294 
RKVIEW. — NATURAL HISTORY 
three ounces and four pounds six ounces* : in the female, between 
two pounds eight ounces and three pounds eleven ounces, Troy 
weight. In a child, six years old, Haller found it to be two pounds 
twenty-eight drachms and a half. In Tyson’s chimpanzee, the 
weight of the brain was eleven ounces seven drachms, while the 
stature was only twenty-six inches; a proportion, Lawrence ob¬ 
serves, equal to that of the human subject; which, however, is 
not the case, inasmuch as the shortness of the lower limbs of the 
chimpanzee, compared to the bulk of the body, renders the admea¬ 
surement of the animal fallacious, when opposed in this point of 
view to that of man. With respect to the comparative weight or 
size of brain between man and the lower animals, there is much 
difficulty in arriving at correct estimates, nor, when attained, do 
we derive any results of importance. Monro states, that ' he found 
the brain of a large ox not to weigh more than one-fourth part of 
the human brain, whilst the weight of the ox was six times greater 
than that of the man, or the brain of man was, in proportion to his 
weight, twenty-four times heavier than that of the ox.’ On the 
contrary, according to Cuvier, the brain of the seal is larger in 
proportion to the body than in man, as is also that of the sai (an 
American monkey). But, admitting these facts, what is the in¬ 
ference ? It cannot be concluded, from the latter, that the animals 
in question are intellectually superior to man; or, on the other 
hand, that the ox is inferior to these animals; it may, or it may 
not be—and, in either case, as is very plain, the mere size of the 
brain, compared with that of the body, affords no index, which is 
only to be sought for in the modification of its parts, and their re¬ 
spective degrees of development. Moreover, this test is invalidated 
by the fact, that while the weight of the body varies from a mul¬ 
titude of circumstances, it is increased by the development of the 
muscular system, resulting from athletic exercises, and by the ac¬ 
cumulation of fat, or is diminished by emaciation during illness, 
or a flaccid state of the muscles; the weight of the brain is not 
sensibly affected, but remains stationary. Hence the contradictory 
scales of comparison given by different authorities. The ratio in 
the cat, for example, is stated by one author to be as 1 to 82, and 
by another as 1 to 156; and, according to the observations of dif¬ 
ferent physiologists, in some dogs it is as 1 to 47, and in others 
as 1 to 305. 
continues to grow till the fourteenth year. The brothers Wenzel have shewn 
that the brain arrives at its fuU growth about the seventh year, and this is 
confirmed by Hamilton’s researches. 
* The brain of Cuvier weighed four pounds eleven ounces four drachms 
and thirty grains, Troy weight; that of the celebrated surgeon Dupu^tren, 
four pounds ten ounces, Troy. 
