160 
“ aI1 abnormal growth,” he still appears to expect we might find a race of people 
all possessing this abnormity and distortion, although he also described it as 
“ individual.” I do not quite understand what view Dr. Thornton intends to 
express on the subject ; but as far as I understand the state of the case with 
reference to the Neanderthal skull, it is simply this : that it is a purely 
individual and exceptional distortion arising from a disease known as 
synostosis or ossification of the sutures. The human skull, as you know, is 
divided into parts which fit into one another, so as to allow room, however, 
for the growth of the skull, as the child grows into the adult and afterwards 
into manhood. In the Neanderthal skull these saw-like divisions have become 
ossified and stuck together ; and there not being the ordinary means for the 
skull enlarging itself normally in every direction according to the growth of the 
brain, the skull has grown in a distorted form, and more particularly towards 
the forehead, by the pressing out* of the frontal sinus, thus giving a depressed 
form to the head. There can be no doubt about this fact. Dr. Barnard Davis 
made a careful examination of the cast of the skull ; and I have never heard 
it questioned by a single individual, since he put out his valuable memoir on 
the subject, that that was the state of the case. The skull has, therefore, 
nothing of a race characteristic. Of course, it is perfectly possible that the 
heads of people living in a certain state of nature, without very much study 
or anything to occupy them of an intellectual kind, and with all their 
faculties of observation constantly exercised, arising from their being engaged 
in war, in hunting, and so on, might, if there is any truth in phrenology, 
naturally tend to develop strongly over the ridge of the nose, and this might 
also prevent the elevation of the head, where the organs of veneration and 
benevolence are supposed to be situated. An instance of the reverse kind, 
in a people highly civilised, though their civilization is different from ours, 
may perhaps be found in the Japanese. I think any one who has paid a visit 
to that very interesting exhibition by the Japanese Jugglers, now in town, 
must have remarked, that, from the youngest child there to the oldest person 
.amongst them, their heads are peculiarly developed where the faculties of 
reflection predominate, their foreheads being extremely elevated, and the 
children’s remarkably so. Besides the Neanderthal skull, Dr. Davis has, 
I believe, the casts of some British skulls, the history of which is known, and 
which are developed in the same abnormal way as it is, from the same disease, 
the sutures being ossified. All this can be explained in a natural way as an 
abnormal development, and does not imply anything like a race characteristic. 
I do not understand why we should suppose that it does. 
The Chairman.— Dr. Thornton has guarded against the idea of a race ; 
he says, “ an abnormal growth exhibiting itself among men, by no means 
pithecoid — but such as the Scriptural ethnology might lead us to expect 
to find settled in early times in that part of the world.” 
Mr. Reddie.— But I do not understand why you should expect from the 
scriptural ethnology, that there should be a race of people all having synos- 
tosis in parts of the world settled in early times, if that is meant. As to this 
I should like some explanation ; and I only add that I have heard this 
