Phrenology, or the doctrine of the mind : and of the relations between its manifestations and the body.
- Johann Spurzheim
- Date:
- 1825
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Phrenology, or the doctrine of the mind : and of the relations between its manifestations and the body. Source: Wellcome Collection.
121/352 page 105
![parent, yet, in old persons, whose brain has diminished in size, it sometimes happens that the tw^o tables of which it consists ^ are separated ; the inner having receded to a great distance from the outer. From these data it results that the form of the skull is the consequence of that of the brain; that from the commencement of ossification till death the internal table of the skull is moulded after the fashion of the brain; and that in extreme old age the two tables are often separated, and the bone thus rendered thicker than it was at the age of maturity. Diseased or imperfect states of the brain also prove this -position relative to the causes of the form of the skull. In those idiots from birth whose brains have never increased in size, the skull always remains small (PL i. Jig. 1); on the contrary, if the head be distended by water, the skull partici- ])ates in the expansion, either generally or in particular situa¬ tions.—(P/. ii.^g. 1 & 2.) Portions of bone depressed byexten- nal violence, are often replaced in their first levels by the action of the brain. Fungi of the dura mater also cause the absorp¬ tion of the skull rather than of the brain, for they pierce it and appear externally. All, therefore, concurs to prove that the form and size of the brain regulate the form and size of the skull. I do not, however, deny that, in some diseases of the skull, the ossific process may be primitively altered, and the brain injured in consequeiice. Jt is an error to suppose that the impressions which corre¬ spond to the cerebral convolutions, and the blood-vessels of the dura mater on the internal surface of the skull, are the result of mechanical pressure. These grooves are the efiect of the absorbent vessels, and the impressions called digital occur when the dura mater is very thin. This in man and in the greater number of animals, is only at the basis ; in individuals, however, who die of consumption, it IS sometimes observed of peculiar delicacy and thinness over a much greater extent, and then the pits pervade almost the whole of the internal surface ol the skull.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2929597x_0121.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
