The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1925-12-08
CONGRESSMAN DELAY
TAPE TEST OF SKULLS
SHOW NO HASTE TO HAVE
HEAD MEASUREMENTS COM
PARED WITH INSANE.
THE BILL is COMING UP AGAIN
Measure to Provide $4,000 Labora-
tory to Study Question Lays in
Committees. Average Age of In
sane and Congressman the Same.

Committees. Average Age of In
sane and Congressman the Same.
INSTITUTIONAL bill which
has been twice reported favorably to
congress by the senate and house
committees on the judiciary and which
will be reintroduced at the coming
session provides for the establishment
of a laboratory for the study of abb
normal classes and appropriates $l10,-
900 to pay the cost of maintaining it
for year The plan is that of DR..
Arthur Macdonald, Washington
criminologist and author Of Man and
Abnormal Man" DR.. Macdonald pro-
poses in the interest of science to
measure the craniums of the 531 mem
bers of the house and senate and COM
pare the results with the skull meas
urements of the 1000 patients of the
government hospital for the insane
This, he thinks, will be useful ex-
pertinent in the science of anthropo
logical psychiatry. But congressman
as yet have evinced no haste to facili-
tate the doctors experiment.
Weigh Brains of Living.
GAS the largest number of insane
is at about the age of forty and as the
average age of the members of both
houses of congress is between forty
and fifty, such a control experiment
will be of special value" DIR. Mac
Donald said Moreover" he added,
like the members of congress, the
insane in the government hospital here
come from all parts of the country"
DR.. Macdonald asserts that the
term "anthropological psychiatry" is
new one in other languages, as well
as in English In coming the term he
intends to apply those facts and meth
DDS of anthropology to psychiatry,
which may be of most scientific value.
"One of the latest methods OF an
chronological research" DIR, Mac
Donald said, rs to estimate the
weight of the brain on living persons
by means of equations. We cannot
predict the weight of brain as exactly
as astronomers foresee an eclipse, but
l have combined an equation which
so far as tested gives fairly approxi-
mate estimate of brain weight on the
living"
Gives His Formula.
The MacDonald> formula is as fol-
lows: \
Head lengths X head breadth, 8x
head height, 8 .000337 plus 406.01
equals cranial capacity in cubic cent?
meters, which, multiplied by O.93,
gives the weight of the brain in grams
on living persons.
Before applying this combined
equation to the living, however, DR..
Macdonald is now, for the first time,
testing it upon the deed by taking
three measurements of the head and
then weighing the brain. The differ
ence between the predicted and act
ual weight of the brain is thus found,
DIR. Macdonald maintains.
after | have tested this equation
upon a sufficient number of dead and
found the percentage of error" he add
ed. 1T can be applied to the living,
both normal and subnormal."
DR.. Macdonald maintains that this
proposed study of the normal brain
as represented in the heads of mem
bers of congress, and the study of the
abnormal heads of patients in the
government hospital for the insane
will provide a practical demonstration
of the necessity for the passage OF the
bill establishing a laboratory for the
study of abnormal classes.
Time to Study individuals.
GAS author of the BILL" Dr. Mac
Donald said, Il ceased to press it in
congress for number of years, but
owing to the enormous increase OF
these evils, WHICH it is the purpose of
the bill to prevent or decrease, | think
il high time that a rigid scientific
study of the individuals producing
them Be inaugurated by our govern
ment
THE cost of these anti-social per-
sonalities to the United States is more
than $1,000,000000 per year, including
all patho-social activities outside OF
institutions in the community at
large, not to mention the still greater
moral damage involved. The PROPOSE
ton is to spend $4,000 a year by the
creation of this laboratory to combat
the enormous annual drain upon the
American people by the latest meth
DDS known to science.
The main purpose Of the MacDon-
aid bill is to study the causes OF crime,
insanity, pauperism, alcoholism, de-
fectiveness, degeneracy and other abb
normalities of mentality with view
to correcting them.