The parietal also, besides being much reduced, encroached evidently on the other two.

Regard being had to the smallness of the skull, the cerebellar fossa was of enormous dimensions. It projected behind and at the sides beyond the posterior extremity of the cerebral fossa, which was much restricted. It was much dilated above, terminated conically, and presented, as a whole, that form of a funnel, which M. Retzius has pointed out as peculiar to the occiput of the young fœtus.

The facts just indicated had had a very curious influence on the development of the different parts of the face. The superior arcs of the cranial vertebra being in some degree atrophied, their inferior arcs had acquired an excessive development. The pterygoid bones, the bones of the palate, and the intermaxillaries, had, in developing themselves, drawn into their movement the upper maxillaries, and the entire upper jaw offered a marked projection; the lower jaw, on the contrary, independent, as we all know, of the vertebral series, had retained its normal form and proportions; the result was inevitable. The development of the two jaws taking place unequally, they no longer corresponded in front, and the upper incisives no longer met the lower.

This deformity often accompanies foolishness, and then it gives the face an expression of characteristic silliness; it is so closely connected with the diminution of the frontal arc, that it is met with in the heads of Caribs and Aymaras, who have a custom of flattening or deforming the forehead. The skulls in the collection of the museum show this. We might also refer to those figured by Morton in his fine work Crania Americana; and looking at the jaws of Botocudo, which he has represented in his fifteenth plate, one might imagine that this very short head had been artificially deformed. However this may be, this deformity appears to be an inevitable consequence of microcephalus. It existed in the observation of microcephalus published by Gall. The three microcephalics which I have studied also exhibited it; it was most highly marked in the case of the pretended Aztecs, as any one may convince himself by an examination of the very accurate portraits made by M. Barwell in London, by the desire of M. H. de Saussure; and it was more especially evident in the boy, who was more microcephalous than the girl; it was also exhibited in the case of the pretended Earthmen. It gave, to the advantage of those poor little creatures, the birdlike physiognomy which is so striking in the drawings of M. Barwell.

This imperfect and monstrous proclivity of the face differs from the natural proclivity which constitutes prognathism; in the case of the Makuos, a race of Southern Africa, whose prominent muzzle immediately recalls the physiognomy of the gorillas and cynocephalous papions, the lower jaw invariably corresponds perfectly with the upper, which proves that in this case the proclivity is normal, and does not depend upon an accidental degradation. I think that this fact furnishes an additional argument to the partisans of the plurality of species in the human genus.

The study of the brain of microcephalics has provided me with other elements, by the aid of which the absolute distinction of man is

evidently and anatomically proved. In comparing attentively the brain of monkeys with that of men, I have found that, in adult age, the arrangement of cerebral folds is the same in one group as in the other; and were we to stop here, there would not be sufficient ground for separating man from animals in general; but the study of development calls for an absolute distinction. In fact, the temporo-sphenoidal convolutions appear first in the brain of monkeys, and are completed by the frontal lobe, whilst precisely the inverse order takes place in man: the frontal convolutions appear first, the temporo-sphenoidal show themselves last; thus the same series is repeated in the one case from a to w, in the other from w to a. From this fact, rigorously verified, a necessary consequence follows: no arrest in the progress of development could possibly render the human brain more similar to that of monkeys than it is at the adult age: far from that, it would differ the more the less it were developed. This consequence is completely borne out in the brain of the microcephalic; in the first instance, it might be taken for the brain of some new and unknown monkey, but the slightest attention would suffice to enable us to avoid this error. In a monkey the parallel fissure would be long and deep; the sphenoidal lobe would be charged with complicated incisures. In a microcephalic, on the contrary, the parallel fissure is always imperfect, and sometimes absent, and the sphenoidal lobe is almost perfectly smooth.

This is not all; in the case of microcephalics, the second fold of the passage between the parietal and occipital lobes is always superficial, which is a characteristic absolutely proper to man. In the brain of pitheca, on the contrary, this fold is constantly hidden under the operculum of the occipital lobe. Thus, in the midst of their degradation, the brain of microcephalics presents human characteristics. Though, often less voluminous and less involved than that of the ourang-outang, or the chimpanzee, it does not become like theirs. The microcephalic, however reduced, is not a beast; he is a dwarfed man.

I have examined whether microcephalus preceded or not the birth. I find incontestable evidence that it does. In one of the microcephalics that I studied, the general form of the brain and the fissure of Sylvius showed that the deformity was at least contemporaneous with the fifth month. It seems probable that this state depends upon some initial cause. Under the influence of a primordial astheniogeny, forms are produced which differ from all normal conditions; but in a normal new-born infant, the system of cerebral folds is complete in all its parts.* If microcephalus appeared after birth, all the folds would remain, and the volume only of the brain would be diminished; but it is not thus. The movement has languished from its origin, its curve is shortened, it has finished prematurely, and far short of its normal end.

