445 
of Edinburgh^ Session 1864-65. 
and Dr John Thurnam,* the author proceeded to relate two 
additional cases of scaphocephalus to those he had already re- 
corded. He had met with one of these in the head of a living 
person, the other in a skull in the Natural History Museum of the 
University of Edinburgh. 
The first case occurred in a young man, a native of Scotland, 
and was a very characteristic specimen. The great elongation and 
lateral compression of the skull in the parietal region were well ex- 
hibited, the sagittal ridge was strongly pronounced, and the flat- 
tening of the skull on each side of the ridge was considerable. 
The head was 9 inches long ; and this great elongation was chiefly 
displayed in the bulging backward of the occipital region, for there 
was no marked projection of the forehead. The characteristic 
shape of this youth’s head was congenital, for it had been observed 
from his earliest infancy, and his birth was attended with consider- 
able difficulty. He was of studious habits, and very intelligent. 
For in these cases of scaphocephalism there is not necessarily any 
intellectual deficiency, as the impeded growth of the skull in the 
transverse direction from early obliteration of the sagittal suture is 
compensated for by the increased growth in the antero-posterior, 
and the growth of the brain though restricted in one direction is 
permitted in another. Hence, the cubic capacity of these crania 
does not seem to be below the mean of the race or races in which 
they have been found ; one of the skulls the author had formerly 
described — 117 a, Edinburgh University Anatomical Museum — 
having a capacity as high as 108 cubic inches. 
The skull in the Natural History Museum is that of an Egyptian 
mummy, and was described and figured as such by the late Mr 
Andrew Fyfe, in his “ Illustrations of the Anatomy of the Human 
Body.” f He states, that ‘‘ it is remarkable, not only for its length 
and narrowness, but for the strong impression made by the tem- 
poral muscle, and for the sharpness of the arches of the forehead 
and occiput but he says nothing of the condition of the sagittal 
suture, and apparently regards the skull as a characteristic specimen 
of the ancient Egyptian cranium. Conjoined, however, with this 
Natural History Review. April 1866. 
t Third Edition. Plates vii. A. and vii. b. Edinburgh, 1814. And in 
Table viii. page 8, of the edition published in 1830, 
