Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/573

Rh the male and the female brain can often be found at the seventh or eighth month of foetal life, and that the male has the frontal lobe better developed than has the female, and that there is an earlier development of the secondary fissures in it, and in the parietal lobe.

I commend this matter to the serious consideration of the "twenty leading brainanatomists," etc. I scarcely believe that any one of them, without reference to the "physical sex differences" referred to by Miss Gardener, could tell the sex of a three months-old infant by a minute inspection of all the rest of its body.

A word more in relation to the subject of the comparative weight of the brain in the two sexes. Miss Gardener and, presumably, the "twenty leading brain-anatomists," etc., deny that there is any superiority of brain-weight in the man over that of woman, and she instances the fact that the difference in the weight of some men's brains is greater than that existing between that of the sexes. No one questions that matter, so far as I know, but certainly nothing of any importance to her case is to be drawn from the fact. A like condition exists in regard to almost all parts of the body. Thus the average foot of a woman is smaller than the average foot of a man, yet the difference between the feet of some men is greater than the average difference between the foot of man and woman. The average ear of a man is larger than the average ear of a woman. Yet some women have prodigious ears, far exceeding in size the ears of some men; it would certainly not be correct to assume from these facts that a woman's foot or a woman's ear is larger than the corresponding members in man. It is with averages deduced from a large number of observations that we have to deal in matters of this kind and not with individual examples.

Dr. Thurnam gives the average brain weight of ten men who were remarkable for their intellectual development as 54·7 ounces, among them that of Cuvier, 64·5 ounces; Abercrombie, 63 ounces; Spurzheim, 55·6 ounces; Daniel Webster, 53·5 ounces; Lord Campbell, 53·5 ounces, and Chalmers, 53 ounces. Now, let Miss Gardener and the "twenty leading brain-anatomists," etc, search the records of anthropology and their own immense collections for the brain of a woman weighing as much as the least of these, that of Dr. Chalmers. I venture to say that there has never been in the history of the whole world a female brain, free from obvious disease, weighing more than fifty-six ounces, whereas there have been many male brains exceeding this by several ounces.

Next, in regard to the relative and absolute brain-weights in the two sexes and in animals generally, Miss Gardener shows that she is ignorant of the points involved. She quotes me as saying, "Numerous observations show beyond doubt that the intellectual power does not depend upon the weight of the brain relative to that of the body so much as it does upon absolute brain weight. (The italics are Miss Gardener's, who, not content with exercising the feminine proclivity of italicizing what she writes, takes that liberty to no small degree with what I have written.) This is true, but she does not understand in what its truth constistsconsists [sic], for she goes on to assert that in accordance with its dictum the brains of the whale and of the elephant, being of vastly greater weight than the brain of man, the animals possessing them should be superior to man in intelligence. Here she very disingenuously or very ignorantly attempts to make it appear that I have declared absolute brain-weight, regardless of species and genera, and without reference to the structure of the organ, to be the test of intelligence; whereas, in everything that I have ever written with reference to this point, I have invariably expressed the diametrically opposite opinion. But, if the brain of a whale or that of an elephant had as large an amount of gray tissue and as complex a structure as that of man, it is very certain that then the whale and the elephant would stand at the head of all animated nature, and that man would be their slave. "The elephant, which disports himself for the amusement of small boys and the enrichment of Mr. Barnum," would be quite capable of causing the small boy and Mr. Barnum to amble, and gyrate, and to stand on their heads for his—the elephant's—amusement and that of his wife and children. It is not only in size that the male brain differs from that of woman, but that its structure and arrangement are also different.

The absolute brain-weight is, therefore, of little consequence, except when it relates to animals of the same species. A whale, with a brain weighing six or seven pounds, would be a more intelligent whale than one with a brain of four or five pounds. A man with a brain weighing sixty-five ounces is potentially a more intellectual man than the one with a brain of thirty-five ounces. In three individuals of very feeble intelligence Tiedemann found the weights of their brains to be 19, 25, and 22 ounces, respectively. Mr. Gore has reported the case of a woman, forty-two years of age, whose intellect was infantine, who could only speak a few words, whose gait was unsteady, and whose chief occupation was carrying and nursing a doll. After death the weight of her brain was found to be but ten ounces and five grains.

As to relative brain-weight, I do not attach much importance to it, as it is subject to variation according as the individual