chap, i i.i BONY VAULI OF THE CRANIUM. 21 



cranium of thin tin would be to a cranium of strong 

 earthenware. The yielding character of the young 

 child's skull is well illustrated by the gross deformity 

 of the head that certain Indian tribes produce in their 

 offspring by applying tight bandages to the part in 

 infancy. In the Royal College of Surgeons' museum 

 are many skulls of " flat-headed " Indians, that show 

 to what an extreme this artificial deformity may be 

 carried. Gueniot also asserts that much deformity of 

 the head may be produced in infants by the practice 

 of allowing them to always lie upon one side of the 

 body. Here the deforming agent is simply the weight 

 of the brain. 



Even in adults the skull is much less brittle than 

 is commonly supposed, and notions as to the break- 

 ability of the cranial bones derived from the study 

 of the dried specimen are apt to be erroneous. During 

 life, a sharp knife properly directed may be driven 

 through the cranial vault so as to cause only a simple 

 perforating wound without splintering, and without 

 fracture of the bone beyond the puncture. Such a 

 wound may be as cleanly cut as a wound through 

 thick leather, and a specimen in the London Hospital 

 museum serves well to illustrate this. A case reported 

 in the Lancet for 1881 affords a strange instance 

 of a knife penetrating the skull without apparently 

 splintering the bone. A man wishing to commit 

 suicide placed the point of a dagger against the skull 

 in the upper frontal region, and then drove it well 

 into the brain by a blow from a mallet. He expected 

 to fall dead, and was disappointed to find that no 

 phenomena of interest developed. He then drove the 

 dagger farther in by some dozen blows with the 

 mallet, until the blade, which was four inches long, 

 was brought to a standstill. The dagger was removed 

 with great difficulty, the patient never lost conscioxis- 

 ness, and recovered without a symptom. 



