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Show 144 surgeon. The characters of the brain vary immensely, nothing being less constant than the form and size of the cerebral hemispheres, and the richness of the convolutions upon their surface, while the most changeable structures of all in the human brain, are exactly those on which the unwise attempt has been made to base the distinctive characters of humanity, viz. the posterior cornu of the lateral ventricle, the hippocampus minor, and the degree of projection of the posterior lobe beyond the cerebellum. Finally, as all the world knows, the hair and skin of human beings may present the most ex· traordinary diversities in colour and in texture. So far as our present knowledge goes, the majority of the structural varieties to which allusion is here Inade, are individual. The ape-like arrangement of certain muscles which is occasionally met with* in the white races of mankind, is not known to be more common among Negroes or Australians: nor because the brain of the Hottentot Venus was found to be smoother, to have its convolutions more symmetrically disposed, and to be, so far, more ape-like than that of ordinary Europeans, are we justified in concluding a like condition of the brain to prevail universally among the lower races of mankind, however probable that conclusion may be. We are, in fact, sadly wanting in information respecting the disposition of the soft and destructible organs of every Race of Mankind but our own; and even of the skeleton, our Museums are lamentably 4eficient in every part but the cranium. Skulls enough there are, and since the time when Blumenbach and Camper first called attention to the marked and singular differences which they exhibit, skull collecting and skull measuring has been a zealously pursued branch of Natural History, and the results obtained have been arranged and classified by various writers, among whom the late active and able Retzius must always be the first named. Human skulls have been found to differ from one another, • See an excellent Essay by Mr. Church on the Myology of the Orang, in the Natural History Review, for 1861. 145,. not rnercly in their absolute size and in the absolute capacity of the brain case, but in the proportions which the diameters of the latter bear to one another; in t~e relative size of the bones of the face (and more particularly of the jaws and teeth) as compared with those of the sku1l ; in the cleP'ree to 0 FIG. 27.-Siik and front views of the round and orthognathotts skull of a Cnl-mnck after Von Baer. One-third the natnrnl size. · L |
