202 BRAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE IN RELATION 



the "undotilDited etlmical diffei-ences whicli separate the popTilation of 

 Yorkshire from that of Somerset and Wiltshire. An interesting 

 paper in the West Riding Asylum Reports gives the results of the 

 determination of 716 brain- weights, rather more than half being 

 males. The average is 48'149 oz. for the male, and 43-872 for the 

 female brain; whereas the average weights of 267 male brains of a 

 similar class of patients in the Wilts' County Asylum, as given by 

 Dr. Thurnam, is 46-2 oz., and of 213 female brains, 41-0 oz. The 

 results of the observations carried on by Dr. Boyd at St. Marylebone 

 yield, from 680 male English brains, a mean weight of 47'1 oz., and 

 from 744 female brains a mean weight of 42 '3 oz.; whereas Dr. 

 Peacock determined, from 183 cases in the Edinburgh Infirmary, 

 the weight of the male Scottish brain to average 49-7, and that of 

 the female brain to average 44*3 oz. Here the results are deter- 

 mined by so numerous a series that they might be accepted as 

 altogether reliable, wore it not that in the former case they are 

 based to a large extent on a purely pauper class; whereas the 

 patients of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh include respectable 

 mechanics and others from many parts of Scotland, among whom 

 education is common. It is not to be doubted, indeed, that a con- 

 siderable difierence in the form and size of the head, and no doubt 

 also in brain-weight, is to be looked for amongst English, Scotch, 

 Irish, German and French men and women, according to the county 

 or province of which they are natives, and the class of society to 

 which they belong. 



The compa.rative ratio of the cubical capacity of the skull, or the 

 average brain- weight, iij so far as either is indicative of ethnical difier- 

 ences among members of the European family of nations, has thus 

 to be determined by numerous examples ; or dealt with in detail 

 in reference to the different nationalities. Even in single provinces 

 ■or counties, social position, and probably education, must be taken 

 into account ; so that a series of observations on hospital and pauper 

 patients may be expected to fall below the general average ; and 

 fallacious comparisons between European peoples may be based on 

 data, correct enough per se, but unjust when placed alongside of a 

 difierent class of results. The great mass of evidence in reference 

 to brain- weight has thus far been mainly derived, in the case of the 

 sane, from one rank of life. A comparison of the results with those 

 derived from the insane of various classes of societv shows less dis- 



