DURA MATER. 385 



too transparent to be seen, and probably would entirely escape 

 the cognizance of all our senses." 11 



The nervous system is invested with peculiar coverings. 



" Besides the bony cranium, a threefold covering is afforded to 

 the brain*, viz. the dura and pia mater, and, between these two, 

 the tunica arachnoidea. These coverings are termed meninges. 



" The dura mater y " belongs to the class of fibrous membranes, 

 and <( lines the inside of the cranium, like a periosteum, forming 

 various processes. By the falx it divides the hemispheres of the 

 cerebrum and cerebellum 2 ; by the tentorium a it supports the 



mittee on the skull of our lamented friend Spurzheim, the anatomist, who, by dis- 

 secting the brain, first displayed to the eye its fibrous and ganglionary structure, 

 and demonstrated the direction and connection of its filaments," &c. ! But 

 the case is much worse, when I mention that this piece of folly and ignorance is 

 published in the last Number of the Edinburgh Phrenological Journal (June 1. 

 1836) without any remark. When I arrive at the subject of Phrenology, I shall 

 resume this task of doing justice to Gall. 



u 1. c. p. 450. sq. 



x " Eustachius, tab. xvii. xviii. 



Haller, Icones, Anat., fasc. vi. tab. i. ii. iii. 



Santorini, tab. posth. ii. iii. 



F. B. Osiander, in the Comment. Soc. Reg. Sclent. Gotting., vol. xvi. p. 105. 

 tab. i. ii. 



Detm. W. Soemmerring, De oculor. sect, horizontals, tab. i." 



y " J. Ladmiral, Icones dura matris in concava et convexa superflcie visa. 

 Amst. 1738. fasc. i. ii. 4to." 



* Sir Anthony Carlisle, on opening a woman who had died after amputation of 

 a foot, found no falx. The cerebrum was not divided into hemispheres. The 

 edge of the longitudinal sinus was received into a depression, about half an inch 

 deep, that existed along the middle of the superior part of the cerebrum. The 

 head had been unaffected, and the mental faculties perfect, as far as observation 

 was made during the woman's stay in the Westminster Hospital. ( Transactions 

 of a Society for the Improvement of Medical and Chirurgical Knowledge, vol. i.' 

 p. 212. sqq.) 



I presented to the London Phrenological Society, the cast of the head of a 

 male idiot, aged eighteen years, that was given me by Dr. Formby, of Liverpool, 

 and is only 16 inches in circumference, and 7f inches from ear to ear over the 

 vertex. The cerebrum weighed but 1 Ib. 7^ oz. The hemispheres were united 

 as far back as the vertex, and no falx existed except for about two inches from the 

 anterior part of the tentorium. 



* " In the skulls of some genera of mammalia, a remarkable lamina of bone 

 penetrates a duplicature of the tentorium and supports it. Cheselden (Anat. of 

 the Hones, c. 8.) supposes this bony tentorium to exist in ferce only ; but it is 

 found in the equine genus, the cercopithecus paniseus, the delphinus phoca?na, 



A A 



