School Strain
Likeall factors of degeneracy, school strain evinces itself in a systemic nervous exhaustion manifest along lines of least resistance, as in the neuroses of Christopher. The first types of his neuroses are due to overstrain of certain territories related with memory, as contrasted with diminished use of the association fibres connecting these. As Schopenhauer has excellently observed, man is one-third intellect and two-thirds will, and much of this last two-thirds is the result of training. Capacity for training may be greater in one individual than another, because of inherited or congenital deficiencies. It is, as Sully[180]remarks, “a happy circumstance in healthy children that that most prolific excitant of fear, the presentation of something new and uncanny, is also provocative of curiosity, with its impulse to look and examine. A very tiny child, on first making acquaintance with some form of physical pain, as a bump on the head, will deliberately repeat the experience by knocking his head against something as if experimenting and watching the effect. A clearer case of curiosity overpowering fear is thatof a child who, after pulling the tail of a cat in a bush and getting scratched, proceeded to dive into the bush again. Still more interesting here are gradual transitions from actual fear, before the new and strange, to bold inspection. The child who was frightened by her Japanese doll insisted on seeing it every day. The behaviour of one of these small persons on the arrival at the house of a strange dog, of a dark foreigner or some other startling novelty is a pretty and amusing sight. The first overpowering timidity, the shrinking back to the mother’s breast, followed by curious peers, then by bolder outstretchings of head and arms, mark the stage by which curiosity and interest gain on fear, and finally leave it far behind. Very soon the small, timorous creatures will grow into bold adventurers. They will make playthings of the alarming animals and of the alarming shadows too. Later on still perhaps they will love nothing so much as to probe the awful mysteries of gunpowder.”
In degenerate children, because of deficiencies of proper inter-association of the memory territories in the brain, healthy curiosity, and the instinct of sheltering are deficient, so that states of uncertainty, producing terror, result. These become permanent in after life, even when training as an adult is strongly antagonistic to them.
This is illustrated, as Harriet C. B. Alexander has shown,[181]in George Eliot, who during childhood “suffered from a low general state of health and great susceptibility to terror at night, and the liability to have all her soul become a quivering fear,” which remained during life. She had periodsof depression and vertex headache, which latter gave place to sick headache, often attended with rheumatoid phenomena. “She was an awkward girl, reserved and serious far beyond her years, but observant, and addicted to the habit of sitting in corners and watching her elders.” Fear of the unknown in childhood, seemingly a reversion to the fear of the unknown of savages, tends, like it, to produce occult belief. Despite the German rationalism of George Eliot, such fear found utterance in herBehind the Veil, a mystically occult contrast with her novels and with the positivism which was her religion. Theoretically the philosophy of George Eliot should have destroyed much mysticism, yet as a survival of “night terrors” it came to the surface. A very vivid autobiographical narrative of night-terrors and similar nervous phenomena in the childhood of a distinguished man of letters will be found in Horatio Brown’sLife of John Addington Symonds.
School over-pressure in certain respects checks, even in well-developed minds, the transition from the terror of the unknown of childhood into the calm of maturity. Morbid fears, imperative conceptions, and imperative acts which torture the individual during an otherwise healthy career unquestionably originate in the early periods of life.
Degenerate children, as Kiernan[182]remarks, early manifest decided neurotic excitability, and tend to neuroses at physiologic crises like the first and second dentition, and the onset and close of puberty. Slight physical or mental perturbation is followed by sleeplessness, delirium, hallucinations, &c. Hyperæsthesia and excessive reaction to pleasant or offensiveimpressions exist. Vasomotor instability is present, pallor, blushing, palpitations or pre-cardial anxiety result from trivial moral or physical excitants. There is no precocity or aberration of the sexual instinct. The disposition is irritable. The grasshopper is a burden. Psychic pain arises from the most trivial cause, and finds expression in emotional outbursts. Sympathies and antipathies are equally intense. The mental life swings between periods of exaltation and depression, alternating with brief epochs of healthy indifference. Egotism is supreme, and morality absent or perverted. This absence or perversion is often concealed under the guise of moral superiority, religiosity, or cant. Vanity and jealous suspiciousness are common. The intellect and temper are exceedingly irregular. Monotonously feeble, scanty ideation passes readily into seeming brilliance, even to the extent of hallucinations. But ideas are barren as a rule, because generated so rapidly as to destroy each other ere they pass into action. Energy fails ere aught can be completed. The inability to distinguish between desires and facts produces seeming mendacity. The will in its apparent exuberance, its capricious energy, and innate futility, matches and distorts the one-sided talent or whimsical genius which may exist. The whole of this mental state may not be present. The tendency to introspection, to morbid fear, to gloom, to hallucinations, to alternations of depression and exaltation, may occur in a degenerate child in whom has been otherwise preserved that secondary ego which is the latest and greatest acquirement of the race.
