have 

 had something to do with making the surface what it is, still some 

 process of smoothing down due to the vital operations of the skull 

 itself is recognisable upon them. The lamellar arrangement of the 

 outer table is still distinctly visible, nevertheless the surface is not 

 as sharply defined anywhere as it must have been when the wound 

 was first inflicted. To allow of this smoothing down being 

 effected not more than two or three months would be required ; in 

 the very instructive histories given of the owners of skulls in the 

 Berlin Museum (see Walter's ' Museum Anatomicum,' 1805, p. 468) 

 which had had sword-cuts inflicted upon them, a process of healing 



