SCIENCE.-SUPPLEMENT. 



FRIDAY, MARCH 25, 1887. 



SCIENTIFIC PHRENOLOGY. 



Under the above title the London Times reports 

 an interesting session of the Anthropological in- 

 stitute, Mr. Francis Galton in the chair, at which 

 Professor Ferrier read a paper on the ' Functional 

 topography of the brain.' He discussed the ques- 

 tion how far recent investigations into the func- 

 tional topography of the brain could be brought 

 into relation with craniological and anthropo- 

 logical researches with a view to establish the 

 foundations of a scientific phrenology. Then he 

 sketched the functional topography of the brain 

 so far as it had been settled, but pointed out that 

 the psychological aspects of brain-functions were 

 still far from being made out, although that cor- 

 relation must be established and proved before a 

 practical psychology, in any degree serviceable to 

 the physician or the anthropolo ist, could be re- 

 garded as possible. He offered some speculations 

 on the subject, and illustrated them by reference 

 to certain facts and phenomena of disease in man. 

 On the question as to how far it was possible, from 

 an anatomical examination of the brain, to form 

 an estimate of the forces and capacities of the in- 

 dividual, he pointed out many great difficulties 

 which had to be encountered. Not merely the size 

 of parts had to be taken into account, but the re- 

 lation of different regions to each other, the action 

 of metastasis, structural differences, as well as 

 other influences. Caeteris paribus, greater ana- 

 tomical development might be considered as an 

 index of greater functional capacity, all which 

 points the lecturer illustrated in various ways. He 

 thought the attempt to determine differences in 

 functional capacity from the examination of the 

 head involved all the difficulties connected with 

 the examination of the brain, and a great many 

 more. He indicated the cranial relations of the 

 principal convolutions, but expressed his belief 

 that in the present state of our knowledge the data 

 of a scientific phrenology were still very deficient. 

 There was reason to believe, however, that if the 

 subject were taken up from different points of 

 view by anatomists, physiologists, psychologists, 

 and anthropologists, great progress might be 

 made. 



The discussion of the paper was opened by Sir 

 James Crichton Browne, who detailed some very 

 interesting electrical experiments he had made on 



the brain of a monkey, which clearly demon- 

 strated localization of the cerebral functions. 

 There were too often, however, insuperable diffi- 

 culties to be met with in pursuing a parallel series 

 of experiments on the living human brain. There 

 were on record some curious accounts of investi- 

 gations relative to the brain of a fowl by a bishop 

 of Ratisbon in the thirteenth century, and in 

 ' Burton's anatomy of melancholy' a good number 

 of instances more or less like it were collected. It 

 seemed to have been agreed that the number of 

 the cerebral functions was thirty-five. To the 

 early phrenologists a certain tribute of praise was 

 due for their having, at least, called attention to 

 the subject of craniological phenomena, although 

 the quackeries of Professor Cagliostro and his 

 rivals were simply beneath contempt. Boys were 

 artfully trained to subserve the cunning exhibi- 

 tions of such impostors. Still it must be allowed 

 that the pseudo-phrenology in a certain sense 

 paved the way for the cautious researches of the 

 true science of a possibly distant future. 



PSYCHOLOGICAL NOIES. 

 The January issue of Mind contains an account 

 of an interesting series of experiments on the 

 limit of the capacity to repeat a series of sounds 

 after hearing them read once. A German ex- 

 perimenter, Ebbinghaus, had studied the powers 

 of the memory b\ counting the number of times 

 a given series of nonsense-syllables bad to be re- 

 peated in order to enable the hearer to reproduce 

 them by rote. Mr. Joseph Jacobs (with the co- 

 operation of Mr. Sully, Mr. Read, and Mrs. Bry- 

 ant) has carried a similar means of testing the 

 memory (or, as they more accurately call it, 

 the ' prehension ') into the school-room. The 

 method was somewhat simpler. Instead of non- 

 sense-syllables (for instance, dak-mil-tak-bin-roz), 

 which are very disturbing, the names of the 

 letters (omitting ' double u ') and of the numerals 

 (omitting 7) were chosen ; and the maximum 

 number of letters and numbers that a child could 

 repeat after one reading was called its 'span.' 

 Care was taken to pronounce the words as mo- 

 notonously and as regularly as possible in order 

 to avoid any assistance to the memory from a 

 more or less decided rhythm. The numbers or 

 letters were dictated to the class, each member 

 of which then (usually) wrote down as accurately 

 as possible the series of letters or numbers. The 

 results thus readied were quite interesting. 



