Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Memoirs read before the Anthropological Society of London. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![the development of the temporal lobe in the Negro and ape; but much farther observation is required on this important subject. The eyes are more separated than in the Buropoan, but not so much so as in the Mongol. The aperture of the eye is narrow, horizontal, and both eyes are wide apart. All the teeth, especially the last molars, are generally large, long, hard, and very white, and usually show httle signs of being worn. In some Negro-skulls there has been found an extra molar in the upper jaw. There is also sometimes a space between the incisors and canine* teeth of the upper jaw. The inferior molars sometimes present in the Negro race five tubercles, and this anomaly is sporadically found in other races.f It has been noticed in the European and the Esquimaux, but is said by my friend Mr. Carter Blake to be more frequent in the Negro * The conical form [of the canine] I find best expressed in the Melanian races, especially the Australian. ... It is also very -well marked in the denti- tion of the Mozambique Negro, figui-ed by F. Cuvier.—Dents des Mammiferes, pi. 1; Owen. Odontography, 4to., London, 1840-45, p. 452. f An examination of the teeth in a considerable number of African Negro crania has enabled us to draw the following conclusions :—In the A&ican Negro the teeth are usually of large, but not excessive, size ; they are regular-, commonly sound, although caries is occasionally obsei-ved, and they seldom present that extreme amount of wearing down of the cutting and grinding surfaces which may be found so commonly in the AustraKan and Polynesian. The incisors are laxge, broad, and thick, but not of greater absolute dimen- sions than in numerous individuals amongst the white varieties. The teeth do not depart from the human type in their relative proportions; for where- ever the incisors and canines are of considerable size, the true molars are likewise large, and maintain that superiority which is a distinguishing feature of the teeth of Man. The lateral incisors are well formed, and iii the perfect entu-ety of their outer angles they adhere more invariably to the human type than do the same teeth in some more civilised races. The canines are not proportionally longer or more pointed than in the white man. The j)remolars agree in configuration and relative size with the typical standard. The true molai-s are usually of large size, generally larger than in the European; the dentes sapientise, although smaller than the other molai's, ai-e in the majority of instances of greater relative and actual dimensions, and the fangs of the last-named teeth are usually distinct in both jaws. But in the character of their grinding sui-faces and their general contour-, the molai-s of the Afi-ican Negro present no depai-tm-e from the typical configuration, and, as in other races, there are many instances in which a general description wiU not entir ely apply We would observe that, according to om- limited experience, the general characteristics of the Afi-ican Negro dentition ai-e best exemplified ^albeit liable to exception) in the Negroes of the Western Coast. The toeth in the crania we have seen from Eastern Central Africa, and from the Mozam- bique, appeared to us_ to present less mai-kedly the minor difierences above noted. The prognathic development of the jaws also, and the consequent obliquity of implantation of the incisor teeth, though common in a vai-yinff degree to all Afi-ican nations, not excluding the Egyptians, attains its greatest development in crania from the Western Coast.—P. C. Webb. Teeth in Man and Anthropoid Apes, p. 41. c 2](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21937412_0001_0033.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
