206 ANATOMY OF THE CENTKAL NEETOUS SYSTEM. 



individual cases. Absolutely nothing is known of the possessors of almost all of the 

 brains previously described. Thus a very large part of the data, collected seems to 

 me next to worthless, and later will probably be entirely so, for the point in ques- 

 tion from which we proceeded, the discovery of relations between the configuration 

 of the brain and the intellectual status of the possessor. 



Now the attempt has, indeed, been made to decide the question whether greater 

 intelligence may correspond to a larger brain, by weighing. Thousands and thousands 

 of such estimates have been made, but the large amount of material thus obtained 

 contains little that is of any value. First of all, the body-weight has, in many cases, 

 not even been considered. This, however, increases according to factors quite dif- 

 ferent from those controlling the brain; nevertheless, a certain connection exists 

 between the size of the two. Then, however, — and this appears to me the most im- 

 portant, — the development of the cerelyriim as a whole cannot 6e used at all as a 

 measure of the sum total of iiitclligence. It is an acquisition of the last decade only, 

 that we have learned that different drains may hare a very different development 

 of their various regions. At present these cortical regions cannot be so separated 

 from one another that they may be compared morphologically or by weight. The 

 brain-weight for the majority of males ranges between 1300 and 1450 grammes; for 

 females it is a little less. Now, uncommonly heavy brains occur at times in indi- 

 viduals who do not rank very high intellectually, and, on the other hand, relatively- 

 low weights have been found in men of prominence. We are not accustomed, how- 

 ever, to measure a man's intellectual value in its entirety, which, indeed, is almost 

 never possible, but generally according to some especially prominent characteristic, 

 which gives authority, position, etc., to the individual. Such peculiarities may very 

 well 6e traced to the increased development of a single cortical region, this increase 

 not directly expressing itself in the general relations of the gyri or in the brain- 

 weight. Anyone endowed with enormous visual memory, visual imagery, etc., and 

 with all the intellectual attributes that characterize the great artist, might occupy 

 a, position entirely unique, yet the increased development of the occipita,l lobe would, 

 on weighing, show no essential variation from the average brain-weight if, perhaps, 

 other centres were developed to a less degree. The same may be said of a musician, 

 where, in all probability, we have to do with an increase of the temporal lobe. 



One who is a great orator, an energetic man, and an ingenious commander need 

 not necessarily possess a larger brain. These characteristics may well be based upon 

 very small local increases of single cortical areas. Gambetta's brain, for example, the 

 speech-area of which was described as uncommonly developed (see above), weighed 

 hardly more than the average of the smaller brains. At present so little is known 

 regarding the cortical areas that in general hardly more can be said than that espe- 

 cial development of the frontal lobes frequently goes hand in hand with high in- 

 tellectual qualities, and that insufficient endowment, even idiocy, is found to be 

 comparatively frequent in those with abnormally small frontal lobes. That which 

 is still entirely wanting and is not to be attained at all at the present time, is data 

 of weight for the separate regions of the cortex. From this state of affairs it will 

 be understood why I do not, at the present time, give anything more definite con- 

 cerning the weight-relations of the central nervous system. 



It first occurred to Perls, my late friend, that a comparatively large number 

 of men who are intellectually eminent give the impression from their type of face 

 that they may have had an hydrocephalus, which healed in early childhood. He 

 expressed the conjecture that, if a moderate hydrocephalus should recede, a resist- 

 ance which is proportionally much less would oppose the growth of the brain, on 

 account of the enlarged skull. Since then I have followed this suggestion which he 



