BRAIN WEIGHT.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4563, 20 August 1883, Page 3

BRAIN WEIGHT.

The report, says the Inquirer, that the brain of Gambetta, when examined by the experts, was found to weigh 1,100 grammes, or less than 39 ounces, has led to the publication of an immense number of brain weights. The brain of the adult human male is said to average about fifty ounces, and that of the adult female about forty-five. The maximum weight of the healthy brain is sixty-foor ounces, and minimum thirty-one. In cases of idiotcy it has be^n found weighing only twenty onnceg. Broca places the lowest limit of brain weight compatible with human intelligence at thirty ounces in males, and thirty-two in females, the average weight of the European male brain being 320z Pr Bischoff, ■ .-of Boon, published two or three years ego perhaps the most exhaustive study of the subject ever undertaken. He had examined and weighed the brains of 559 men and 353 women. His figures were as follows :— Highest. ..Lowest. Average. Male G7>9oz 30-9oz 48oz Female ... 55.20z 29.90z 430z

Bischoff weighed the brains of ten cultivated and celebrated men, some of which j£ he.Jound below the average, while none ■reached the maximum. The brains of 116 ordinary offenders weighed eleven grammes more- than.the average, some having a

weight of 1500 and 1600 grammes. Broca, on comparing 115 skulls taken from a vault closed up Hot later than the twelfth century, with another se.ries of 125 skulls taken from a cemetery belonging to the earlier years of the present century, found the average capacity to be 1426 and 1462, showing a considerable gain daring a seven centuries of progressive civilization. As to the actual weight of the brains of eminent men full statistics are not obtainable.

Taking individual cases some 23 in number, Cuvier, the naturalist's, heads the list, according to one authority, with 64§0z,, and according to another, with 64'330z. The brains of Abercomby, the physician, and of Schiller, the poet, weighed 630z.; Mr James Simpson's weighed 540z and Chalmer's 530z.; the brains of Wopoleon and Daniel Webster, 57cz., and the Count Cavour's, the great French statesman, weighed 520z. The brain of a mnlatto, who died not long ago at Cincinnati, was found to weigh 61oz. He was not considered bright or intellectual.

The heaviest brain on record, which weighed 670z., according to Dr Morris, was that of a bricklayer, who "had a good memory and was fond of politics, bqt could neither read nor write, so that, whatever his potentialities, his actual acquirements might were not great." It may surprise our readers to learn that the only statistics of Chinese brain weights available show them to exceed all other

nations in this respect. The average brain weight of the males reached 50§0z., and that of the female 45|oz. This is an average not attained, so far as, is yet known, by another nation, it being fully 6oz. above that of the average negro and l|oz the European. The brain of Guiteau weighed 59|0z., exceeding by more than 70oz. the reported weight of the brain of the great French Republican.