ARTIFICIAL DEFORMATION OF CHILDREN. 215 



more specialized character of a braiu-case as we ascend in the organic 

 scale. In fishes, where the head contains other organs than those of 

 the nervous system, its indefinite relations to the cerebro-spinal axis 

 are conspicuous. Among the Eeptilia, though containing only the brain, 

 the extreme disproportion between the head and its contents indicates 

 that its conformity with the cerebral ganglia is subsidiary to other con- 

 formities; while in birds the limited range of the cranial cavity, as 

 contrasted with its range when compared with the bulk of the body, 

 conveys in a modified form the implication of increasing specialization 

 of the head. As might be expected, the anatomical evidence furnished 

 bj^ the Mammalia is corroborative of that derived from lower groups. 

 No variation, however extreme, is competent to free a structure from 

 the influence of heredity, and it might be argued a priori that the hu- 

 man head would have the outlines of its history delineated in the mor- 

 phology of the primates. 



The facts in this instance justify the anticipation. As in the develop- 

 mental record of birds, among which the ornithic stamp, either general 

 or special, is but gradually and indirectly evolved, so also with the 

 more immediate congeners of man, where the more salieut characteris- 

 tics of his type, distributed throughout a group of anthropoids, do not 

 admit of consecutive arrangement, and can not be attributed in their 

 totality to any specific form. From the primates, as from the other 

 mammalian sub-classes, a cranial figure involved in the metameric de- 

 velopment of the encephalon, gradually disengages itself and becomes 

 more regular and more definite in its cerebral relations as the grade of 

 organization is elevated; so that the profiles associated with ganglionic 

 mass increase in prominence, while those which are otherwise associated 

 correspondingly diminish. 



These anatomical traits link themselves naturally with physiological 

 co-ordinates. Everywhere encephalic structure is related, though not 

 directly, to function. Enhanced importance in the brain implicates in- 

 creased solidarity in the entire organism. As the cerebral elements 

 grow in multiplicity, variety, and complexity, this development is con- 

 comitant with cranial amalgamation, with progressive obliteration of 

 the features attaching to lower forms, with condensation of the ence- 

 phalic ganglia, with a more direct'correspondence between the skull and 

 brain, and finally with a greater conformity of the bodywith the head. 



Whatever phylogeuetic significance may be found in these facts, their 

 morphological and physiological bearing is unmistakable. Through 

 quite various structural gradations there appears, though not in linear 

 sequence, "a series of forms," which ultimately display in modifications 

 of cranial contour a more definite coaptation of the euvelope to its con- 

 tained viscus in developmental progress, and in the falling away and 

 weakening of its muscular attachments, the paramount function of the 

 skull as a brain-case, and the subordination of its structure to that of 

 the organ which it incloses. 



