Notes on the anthropological collection in the Museum of Human Anatomy at Cambridge / by W. L. H. Duckworth.

  • Wynfrid Duckworth
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on the anthropological collection in the Museum of Human Anatomy at Cambridge / by W. L. H. Duckworth. 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.

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    Jtotes on i\)t ^ntljropologtcal ttoltetton. The Anthropological Collection occupies ten cases in the Museum of Human Anatomy, wall-cases being arranged round the sides of that room, in addition to five spacious central cases. This great series of specimens represents the results of the efforts of Professor Macauster and his predecessor in the Chair of Human Anatomy, the late Sir George M. Humphry, to bring together a thoroughly representative series of the crania of the various human races. With such success have those efforts been met that the Collection is second to none in this country, and comprises more than one subsidiary collection—ex. gr., the Thurnam and the Hutchinson collections, of very considerable magnitude. The very number of the specimens, however, renders the acquisition of a comprehensive knowledge of the contents of this Museum a matter of prolonged study, and it is with the idea of pointing out the rarer and more interesting examples that these notes have been brought together. At the same time, references are given to various periodicals in which certain portions of the Collection may be found described in detail. It is convenient to describe the specimens in the order of the cases in which they are contained, and a rough sketch-plan of the Museum is appended in which the cases are marked with numerals from i-io. Thus on entering the Museum, there will be found immediately to the left, a wall-case (No. i) containing (besides some bones of the skeleton possessing no special anthropological importance) a series of modern European crania, of which the following are the most interesting :— (a) d wo skulls of Finlanders presented by Professor Retzius. The interest of these specimens lies in the fact that there has been a difficulty in determining the precise relationship of the Finns to other European nations ; some Mongolian affinities having been suspected. (b) The skulls of Lapps are also of interest in consideration of the obscure relationships of that race ; and the similarity of these skulls with certain crania of Savoyard origin is marked. (c) A cast of the cranium of King Robert Bruce will be found here ; and that the statement repeated by various authors as to the Neanderthaloid characters presented by it rest on a slender basis, will be seen on reference to the next Case, No. 2, which stands beyond the wall-case containing the preceding specimens, and contains plaster models of the crania of some