In the same class, according to George Parkman,[183]an American alienist of more than eighty years ago, brilliant talents, astonishing facility of receiving and communicating ideas often appear suddenly at puberty, especially in females, to be later followed by mediocrity, disappointment, and supineness.
These degenerate children have a tendency, as C. F. Folsom[184]remarks, to manifest aberrant tendencies at the periods of stress, which may, in Folsom’s judgment, be congenital, or due to early interference with normal brain development. These show themselves in childhood and infancy by irregularity or disturbed sleep, irritability, apprehension, strange ideas, great sensitiveness to external impressions, high temperature, delirium or convulsions from slight causes, disagreeable dreams and visions, romancing, intense feeling, periodic headache, muscular twitching, capricious appetite, and great intolerance of stimulants and narcotics. At puberty developmental anomalies, and not infrequently perverted sexual instincts, are observed in both sexes. During adolescence there is often excessive shyness or bravado, always introspection and self-consciousness, and sometimes abeyance or absence of the sexual instinct, which, however, is frequently of extraordinary intensity. The imitative and imaginative faculties may be quick. The affections or emotions are vehement but shallow. Vehement dislikes are formed, and intense personal attachments result in extraordinary friendships, which not seldom swing around suddenly into bitter enmity or indifference. The passions are unduly a force in the character, which lacks will power. The individual’s higher brain centres are not well inhibited, and he dashes aboutlike a ship without a rudder, fairly well if the winds be fair and the seas be calm, but dependent on the elements for the character and the time of the final wreck. Invention, poetry, music, artistic taste, philanthropy, intensity, and originality, are sometimes of a higher order among these persons, but desultory, half-finished work and shiftlessness are much more common. With many of them concentrated, sustained effort, and attempts to keep them to it are impossible. Their common-sense perception of the relations of life, executive or business faculty and judgment are seldom well developed. The memory is now and then extraordinary. They are apt to be self-conscious, egotistic, and morbidly conscious. They easily become victims of insomnia, neurasthenia, hypochondria, neuroticism, hysteria, or insanity. They offend against the proprieties of life and commit crime with less cause or provocation than other persons. While many of them are among the most gifted and attractive people in their community, the majority are otherwise, and possess an uncommon capacity for making fools of themselves, and of being a nuisance to their friends and of little use to the world.
These conditions occur from heredity in degenerates, but, as Francis Warner[185]remarks, while “it is very common to see disordered conditions of the nervous system in children with defective construction of body, these nerve disturbances may also be seen in children with normal construction of body. Such signs result from the disorder, produced by special circumstances, aiding as well as producing defect which results from, or in the next generation becomes, defect in original construction. Among the signs offatigue in children is the slight amount of force expended in movement, often with asymmetry of balance in the body. The fatigued centres may be unequally exhausted; spontaneous finger twitches like those of younger children may be seen, and slight movements may be excited by noises. The head is often held on one side. The arms when extended are not held horizontally. Usually the left is lower. The face is no evidence of bodily nutrition. It may be well nourished, yet the body be thin. Three per cent. of the children seen in school are below par in nutrition. These children are of lower general constitutional power. They tend to an ill-nourished condition under the stress of life, and many cases of mental excitement which, while they render them sharper mentally, militate against general nutrition.”
Colin A. Scott has found corroborative evidences of similar effects of strain in the children of the New England and Illinois schools.
