308 THE SIZE AND WEIGHT 



attention to this, and to the fact that brain-weights are 

 affected not only by length and kind of illness, but by 

 mode of death.* 



(2.) But again, high Brain-weights have occasionally 

 been met with by many observers in the examination of tho 

 bodies of quite ordinary, common-place individuals, who 

 during life have neither been insane nor notable foi any 

 unusual degree of intelligence. 



Perhaps the largest set of tables from which we can 

 obtain trustworthy information on this subject has been 

 supplied by Dr. Peacock, and concerning these Thurnam 

 writes : — 



" In Dr. Peacock's tables, out of the 157 weights of brains of 

 adult Scotchmen, between twenty and sixty years of age, there are 

 four in which this ranged from 61 oz. to 6275 oz., or from 1,728 to 

 1,778 grammes. They were all apparently of the artisan class; 

 the occupation of three of them being those of sailor, printer, and 

 .tailor respectively. The causes of death were fever, delirium 

 tremens, and in two cases severe compound fracture. All were 

 [affections] more or less liable to be attended with cerebral con- 

 gestion ; and there is nothing to show that these individuals were 

 distinguished from their fellows by superior endowments." 



The heaviest Human Brain as yet on record seems 

 also to have belonged to a person of this class. A brief 

 account of it has been pubHshed by Dr. James Morris.f 

 The man from whom it was taken was a bricklayer, 

 thirty-eight years of age, who died from pyiicmia in 

 University College Hospital in 1849, shortly after a 

 surgical operation. 



Dr. Morris says : — "The weight of the brain, taken immediately 

 on removal, exceeded 67 oz. This weighing was most carefully 

 made, and was witnessed by several students. The brain was well 

 pro]3ortioned ; the convolutions were not flattened, though the sur- 



* Vorstudien, 1862, 2t« Abh , pp. 93-95. 



t " Brit. Med. Journ.," Oct. 26, 1872, p. 465. 



