DISTORTIONS OF THE HUMAN CRANIUM. 429 



cephali, or long-heads, of whom Hippocrates tells us, that ' while 

 the head of the child is still tender, they fashion it with their hands, 

 and constrain it to assume a lengthened shape by applying bandages 

 and other suitable contrivances, whereby the spherical form of the 

 head is destroyed, and it is made to increase in length.' This mode 

 of distortion is called by Dr. Gl-osse the temporo-parietal, or ' tete 

 aplatie tur les cotes' It appears to have been practised by various 

 people, both of the ancient and modern world, and in Europe as 

 well as the East. The so-called Moors, or Arabs of North Africa, 

 affected this form of skull ; and even in modem times, the women 

 of Belgium and Hamburgh are both described as compressing the 

 heads of their infants into an elongate form.* Our own observations 

 lead at least to a presumption that this form of artificial distortion 

 may have been practised by certain primeval British tribes, particu- 

 larly those who buried their distinguished dead in long chambered 

 tumuli. It has been shown by Dr. Minchin,t that an abnormally 

 elongated form of skull may be strictly congenital, and depend on 

 obliteration of the sagittal suture, or on the development of the 

 parietal bones from a vertical centre, rather than from the sides. 

 Such an explanation, however, does not seem applicable to the skulls 

 from the chambered barrows of Britain, any more than to those of 

 the Macrocephali of Herodotus. The premature obliteration of 

 the sagittal suture observed in the skull before us, and to a still 

 greater degree in that figured by Blumenbach, under the name of 

 * Asiatse Macrocephali,' appears to be an ordinary concomitant of the 

 compressed and elongate skull. On the whole, the writer thinks 

 this obliteration has been produced by pressure or manipulations of 

 the sides of the head in infancy, by which it was sought to favour 

 the development of a lengthened form of skull ; to which, however, 

 there was probably, in the present instance at least, a natural and 

 inherent tendency." Dr. Thurnam adds as a note : " The regular and 

 ovoid form of head which now pi'evails iu England, is probably in 

 part due to the practice of mothers and nurses gently rubbing the 

 heads of infants with the palm of the hand, with the object of favour- 

 ing regularity of shape. In accordance with this, it has to be re- 

 marked that it is in the most degraded and neglected classes that 



" • See the authorities in Gosse, pp. 55-S7." 



" t Dublin Journal of Medical Science, Nov. 1S58, ' Contribution: to Craniology.' " 



