242 report — 1846. 



the idea of the arrangement of the cranial bones of the skull into segments, 

 like the vertebras of the trunk. He informs us that walking one day in the 

 Hartz forest, he stumbled upon the blanched skull of a deer, picked up the 

 partially dislocated bones, and contemplating them for a while, the truth 

 flashed across his mind, and he exclaimed " It is a vertebral column ! *" Oken 

 afterwards tested and matured this happy inspiration by examining the skulls 

 of a cetacean, a chelonian, and a cod-fish in Dr. Albers's museum at Bremen ; 

 and on his return to Jena in 1807, he published his beautiful generalization in 

 a now very scarce Introductory Lecture, or " Programm beim Antritt der Pro- 

 fessur," entitled ' On the signification of the bones of the skull't. He illus- 

 trates his views by reference to the skull of a ruminant. " Take," he says, 

 "a young sheep's skull, separate from it the bones of the orbit, also those 

 cranial bones which take no share in the formation of the 'basis cranii,' e.g. 

 the frontal, parietal, ethmoid and temporal, and there will remain an osseous 

 column which any anatomist, at first glance, would recognise as three bodies 

 of a kind of vertebrae with transverse processes and foramina. Replace the 

 cranial bones with the exception of the temporals, for, without these, the 

 cavity is still closed, and you have a cranial vertebral column, which differs 

 from the true one ('von der wahren') only by its more expanded neural 

 canal (Ruckenmarkshdhle). As the brain is a more voluminously developed 

 spinal chord, so is the brain-case a more voluminous spinal column. As 

 the cranium includes, then, three vertebral bodies, so must it have as many 

 vertebral arches. These are next to be sought out and determined. One 

 sees the sphenoid divided into two vertebras ; through the foremost pass the 

 optic nerves, through the hindmost the maxillary nerves (par trigeminum). 

 I call one the 'eye-vertebra' (Augwirbel), the other the 'jaw- vertebra' 

 (Kieferwirbel). Upon this latter abuts the basilar process of the occipital 

 bone and the petrous bones : both belong to one whole. As the optic nerve 

 perforates the ' eye-vertebra,' and the trigeminus the 'jaw-vertebra,' so the 

 acoustic nerve takes possession of the hindmost vertebra. I call it, there- 

 fore, 'ear- vertebra' (Ohrwirbel) : and I regard this as the first cranial ver- 

 tebra ; the jaw-vertebra as the second, and the eye-vertebra as the third." — 

 ib. p. 6. 



After entering upon the difficulties which beset him in determining whether 

 the petrosal belonged to the first (Ohrwirbel) or the second (Kieferwirbel), 

 and enunciating his views on the essential relations of each cranial vertebra 

 with a single special sense (excluding, however, smell and taste, as being 

 inferior in dignity to the others), Oken proceeds, in his characteristic bold 

 metaphorical language : — " Bones are the earthy hardened nervous system : 

 Nerves are the spiritual soft osseous system — Continens et contentum." 



" Between the sphenoid and occipital, between the sphenoid and petrosal, 

 between the parietal (the temporal being removed) and the occipital, theie 

 runs a line which defines the anterior boundary of the first vertebra. In the 

 line between the two sphenoids, or that which in man extends anterior to 



* " Im August 1806 machte ich eine Reise iiber den Hartz," — " ich rutschte an der Siid- 

 seite durch den Wald herunter — mid siehe da ; es lag der schbnste gebleichte Schadel einer 

 Hirscbkuh vor meinen Fiissen. Aufgehoben, umgekehrt, angesehen, und es war geschehen. 

 Es ist eine Wirbelsdule ! fubr es mir wie ein Blitz durcb Mark und Bein — und seit dieser 

 Zeit ist der Schadel eine Wirbelsaule." — Isis, 1818, p. 511. 



t Uber die Bedeutung der Schadelknochen, 4to, 1807. I am indebted to my friend 

 Mr. Tulk, the able translator of ' Wagner's Comparative Anatomy,' for the opportunity of 

 perusing this most suggestive and original essay, which does not exist in either the Library 

 of the British Museum, that of the College of Surgeons, or that of the Medico-Chirurgical 

 Society. Mr. Tulk is at present engaged in the arduous task of translating the " Lehrbuch 

 der Natur-philosophie " of Oken for the ' Ray Society.' 



