130 Gencral Notes. [ February, 
are devoted to anthropology. The work is reviewed in the 
Atheneum for November 
In Mittheilungen der anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien, 
Dr. Moriz Benedikt makes some communications on onan 
This subject is becoming of great importance, inasmu uch a 
great deal of the work done is vitiated by the muleiplici of 
methods employed. 
The most important communication which has come to us in 
the last month, is the paper of Prof. Paul Mantegazza, in No. 2 of 
Archivio, F lorence, upon the third molar. The conclusions stated 
below are based ‘upon oe sae of 277 crania, and their 
eee occupies 175 p 
. In the lower races the third molar is lacking less frequently 
than in the higher races, in the proportion of 19.86 per cent. of 
the former to 42.42 per cent. in the second. 
2. The atrophy of the third molar is indeed less frequent in 
the higher than in the lower, the proportion being 10.90 per cent. 
of the former to 20.58 of the latter. 
3. Ectopia is also a fact observable in all skulls of whatever 
race, 2.01 per cent. for the higher and 1.80 per cent. for the 
lower. 
4. The same may be said of premature disappearance, 7.22 for — 
i lower races, 7.58 for the higher. 
5. Summing up all the cases of pisi ge including those 
in which there is an absence of the toot nd that in the 
lower races there is about an equal number of ahoni and nor- 
mal, 50.54 normal, 49.46 abnormal; while in the higher races the 
abnormality i is the rule and the normality the exception, 37.09 
normal, 62.91 abnormal. 
The ancient skulls, as regards the deficiency of the third 
molar, stand between the lower and higher of modern races. The 
absence amounts to 27.34 in the hundred, and atrophy to 16.41. 
On the other hand the premature disappearance i is less frequent 
than in the modern skulls. 
7. As to the number of roots in the third molar, there is no 
relation to the theory of evolution, the teeth examined belonging 
to lower as well as higher races. It is not true that in individuals 
of the highest race the number of roots is limited to one or two, 
while in the lower races the wisdom teeth always have three 
roots. Indeed the more common fact is this, that in ancient 
races as well as in the modern, higher or lower, we find the third 
molar with three roots to be 51.35 per cent. in modern higher 
races, ey 20 in modern lower races, and 46.43 in the ancient 
cran 
8. “Teeth with four roots are more frequent in the skulls of 
modern higher races (5.24), after them the modern lower (3. 20), a 
and lastly the ancient (2.68).. The occurrence of two roots is 
more frequent in the modern high (23.14), the next in the ancient A 
