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Art. VIII. — An Attempt to ascertain the Average Weight of the Brain in the different 



Races of Mankind. 



By Joseph Barnard Davis, M. D., F. R. S., 



Corresponding Member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, etc. 



It would be quite needless to point out the importance of further observations to 

 elucidate this great subject to the members of the Academy of Natural Sciences of 

 Philadelphia, over which the late Dr. S. G. Morton, at one time, presided with so 

 much distinction. The tables prepared by him with such vast pains and elaboration, 

 and presented to the Academy on the 25th of April, 1848, have hitherto afforded the 

 most substantial and complete evidence upon the question yet collected. The work 

 of Prof. Tiedemann, in which he received the assistance of so many other anatomists, 

 preceded Morton's. Unfortunately, it was in some measure produced under the 

 erroneous assumption that the brain, being an organ so essential to life and the 

 intellectual faculties, would be of nearly equal size in all the different races of men, 

 and, if it had been so, possessed of a remarkable exceptional character, we may safely 

 say. He says this is not an hypothesis, but had previously in the same page slightly 

 modified his position by stating that the cavity of the skull and the brain show in all 

 races of man a like mean, within certain limits of fluctuating dimemions* Whatever 

 were the deductions produced under this singular postulate, its incompatibility with 

 truth was sufficiently demonstrated by Morton. 



Many other investigations have been undertaken since Morton's day to determine 

 the weight of the brain, although not extended over many races, as those of Dr. T. 

 B. Peacock, in continuance of the observations of Prof. Reid. These were made upon 

 patients of the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh, and refer to the Scotch. A second 

 series of observations by Dr. Peacock refer to English subjects.f The most extensive 

 series of investigations to ascertain the weight of English brains are those by Dr. 

 Robert Boyd, recorded in the " Philosophical Transactions" for 1861. The}^ extend 

 over no less than 2,614 cases, 2,086 of which occurred in the St. Marylebone 



* Das Him des Negers mit dem des Europaers nnd Orang-Outangs verglicUen, von Dr. P. Tiedemann, 

 1837,8.47. 



t Tables of the "Weights of the Brain and of some other Organs of the Human Body. By Thomas 

 B. Peacock, M.D., 1861. 



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