Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 07.djvu/892

FONTANE. come known as the Berlin type of fiction. It cer- tainly allied him with the younger school, the so-called realists. But his realism was quite in- dividual, and dominated by his own kindly per- sonality. After the death of Freytag (1895) he occupied a position of distinguished prominence in German literature. No notice of him would be plete without mention of his reminiscences, Meine Kinderjahre (1894), and Yon Zwanzig bis Dreissig (1898). Consult Servaes, Theodor Fon- tanel (Berlin. 1900).

FONTANEL (Fr. fontanclle, diminutive for fontaine, fountain, from ML. fontanel, foun- tain, from Lat. fons, fount). An artificial ulcer, formerly caused by physicians for its de- rivative effect. Any hard mass kept under the skin for a time will produce the necessary irrita- tion, such as a dried pea bandaged into a cut in the skin. This causes a discharge of pus, for- merly supposed to drain away the material of disease from another part of the body. The method and idea are obsolete. The term fon- tanel is also applied to one of the soft pulsating spots on the head of a very young infant. Of these there are three or four, the principal one being at the crossing of the sagittal and coronal sutures. This is the great or anterior fontanel. The next in importance is the posterior or breg- matic fontanel, at the junction of the sagittal and lambdoidal sutures. The others, called the sphenoidal and the mastoidal or Gasserian fon- tanels, close very soon after birth, while the posterior closes a few months, and the anterior about two years after birth. Synchronously with the pulse-beat, the brain pulsates through the fontanels, and may be fancied to resemble the water of a fountain.