Perhaps I ought here to direct attention to the enormous development of the cerebellum, for these beings never attain puberty. This fact is little favourable to the theory of Gall, but is much more so to

*It is the same with all animals that are born with their eyes open; in the case of those born with closed eyes, the convolutions are only perfected at the moment when the eyelids separate.

that of M. Flourens. The normal microcephalics move about with perfect rapidity, ease, and harmony. A very large relative development of the medulla spinalis and oblongata no doubt contributes to their agility.

Thus the reduction takes place more especially, and almost exclusively, in the cerebral hemispheres. The external organs of sense are large and well developed. The nerves leading to them exhibit a development surpassing the dimensions of the normal state.

Having attempted to demonstrate that the microcephalics preserve the material or zoological characters of man, I would remark that they also retain man's proper intellectual aptitudes. Most of them have an intelligible language, poor, it is true, but articulate and abstract. Their brain, inferior in appearance to that of an ourang or a gorilla, is nevertheless that of a speaking mind. This innate, and so to speak, ineffaceable virtuality, is certainly man's noblest and most brilliant characteristic. This strikes us especially within sight of the partial attenuation and ruin of the intellectual organs. Disease and astheniogeny may dwarf man, but they do not make him a monkey.

These microcephalics, deprived of convolutions, are all very small dwarfs. This recalls to mind the relation supposed to have been discovered some years ago between the development of convolutions and that of figure. It is true that all large animals possess cerebral convolutions, and that a great number of small animals do not. But this relation appears to me to have been ill appreciated. It is, on the contrary, the development of convolutions which announces that of figure, always preceding it, not alone in the individual, but in each zoological group as a whole. Thus, in the natural groups which contain gigantic animals, the smallest species have convolutions, whatever in other respects the exiguity of their figure. Such are the weasel amongst the carnivorous plantigrades or palmigrades, the Antelope hemprichiana (Ehr.) and the Spinigera (Temm.) amongst the ruminants.

Among human races, the Bosjemann has convolutions very little complicated. The frontal lobe especially presents a degree of simplicity which is never met with in white races, except in some cases of congenital idiocy. This is a race whose figure is very small; at the same time the Bosjemanns are neither microcephalous nor idiots. This sufficiency of an imperfect cerebral form proves that it is normal, and in some sort specific; and that, if the Bosjemanns are men, anthroologically inferior, they cannot with any reason be considered as degraded. Their race is fruitful. This is proved by its duration in the midst of the destructive causes which necessarily surround it. It is therefore not degenerate; for all modern observations agree in demonstrating that all degeneracy has a fatal termination in proximate sterility.

I think I may conclude, from the preceding observations, that man is absolutely distinguished from the highest orders of animals, no less. by his organization than by his intelligence. He alone has an essential language, by reason of the faculty of abstraction, which is proper to him alone. Animals, the ourang, and the chimpanzee, without doubt, have ideas of external objects; their incontestable memory proves it,

but the idea is essentially tied to that of its object. Man alone is capable of the idea of an idea; so that the intelligence of a beast is as a simple number, but that of man is as a power, the exponent of which is higher or lower according to the degree of perfection of individuals and of races.-(Journal de la Physiologie de l'Homme et des Animaux. Janvier, 1860.)

GHEEL.-LETTER FROM DR. WILLERS JESSEN.

(To the Editor of the Journal of Psychological Medicine.)

SIR,-In the last number of your Journal, of which I have been a reader for several years, I find an article directed partly against myself, partly, with regard to my quotations, against my English co-thinkers. I pass in silence the offensive personalities addressed to myself as being without justification, and consequently proving nothing but bad taste. Neither do I think proper to oppose assertions consisting only in vague phrases, unsupported by any arguments. If Dr. Parigot calls the medical officers of asylums dreamers, psychologists, and mad doctors, and praises St. Dymphna, if he represents the asylums as prisons, and speaks of liberty and non-restraint in Gheel, where the sick people are put in "fetters, chains, and irons," he will no doubt produce the most disadvantageous impression upon your countrymen, who have established the best asylums of the world, and who are the last to be deceived by sophisms.

