ON THE NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SKULLS. 213 



XXVI. Observations on the National Characteristics of 

 Skulls. By S. Messenger Bradley, F.R.C.S., Lec- 

 turer on Comparative Anatomy, Royal School of 

 Medicine and Surgery, Manchester. 



Read November 28th, 1871, 



In 1856 Professor Retzius read a paper before the Scandi- 

 navian Association of Naturalists, on the present state of 

 ethnology with reference to the form of the skull, which 

 largely influenced the study of craniology. 



The conclusions which he arrived at may be briefly 

 summarized as follows. He arranged the various races of 

 mankind in four classes, according to the character of 

 their skulls. 



1. Long-headed vertical -jawed people (Dolichocephali 

 orthognathy . 2. Long-headed people with protruding 

 lower jaws (Dolichocephali prognathi) . 3. Short-headed 

 vertical-jawed people (Brachycephali orthognathy ; and 

 4. Short-headed people with protruding jaws (Brachy- 

 cephali prognathi) . 



The simplicity of this classification quickly made it 

 popular ; and before long it became, -and has continued to 

 be the classification most generally accepted by English 

 and German naturalists. My chief object is to show 

 that we cannot any longer accept the method of classifi- 

 cation employed by the Swedish naturalists as scienti- 

 fically correct. 



Amongst the European orthognathic Dolichocephali we 

 find ranked the Germans, the Anglo-Saxons, Franks, 

 Irish, English, Welsh, &c. I shall be able to show that 

 in some of these nations the general type of skull is by no 