These systemic nervous exhaustions may, as W. S. Christopher, of Chicago, has shown (in remarks on neuroses already cited), take unexpected local directions, especially involving, in accordance with the general law of reversal, evolution or degeneracy checks on excessive action. Among the conditions produced by school strain of serious consequence in after-life are headaches, usually charged to anæmia or neurasthenia. These headaches, as Sachs,[186]of New York, has shown, usually appear after emotional excitement or fatiguing ordeal. There are other symptoms expressive of neurasthenia, such as slight tremor of the tongue and fingers and exaggeration ofthe deep reflexes, but, above all, the very persistent vertex headache, and the child’s description of pressure or heat there. In children emotional conditions, school strain, rivalry between class-mates, are as liable to produce neurasthenia as are the more serious struggles for existence in later life. These headaches may pass very readily at periods of stress into migraine. The vertigo characteristic of migraine is not rarely found in the neurasthenic headache of childhood. What is true of migraine is also true of epilepsy. The tremors, &c., accompanying neurasthenic headache become the convulsions of epilepsy. G. B. Fowler reports a case emphasising very clearly the position of Christopher. It was that of a seven-year-old boy of mushroom growth and hothouse culture. He began every day before breakfast with an hour at Spanish, and until three in the afternoon was unceasingly occupied with French, German, music, and the ordinary school curriculum. This policy, initiated four years before, the pressure being gradually increased, had been maintained almost without interruption. The child had consequently developed into a sort of phonograph, capable of starting automatic expressions which afforded much entertainment to visitors, and gave the ambitious father great hope and comfort. Under such conditions it is not to be wondered at that something gave way, and, fortunately for the brain, it was the sphincter of the anus. When this deplorable occurrence first took place the child was sharply reprimanded; the accident repeating itself, however, two or three times weekly, and later about once a day, more pronounced measures were instituted. The boy was often severely flogged, deprived ofliberty, luxuries, &c., yet without avail. The lower bowel was perfectly normal. The sphincter was tight, grasped the finger with the usual firmness, and there were no sources of irritation about the anus. The abnormal conditions under which the child had been living very naturally at the outset were the cause of the difficulty. Cessation of the punishment and release from books was ordered. The result was satisfactory. In three weeks the involuntary discharge became gradually less frequent, and finally ceased altogether.
Mental strain produces precisely similar effects on the nerve control of the stomach. All types of nervous disturbances of the stomach—merycism (cud-chewing), bulimia (ox appetite), acoria (incapacity for getting enough)—result, as Ewald[187]has shown, from nerve strain, and increase this through auto-intoxication.
The sphincter of bladder often gives way, and is a very frequent expression of nervous exhaustion in the child, often increased by the effects of nerve strain on the kidneys, which do their work of purification imperfectly, while excreting nearly pure water. The enormous quantity of clear urine passed during worry is a generally recognised expression of such strain. This nerve-strain interference with the purifying work of the kidneys leads to increased strain on the liver and other glands, whence result migraine, the uric acid states, rheumatisms, and the other perversions of nutrition. Nerve-strain on either liver, bowel, or other glands, has similar secondary effects on the kidneys. In part this is an organ degeneracy in function whereby man’s liver andkidneys do the work of the sauropsidal liver and kidneys.
Among the nutritive disturbances resulting from nerve-strain is the fatty anæmia of Weir Mitchell, the juvenile obesity of Féré and others. This is generally associated with the uric acid states which so often result from school strain. The apparent improvement shown in increased weight leads to increased strain, and many of these fat victims of school over-pressure enter insane hospitals as puberty lunatics.
Other effects of the nutritive disturbances produced by school strain are local irritations about the sexual organs. These may arise from irritation by uric acid of the mouth of the bladder in boys, or of the vagina and bladder in girls. Neurotic persons are liable to nerve storms, which express themselves in emotional displays or restlessness or nagging tendencies. These often coincide with the uric acid tendency to express itself in “storms,” like other periodical phenomena of the nervous system. In consequence, “sexual storms” result in neuropaths, whether the neuropathy be inherited or acquired. Local genital organ irritation leads to scratching. From this are produced “masturbation storms,” which the subject loathes but cannot control. These occur also from the direct effects of constipation, as well as from the worms and other parasites which constipation fosters in the bowel. Teachers, by compelling children to retain urine through fear of masturbation, often lead to what they intend to prevent. At the outset masturbation and sexual explosions are often a physical expression of school strain destitute of moral significance. They are removableby removing the school strain and its consequences. If strengthened by protracted existence they intensify degeneracy due to school strain.
