302 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIX. No. 477. 



tion that the threshold will be lowered, to a 

 fear of making errors, to a reprimand, etc. 

 When such influences are lacking, practise has 

 not been found, in the experience of the author, 

 to lower the threshold, and his results agree 

 in this respect with those of Tawney. 



(f) The Threshold of Double Contact can 

 not he Determined Scientifically. — For a sim- 

 plist there is a determinable threshold. But 

 every simplist is a latent interpreter. The 

 determination of the threshold is practically 

 impossible. It varies from moment to mo- 

 ment, and the more one seeks it the less he 

 finds it; and it depends so strictly on the 

 manner of interpreting the sensations, even in 

 the cases where it appears to have a definite 

 position, that one can not be sure that it ex- 

 presses the degree of acuteness of the organ. 

 Even if all persons had exactly the same de- 

 gree of sensitivity, apparent differences would 

 appear. 



This research is certainly of the greatest 

 value, and no future investigation in aesthesi- 

 ometry can neglect the facts that it estab- 

 lishes. It seems legitimate, however, to ques- 

 tion whether the author's final conclusion 

 is fully justifiable. May it not be possible to 

 make simplists of all one's subjects? To 

 determine the threshold between sensations B 

 and C, and thus to secure valuable informa- 

 tion concerning the relative sensitivity of 

 different regions of the body, of different per- 

 sons and of the same person at different times 

 and under various conditions? 



E. B. Delabaere. 

 Brown University. 



Traite des Variations des Os du Crane de 



VHomme, et de leur Signification au point 



de vue de V Anthropologic Zoologique. Par 



M. le Dr. Le Double. 118 Dessins dans le 



texte. Paris, Vigot Freres. 1903. 



A volume of four hundred pages and all on 



the variations of the cranial bones ! Be it 



noted, moreover, that the word ' cranial ' is 



used in the strict sense, and that, therefore, 



the facial bones are not included. Ponderous 



as the work may seem, it is one that will be 



warmly welcomed by anatomists. It will be 



of great value not only to those devoted to 



human anatomy, but to all interested in verte- 

 brate morphology. We are glad to under- 

 stand that the author intends to continue the 

 study of the variations of the human skeleton 

 and that we may expect next a treatise on 

 the facial bones. His method is that pursued 

 in his treatise on muscular variations, which 

 is already a classic. Side lights from em- 

 bryology and comparative anatomy are thrown 

 on the questions, while the various and often 

 contradictory views of authors are discussed. 

 It is natural enough that the size of this work 

 should astonish outsiders; yet even anatomists 

 will be surprised at the number of points of 

 variation which present themselves. 



There is no possibility of reviewing such a 

 work in detail ; but let us mention a few of the 

 points of interest in a single bone in order to 

 show how extensive is its scope. Let us take 

 the first bone, the occipital. We must take up 

 the story of the development of the squamous 

 portion, the difference between the supra-oc- 

 cipital and the epactal bones, the former of 

 which is that part which develops in mem- 

 brane, while the latter is merely a wormian 

 bone, or several together. On the outside 

 there is the torus and the very rare median 

 crest. On the inside are the endless varieties 

 of arrangement of the venous sinuses (which 

 the author attempts to classify), the torcular 

 fossa, and the middle cerebellar fossa. Here 

 as elsewhere the author is very severe on 

 Lombroso and his school, who, as is well 

 known, make much of the latter fossa as a 

 criminal feature. He exclaims : " Must we 

 consider Scarpa a madman or a criminal be- 

 cause his occipital, like that of Charlotte 

 Corday, had a vermian fossa? If a defect in 

 the formation of the skull or of the brain is 

 an index of mental inferiority or of a tend- 

 ency to crime, how happens it that Dante and 

 Pericles had asymmetrical skulls (with great 

 development of the parietal), that Kant had 

 an interparietal bone, Volta a metojiic suture, 

 Byron, Humboldt and Meckel premature clo- 

 sure of sutures, and Bichat one hemisphere 

 much smaller than the other ? " Eor our part, 

 while we have no wish to minimize the ab- 

 surdities that the followers of the school of 

 criminal anthropology have been guilty of. 



