New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1898-12-18
DELuSlO\S ABOUT BRAINS
SEVERAL POPULAR THEORIES OF THIS
CLASS EXPLODED
INTELLECT NOT INDICATED by WEIGHT coS.
NOLcTloNS. OR TIRE AMOUNT OF
GRAY MATTER.

Inc TACT mas been pretty we'll established that
d" important relation exists between a mans
o'a'h ana the quality and quantity of his men
tai work But il looks very much as il \ num-
Der " erroneous theories had been current in
regard I" the purely physical evidence Of ones
intellectual capacity. In the December number
OF The Popular Science Monthly" Dr. Joseph
Sifnfns discredts several such notions
frobably the most prevalent Of these delu-
sions is the belief that ability and force Of char
acter are proportional to weight " brain mat
Ter on this point DR.. Simms has collected a
great deal of interesting data. The heaviest
brain belonging to a talented person Of which
ne has been able to obtain any definite nforma-
ton is that Of the novelist Turgeniefr This
weighed IL ounces at the time of his death The
Scottish physician AbercrOmbe had *; ounces
of brain. the Scottish General Abercronby g.
and General Il. f. Butler the same Another
group OF nine eminent men. including Thack-
cray Cuvier and the infamous Jeffrey. had
brains weighing between "a and $50 ounces.
The author of Vanity Fair" then. was blessed
with - ounces less than the man who wrote
"Dimitri I;oudine" The first NAPOLEON Daniel
Webster. Agassiz and Chalmers are among
twenty-one famous persons whose brains
weighed from 80 to $50 ounces. 1t is instructive
to compare the endowments Of the hero nf Jena
and Austcrlitz with those Of the leader Of the
expedition against Fort Fisher. and then 10 re-
call that the latter had about ten ounces more
pulp inside his Uranium than the greatest sem
eral Of modern times
In another group of twenty-five men, having
from 40 to 1919 ounces of brain. one finds Grote.
Babbage. Bertion. Liebig Bishop Uhe mind
reader) and Gambetta. The figures given for the
last named 400. Now. the average weight
Of the brains of several hundred boys between
the ages Of seven and fourteen found by
DR.. Boyd TO be 40 ounces. and for boys rang
ing from four to seven years 4O2 Gambetta
steered the French Republic through one Of its
most dangerous crises. His death was pro-
nounced the sudden extinction Of powerful
individual force. of the most powerful. in
deed of such forces hitherto operating in
Europe" Yet in the scales his brain counted
for less than that Of the average boy Of seven
The impossbty of estimating the quality Of
mans mind from the weight of the organ in
which it resides is further illustrated by the
following statements: An idiot boy of fourteen.
who nearly killed his sister. had brain weigh |
ing 81 ounces. Another idiot. who was older.
possessed 80 ounces. an amount equalled by
only five Of the famous men in DR.. Simmss list.
and yet exceeded by at least eleven persons who
were distinctiveiy idiotic. DR.. Ireland cites an
imbecile for instance. with IO5 ounces of
brain and there is record of an ilerate and
weak-minded man with 11.3 ounces The Army
Medical Museum in Washington contains the
brain Of dwarfed Indian squaw which
weighed =; ) ounces and even these figures are
exceeded in the case cited by BischoG, of an
ignorant workman. Russian. who is credited with
1873 ounces
DR. Austin Flint OF New York in his 'Physi-
ology" makes the average brain weight for men
5O2 ounces Foreign authorities give other fig
ures and these are higher than DR. Flints IN
most cases DR.. Smms strikes ar average.
and adopts 80 as a standard. The mean for
his sixty famous men is only 5l.3 ounces max
ing them on the whole below the average of or
binary men in the quantity of their brains. But
,ho moan for DR. Smms's idiots and mbcces Is
594 ounces,
The folly of attempting TO judge of man by
his cranial bumps was exposed many years
ago by Oliver Wendell Holmes. He made the
Professor at the breakfast table say: The
walls of the head are double. with great cham
her Of air between them, over the smallest and
most crowded organs Can you tell me how
much money there is In the safe. which also has
chick walls by kneading the knobs with your
fingers? So when a man fumbles about my
forehead and talks about the organs or lndi-
yiduality and size trust him as much as
cbould if he felt over the outside OF my strong
hoy and told me that there was five-doilar or
. tordollar bill under this or that rivet. Per-
,ons tbere L. only he doesn't know anything
about it,"
:, iropoccihle n iu1ge of the brain