different aboriginal tribes, have always excited much curio- 
sity. A learned swiss physician, D:r L. A. Gosse, pu- 
blished an excellent treatise upon these artiticial distortions, 
in 1855. He eniiincrates and describes 16 different species. 
Still, whilst it is probable that he has not embraced every 
deviation of form of the head ])rodiiced artificially, D:r 
Gosse has described some distortions as distinct whicli 
differ only in degree. And, from his more general views, 
that distortions, when practised on both selves, may produce 
hereditary deformations — which is a revival of the Hippo- 
cratic doctrine, — and from his suggestion, that artificial 
compression might possibly be advantngeoiisly employed 
to depress those parts of the head which cover the cere- 
bral organs of the animal and lower propensities, whilst 
those of the higher tacidties are allowed free room for 
develo])ement, and that it might thus be turned to good 
account in education and the improvement of the race, I 
must be allowed to express a decided dissent. 
These deformities, according to our ideas, but ornaments 
and elegancies, according to the better Judgment of those 
who devised them, are produced by bandaging the head in 
difierent directions, by pressure on or between boards or 
compresses and other devices, in early infancy, before the 
bones have acquired much consistency and while the su- 
tures are in an open state. According to good authorities, 
the head is fully moulded into the proper mode in 10 or 
12 months after birth. I know not how long it takes to 
convert a Chinese girl’s foot into a stump, but the practice 
of compression is not begun until the age of from 6 to 9 
years, for whatever may be said by Hippocrates, or the 
disciples of M:r Darwin, the heads of Chinook infants 
and the feet of Chinese girls are perfectly normal at birth. 
