Macalister — On Horned Men in Africa. 771 



XCIII. — FmiTHEE Evidence as to the Existence of Hoened Men in 

 Afeica. By A. Macalistee, M.D., F.R. S., Professor of Anatomy, 

 University of Dublin. (Plate .XX.) 



[Read, December 11, 1882.] 



Some years ago Dr. H. Minchin lent me a photograph, brought home 

 from West Africa by his son, the late Dr. R. Minchin, in which was pour- 

 trayed the head of a "West African, with two remarkable exostoses on the 

 maxilla below the orbit. Dr. Minchin, junior, had stated with regard 

 to this man that he had heard of a tribe having this peculiarity, 

 that they were famous as executioners somewhere on the borders of 

 Dahomey. 



The peculiarity shown in the photograph (PI. XX.) consists of two 

 symmetrical, and evidently bony, outgrowths of the infra-orbital edge 

 of the maxilla, in a long-faced and somewhat long-headed negro, with 

 scanty moustache and beard. 



I made many inquiries among those acquainted with the west 

 coast of Africa, and though I found several persons who had heard 

 something about the existence of people of the kind, yet I could get 

 no satisfactory account until my friend, Dr. Allan, being appointed 

 Colonial Surgeon at Bathurst, kindly undertook to make inquiries for 

 me. One previous informant told me he had seen a man with spur- 

 like processes on the malar bone, but could give me no definite infor- 

 mation of his whereabouts. 



Dr. Allan communicated with me that the man in question, whose 

 photograph I had shown him, had come from Akim, in 6"^ North lati- 

 tude and 1° East longitude. Dr. Allan obtained also from the late 

 Captain O'Brien a letter, in which that gentleman related that he had 

 made an attempt to get the man to Europe, but that having brought 

 him to the seaport he repented, and could not be induced to go any 

 farther. 



By the kindness of Professor O'Reilly I obtained an extract fi-om 

 a letter from his brother, H. E. O'Reilly, Esq., of Cape Coast Castle, 

 in which he says: — ''I examined the Kebby man six years ago, and 

 subscribed £5 towards sending him home for examination. The his- 

 tory of that case is this. About six years ago Captain Hay (Houssas) 

 was sent on a mission for the Government to a place called Kebby, I 

 think, in the Diabbee country, north-east of Cape Coast. He there 

 came across this man, and brought him down with him. "We all agi'eed 

 to send him home with CaptainBaker, who was then starting for England. 

 Baker took the fellow as far as Akim, where the steamer called ; here the 

 man cleared out, and was back in Cape Coast at my place in a few days. 

 He told me that he could get no food on board, and so had run away. 

 There is a bony exostosis on each malar bone over the antrum high- 

 morianum. I was anxious to make a cast of the case at the time, 

 but had no materials. Erom reasons of my own, and inquiries among 

 well-informed natives, I came to the conclusion that the case was not 

 a congenital malformation, but artificially produced, and that is the 