I therefore shall only blame the great want of exactness with which he repeats my expressions. My best argument is, he says, that "Gheel ought to be a practical criticism upon asylums;" but I never have made use of such a phrase. I have tried to prove by facts that no organization answering to the purpose could be given to lunatic colonies; I have insisted that no such colonies ought to be founded, before a possibility could be shown to avoid the improprieties Dr. Parigot himself has often indicated. If he had afforded this proof, I should gratefully have accepted his reply; as he has not even tried to do so, I must believe that he is incapable of it.

In the same incorrect way he says: "Following an article by Dr. W. Jessen, we find that Dr. Bucknill compares Gheel to the small English asylums, which he calls, with reason, squalid asylums." As to the last expression, Dr. Bucknill has only used it of Gheel, and has asserted on the contrary that the same reasons would be justly applied to Gheel, that have "so unjustly been urged" against private lunatic asylums. I have translated Dr. Bucknill word for word, and have given no occasion to Dr. Parigot's spiteful remarks on the English private establishments.

Finally, he writes: "In a paper which is quoted by the Allgemeine Zeitschrift, Dr. Stevens asserts that my honourable successor, Dr. Bulckens, told him that he did not possess any means of controlling the exorcisms practised in the chapel of St. Dymphna; that if it was in his power to put a stop to them, he should not think it prudent to do so, because what constitutes the colony is not medical science, but faith in St. Dymphna; and that if the saint disappeared, or was neglected, Gheel would have no more cause to exist.” "Unfortunately, however," he adds soon after, "Dr. Bulckens affirms, and we have no difficulty in believing him, that he said nothing of the kind. Dr. Stevens, doubtless from want of familiarity with the French language, has evidently

misunderstood what was said to him, and even what he saw." To my transla tion I had added the following passage of the original text in English: "As rev erence for Dymphna, the presiding saint, and no faith in medicine, ruled the colony, and he thought that, Dymphna once ignored or slighted, but little of Gheel, as a means of harbouring the insane, would remain." But now, Dr. På rigot has addressed to Dr. Droste in Osnabruck a letter, part of which the latter has put in print. In a journal edited by himself, Medicinische Aehrenlese, (January, 1860, No. 1,) there is to be read as follows: "J'ai lu l'article indignant (?) de M. Willers Jessen dans le cahier d'Octobre de l'Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie, &c., de 1859. M. Bulckens a dit à MM. Buckmill et Stevens: Si l'on n'adorait plus Sainte Dymphna, Gheel n'aurait plus de raison d'être." After this, Dr. Parigot, in his quotation, has thus changed the original text of Dr. Stevens, that at the conclusion he agrees literally with the expression, which, according to his letter, Dr. Bulckens has actually made. It is incomprehensible how he can affirm, notwithstanding, that the latter has said "nothing of the kind" but I will not decide against Dr. Parigot's trustworthiness, till he has given himself an explanation of this most striking contradiction. I am, Sir, yours obediently,

Hornhiem, near Kiel,
July the 23rd, 1860.

Dr. WILLERS JESSEN.

MEDICO-PSYCHOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF PARIS-PRIZE ESSAY ON CRETINISM.

THE Medico-Psychological Society of Paris has decided that the prize of 500fr. founded by M. Ferrus, augmented with 500fr. by M. Belhomme, and to which a member, who wishes that his name should not be known, has also added another sum of 50fr., shall be given to the author of the best essay upon “The Nature and Causes of Cretinism."

The following are the regulations which have been issued by the Society for the guidance of competitors:

"La Société médico-psychologique demande des documents scientifiques originaux recueillis aux sources mêmes de l'observation. Ces documents devront comprendre principalement:

"1. Des topographies comparées des localités frappées et non frappées de l'endémie crétinique, soit dans la même vallée, soit dans des vallées différentes.

Chaque topographie devra fournir des notions positives et scientifiques sur : "1° L'altitude de la localité;

“2o La nature, la configuration, et l'exposition du sol;

"3o La nature des eaux, la composition et l'état hygromètrique de l'air atmosphérique ;

"4o Le nombre, la disposition, et l'état des habitations et de leurs dépendances; "5° L'état de l'agglomération d'habitations en tout ce qui se rapporte à l'hygiène publique ;

"60 Les habitudes de la population en ce qui concerne l'hygiène privée, alimentation, vêtements, etc., etc.;

"70 La nature des occupations et de taux les salaires;

8° La nature des relations avec les agglomérations voisines;

"9o Les coutumes en ce qui touche les mariages et l'éducation des enfants;

"10° L'état de l'instruction et la nature des institutions destinées à le développer;

11° L'indication exacte pour chaque agglomération du nombre des habitants et des familles, et du nombre des crétins et des familles de crétins, en s'abstinant soigneusement de confondre avec les crétins les individus atteints d'idiotie simple, et NO. XX.-NEW SERIES, S S