The states of imperfect nutrition, resultant from nerve strains on gland function, in this way and in others, interfere with the proper evolution of puberty and the involutional changes at the “change of life,” which occurs in both sexes. The conditions of “nervous cough,” of so-called “catarrh,” and its ally, bronchorrhœa, are often found as expressions of the systemic exhaustion from school strain, and are treated as purely local conditions.
School strain, therefore, produces, like all the acquired factors of degeneracy, a systemic nervous exhaustion which may be expressed either in general neuropathy or hysteria after puberty, or in the tropho-neuroses, like gout and allied states, or in epilepsy or arterial change, predisposing to rupture of arteries at periods of stress, with resultant convulsions and paralysis.
The Degenerate Cranium
Thecranium or skull is a development in part of the vertebræ or bones forming the backbone, and in part of dermal or membranous bones, which of old in reptiles, as in the alligator to-day, formed the protective armour of the skin of the head. As the head end of the spinal cord of the lancelet developed, the cartilage enclosing it developed to protect it. This was the earlier evolution. Later, another skull developed in connection with this. The cranium or skull therefore has, as Minot remarks,[188]a double origin, or, rather, there are two skulls which were originally distinct. In evolution from the lowest fish to the highest mammal, and in the embryonic development of man, these become united.
The primary skull, as already stated, is practically an extension of the vertebræ, which send side outgrowths to cover the brain as the backbone covers the spinal cord. This primary skull extended in front of the notochord (the spinal cord of the human embryo, and the permanent spinal cord of the lancelet), where it gave off two trabeculæ cranii or frontskull plates. Behind, the primary skull or chondrocranium gives off two occipal or rear skull plates. It gives off also two plates midway between the trabeculæ and occipitals, which, as they gradually enclose the primitive hearing apparatus, the otocysts (permanent in fish, and embryonic in man), are called periotic capsules. This primary skull is at first cartilaginous, as in sharks. With the increase in the size of the brain in evolution and in human embryology, this cartilaginous primary skull became insufficient to roof over the brain, and thus resulted gaps in it. The fontanelles, or soft places at the top, sides, and back of the head of the new-born child, are the remains of this failure of the chondrocranium, or primary skull, to cover the gains of the nervous system in the struggle for existence. This deficiency, resultant on advance in evolution, would have been a long-standing serious block to further advance, were it not that the skin of the mammal retained a function inherited from the reptiles and bony fish.
These cavities were filled by dermal bones, which, at first serving merely as armour in the skin of the head, came to be protectors of the nervous system. The following bones represent these dermal bones in the embryonic human skull: The frontals, which form the chief part of the forehead; the sutures, or dovetails, of these normally disappear in the adult, so that the forehead seems to be but one bone. This union may not occur (Fig.7), as in the case of the philosopher Kant, who had a frontal suture all his life. The dovetails are replaced by solid bone, through a process called synostosis. In the case of the frontal bone it is normal, and in the line of advance. Elsewhere in the skull it is often an expression of defectwhich may give rise to various cranial states which are either absolutely degenerate in type or degenerate only when occurring in certain races. The parietals and interparietals are also dermal bones which are united by synostosis to form the parietals or side bones of the normal adult skull. The nasal bones which, together with the vomer, form the nose, are likewise dermal bones, and so are the pterygoids and palatines. The maxillaries and præmaxillaries, which, with the mandibles, form the jaws, are dermal bones. The mandibles, however, are in part derived from the chondrocranium.
FIG. 7.
