Chap. XX.] OF THE HUMAN BRAIN. 367 



by me (G2oz.,or 1,760 grammes) was that of an uneducated butcher, 

 who was just able to read, and who died suddenly of epilepsy com- 

 bined with mania, after about a year's illness The heaviest 



brain-weight recorded by Dr. Bucknill is that of a male epileptic, 

 aged thirty-seven ; and in this instance the brain weighed 64*5 oz., 

 or 1,830 grammes, which was the weight of the brain of the cele- 

 brated Cuvier. With one exception the maximum weight observed 

 byM. Parchnppe was also that of an epileptic man, aged thirty-one, 

 in whose case the brain weighed 61'3 oz., or 1,737 grammes. The 

 heaviest female hrain of which I find any mention, is recorded by 

 Dr. Skae. The patient was not epileptic, but laboured under 

 monomania of pride, dying at the age of thirty-nine of an 

 exhausting disease — phthisis. The hrain had, for a woman, tha 

 monstrous weight of 61'5 oz., or 1,743 grammes." 



It is possible that these decidedly heavy Brain- weights 

 may be met with in a slight 1}^ higher ratio among the 

 insane than among the sane members of any particular 

 class, and this for the following reasons : — First, Insanity 

 is a condition dependent upon various morbid states which 

 may perhaps be said to be equally prone to occur in 

 large-brained and in small-brained individuals ; secondly, 

 in some of the cases of this disease, with or without the 

 association of Epilepsy, the organ or considerable parts 

 of it tend to become indurated, owing to a dispropor- 

 tionate development or actual overgrowth of the lower 

 and functionally inert constituents of the brain — its mere 

 connective tissue or * neuroglia ' — just as other organs of 

 the hody, the liver for instance, may be spoiled function- 

 ally though actually increased in bulk, owing to a similar 

 connective tissue overgrowth. This is a condition apt to 

 be met with in confirmed Epileptics. And, thirdly, should 

 one of these latter patients happen to die in a fit, great 

 fulness of the blood-vessels of the brain may operate as 

 another cause tending to augment the brain- weight — as 

 it is well known to do in whatever way the congestion 

 may have been produced. Wagner has called special 



