616 
Hum. Var. Nat. Ed. 3tia. 1795. p. 294. I do not doubt, on the 
contrary, that in one form or another, or of one kind or 
another, they are to be met with among the people of 
every continent and almost of every country. But, in 
making this statement, 1 do not confine myself to tliose 
distortions which have attracted chief attention, viz. those 
produced by artificial means and with deliberate intention, 
for the supposed purpose of improving nature, or of di- 
stinguishing families by an aristocratic mark. 
I. Among the different kinds of deformation of the 
skull, probably the first place is due to those which may 
be called, as a class, Syiiostotic Deformations. These arise 
from the premature conjunction of the bones of the cranium, 
by the ossification of the sutures. At a late period of life, 
in the normal state, the cranial bones frecpiently coalesce. 
When the brain has ceased to grow, or to alter in magni- 
tude, this is not attended with any deformity or inconve- 
nience whatever. It is much otherwise when one or more 
of the sutures at the junction of the bones of the skull 
which, in the normal state, are occupied witli a cartilagi- 
nous substance, admitting the dc])Osition of osseous matter 
at the edges of the bones and the conseciuent growth oi 
the head, become ossified and obliterated. The premature 
closure of the cranial bones takes place occasionally at a 
very early age. I have met with an active, healthy boy 
of between 7 and 8 months old, in whom the sagittal 
suture was wholly obliterated and the singular resultant 
changes of form of the head had ensued, subsequently to 
his birth; for his mother affirmed, that his head was (piite 
like that of other infants at l)irth. It is also remarkable 
that synostosis often confines itself to one or more sutures 
and seldom extends, at all events, in early life, to the su- 