With rise in evolution, and during the progress of human embryonic development, these bones become fewer through their early gristly union or their synostosis. The openings in the skull resultant on the deficiencies in the chondrocranium are larger in the sauropsida (birds and reptiles) than in the ichthyopsida (amphibious and fish); in the monotremata (egg-laying mammals) than in the sauropsida; in the marsupials (pouched mammals) than in the monotremata, and in the higher mammals than in the marsupials. The development of the brain therefore depends on the growing and expanding power of the secondary skull formed by the dermal bones. These, considered as bones, are degenerate from the high type of the vertebræ, and are a mere reminiscence of that outer skeleton whereby early fish and reptiles emulated the lobster. The influence of any check to development such as produces degeneracy, is exerted first on the development of the bone itself, and finally on the relation to other bones by dovetailing.
In accordance with the general laws governing growth, deficiency in one place is apt to result in increase elsewhere. The brain-protective function of the dermal bones being later in development than their old armour function, is apt to be checked by degeneracy in two ways; in the first the bone does not grow in size or sufficiently to unite with its fellows, or this growth occurs only for the benefit of the bone itself, through Spencer’s law of individuation, so that union with the other bones occurs too early for the benefit of the organism as a whole. To the factors underlying this is due the non-increase in intellect after puberty which occurs in the higher apes, and in some of the lower races of men.
These checks also tend to the nutritional benefit of the older primary skull, whence result the irregularities in development that constitute so many of the stigmata of the degenerate cranium. The sutures sometimes do not form because sufficient gristle is not produced to fill the gaps. (Fig.8.) These secondary gaps are often filled by new dermal bones called Wormian. Sometimes this deficiency coexists with too early synostosis elsewhere.
FIG. 8.
Degenerate skulls have therefore been divided from the standpoint of these various unions (by synostosis or otherwise) and non-unions of the sutures, on the principle that premature synostosis of a suture produces shortness of the diameter, perpendicular to the direction of the obliterated suture.[189]The bones stop growing prematurely at the seat of the synostosis, but the unaffected borders continue growing. The following types result on this principle:
FIG. 9.
I. Simple macrocephaly (largeness of head). (a) Hydrocephaly (water in the head. Fig.9.) (b) Kephalones (all heads. Fig.10), without hydrocephaly. These two conditions result from the inability of the dermal bones to fill at the proper period the gaps in the chondrocranium. Neither of these denotes complete intellectual degeneracy on the one hand, nor vast intellect on the other. Cuvier was a case of healed-up hydrocephalus, whence his large brain and skull. In a case of kephalones observed by Kiernan there was a brain-weight of 68 ounces. The patient wasan imbecile, practically unteachable.[190]Both these conditions denote deep degeneracy, which, however, may find expression elsewhere than in the moral sense or intellect.
FIG. 10.
FIG. 11.
II. Simple microcephaly (smallness of head. Fig.11)or nannocephaly (dwarf head). As a rule these are found among idiots, but much has been done by training, even for them. Many seemingly great intellects, however, have heads approaching, if not reaching this type.[191]Des Cartes, Foscolo, and Schumann had sub-microcephaly. The poet Shelley had a head belonging very nearly to this category, but while he exhibited many stigmata of degeneracy, that of intellectual deficiency was wanting. This type of skull, however, is usually associated with deep degeneracy. It represents in man the condition underlying the premature suture-closing which occurs in the ape. It sometimes may exist with considerable intellect, as in the case of Donizetti. Sometimes this suture-closing directly prevents brain growth. This condition is rarer than many surgeons admit, but it does occur, as witness the cases of Vico, Malebranche, and Clement VI. The fact that these three fractured their skulls in infancy saved them from being imbeciles and idiots like their brothers, sisters, and cousins.
FIG. 12.
III. Dolichocephaly (long-headedness. Fig.12). (a) Upper middle synostosis. (1) Simple dolichocephaly is due to synostosis of the sagittal, or antero-posterior suture of the skull. Whether this be due to degeneracy or not depends entirely on the race in which it occurs. The ultra-dolichocephaly of Daniel O’Connell was due, in Kiernan’s opinion, to his birth in an Irish district settled by dolichocephalics. Undoubtedly dolichocephaly is tending to mesocephaly (medium size of head). Even the negro, generally regarded by ethnologists as dolichocephalic, is tending in this direction, as numerous observations of my own show. Dolichocephaly, however, while it does not demonstrate, suggests degeneracy, since it seems to be a disappearing type of skull. The changes in American families in this particular indicate this. (2) Sphenocephaly (wedge-shape of head. Fig.13) is due to synostosis of the sagittal suture, with compensatory growth in theregion of the large fontanelle. (b) Dolichocephalic states, resulting from inferior lateral synostosis are: (1) Leptocephaly (narrowness of head), due to synostosis of the frontal and sphenoid bones. (2) Klinocephaly (saddle-shaped head) is due to synostosis of the parietal bones with the greater wings of the sphenoid, or of the parietal with the squamous portion of the temporal bone.
