INFLUENCE OF DOMESTIATION ON BRAIN GROWTH.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1831, 5 January 1880, Page 3

INFLUENCE OF DOMESTIATION ON BRAIN GROWTH.

Dr Crichton Browne’s paper, “The Influence of Domestication on Brain Growth,” read in the Anatomy nnd Physiology Section of the British Association, is an important contribution to the science and iiteramre of development. By a scries of observations made wi b extreme care, the author shows that the duck has suffered iu brain development by being domesticated. While other animals have been domesticated for special qualities inherent in their nature as animals, the duck represents a class or creatures in which the instincts and uses of the organism have been suspended by the change in condition. The duck has been, so to say, taken wholly out of its place in nature, and reduced to the level of food by a process and under circumstances which supersede all its natural propensities. “Food has been copiously supplied, and of a kind richer and more nutritious than could have been accessible in a fetal state. Shelter has been pio vitied, and the bird has been compelled to live in a temperature higher than that to which it was accustomed in a state of nature. Competition has been made unnecessary, and protection has been afforded against a host rf enemies. Flight has bean prevented, and locomotion circumscribed as much as possible. In short, the life of the duck has been rendered tranquil, luxurious, and indolent. Its whole duty has been to live and grow fat, and to multiply and replenish the pond. Few calls have been made on its intelligence. It has not had its senses and instincts whetted by the necessity to range afar in quest of food, to eschew ever recurring dangers. It has not bad its energies evoked by a free existence It has been dragged down by domei-tication to a lower physical level,” The author might have added that it has been wholly demoralised and debased to the lowest depths of filth as a feeder. The braiu has lapsed in process of time as a result of the absence of stimuli. Dr Crichton Browne, starting from this striking illustration of the (ffrets of the “surroundings” on development, and noting the cumulative force of heredity, applies some of the obvious inferences from the facts he has detailed to the dnvelooment or retro gression of the brain iu different races or groups or families of men. “To fare sump tuously every day, to bask in luxury and idleness, is to court decay of the noblest of the tissues, for moth and mat doth corrupt even the greatest of man’s treasures—his intellect—when it is laid by in uselessness and lavender, and thieves will surely break through and steal away hi- brains unless they are zealously guarded and diligently exercised.” This is a practical point of the highest value and moment, and one that cannot bo too strongly or constantly expounded. The brain grows by use individually and racially. If it is not habitually employed, in a class or family, it will sink into subordinate importance. Tho moral of the consideration expressed is self-evident. — London “Lancet.”