On the importance of a due estimate of the different modes and degrees of deformation of the skull, in the study of craniology / by Joseph Barnard Davis.

  • Davis, Joseph Barnard, 1801-1881.
Date:
[1865]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the importance of a due estimate of the different modes and degrees of deformation of the skull, in the study of craniology / by Joseph Barnard Davis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    5/18 (page 5)
    aboriginal peoples*), as well as among European races. My attention lias been particularly directed to this point from having in my collection a number of remarkable examples. I possess one skull of an Australian, which is the largest and most singular s/>lieno-cephulus hitherto described. The skulls of a North-American-Indian and of a Veddah, of the Island of Ceylon, the former a boy of 14, are also instances of synostosis of the sagittal suture ami of scapho- cephalism**). The cranium of Pofii, a native of the Island ') On the prevalence of synostotic Crania among Aboriginal Races of man. By J. Bahnaiu) Davis, M. D. Transactions of the Society of Sciences of Haarlem. 1864. *') In some races skulls occur, even frequently, which present such a great length, narrowness and height as to deserve lo be distinguished by the epithet scapho-cephalic' a term which has been felicitously applied by the distinguished Professor von Baku of S:t Petersburg, to crania presenting aa irregularity in their developemcnt. This irregularity consists essen- tially of the premature ossification of the sagittal suture. Prof, vdh Baek maintained that the two parietal bones, in these cases, had been developed from one centre of ossification, situated in the mesian line, i. e. in the course of the sagittal suture. My observations upon the 27 skulls in my Collection which exhibit a too early obliteration of the sagittal suture, afford no support whatever to the existence of such a presumed uni-parietol bone. In true scapho-cephalic crania, besides the obliteration of the sagittal suture, there are the signs of compensatory deielopement, occasioned by the continued growth of the brain, in a very protuberant forehead and occiput and usually a ridge along the line of the closed suture, which, at times, follows that of the obliterated frontal suture also. This represents the keel of the ancient boat and renders the epithet scapho-cephalic closely applicable. Many of the skulls of the New Caledonians and New Hebrideans exhibit such great length, narrowness and height that they may with propriety he designated natural scapho-cephali. The parietal tubers are also very low. They are to be distinguished from the scapho-cephali pro- duced by anomalous developemcnt by the absence of the ridge or keel and of the other marks. Such incomplete scapho-cephalism thus be- comes, to a certain degree, a race-character. It wile serve in a forcible manner to show the great importance to craniologists of the^subject of artificial interference with the configuration of the head, if I mention, that in these very races, the New Caledonians