FIG. 13.
FIG. 14.
IV. Brachycephaly (shortness of head. Fig.14). The pure type like pure dolichocephaly is notnecessarily by itself evidence of degeneracy, as it may represent race. It is, however, a disappearing type of skull, and hence should lead to critical examination. In the case of the philosopher Kant his ultra-brachycephaly could not be charged to race, since he sprang from dolichocephalic Scotch on one side and dolichocephalic Germans on the other. (a) Posterior stenosis. (1) Pachycephaly (thickness of head) is due to synostosis of the parietal bone with the occipital. (2) Oxycephaly (sugar-loaf head) is due to synostosis of the parietal bones and the occipital with compensatory growth of the region of the anterior fontanelle; a variety of this is acrocephaly (spire head). (b) Upper, anterior, and lateral synostosis. (1) Platycephaly (flat head. Fig.15), or chæmacephaly, is due to extensive synostosis of the temporal bones with the parietal. Kant, in additionto his cranial stigmata, had this condition. (2) Trochocephaly (roundness of head) is due to partial synostosis of the frontals and parietals in the centre of the coronal suture. (3) Plagiocephaly (wry head. Fig.16) is due to unilateral synostosis of the frontal and parietal bones. (c) Brachycephaly due to inferior medium synostosis. Simple brachycephaly is due to early synostosis of the nasal and sphenoid.
FIG. 15.
To these should be added kyphocephaly (lump head), due to synostosis of the posterior part of the squamous portion of the temporal and the parietal bones with Wormian bones in the lambdoid fissure. Tapeisocephaly (low head) is due to synostosis of the great wings of the sphenoid with the frontal. Scaphocephaly (boat-shaped head. Fig.17) was a term applied by Von Baer to skulls which are very narrow and compressed at the sides, and in which there is no trace of the sagittal suture, but its region is so elevatedthat the skull cap has the form of a keel boat bottom upward. Trigonocephaly (triangular head) is a variety of scaphocephaly in which depression occurs in place of the keel. Sir Walter Scott had a skull in which premature closure of the sagittal suture produced the appearance of scaphocephaly, but compensation for this elsewhere produced a decidedly different type. Scott presented neurotic phenomena during youth, albeit the brain disease from which he died had anything but a degenerate origin.
FIG. 16.
FIG. 17.
Morton and Catlin claim that while the artificial distortions of the cranium may play a part in developing synostosis these have no effect upon the intellectual functions. It has been stated further that there are no mental data to show the effect of artificial malformation of the child’s head during development. Frederick Peterson expresses the opinion that this practice only exists among the lower racesof mankind. In this he is in decided error, since, as Barnard Davis pointed out many years ago, the practice is far more widespread than is usually suspected. It was common all over Europe, was practised by the Turanians, by the Slaves, by the Scandinavians, Anglo-Saxons, and Celts. Less than half a century ago Foville[192]proved that the nurses in Normandy were still giving children’s heads a sugar-loaf shape by bandages and a tight cap. In Britanny they preferred to press it round. In those districts Foville found that not only congenital cranial irregularities of all types, but epilepsy, idiocy, and insanity were exceedingly frequent. As customs like these survive in folklore long after the original superstition which gave them birth, it is exceedingly probable that such crop out in descendants of these races to the present day, to confront the anthropologist with some remarkable crania. Tylor[193]is of opinion that withoutrespecting the repressive action of the Government, the Bretons and Normans secretly continue this practice. Despite the labours of Foville these people openly defied the Government for ten years.
Certain conditions of the occiput have been described as associated with degeneracy. As Obici[194]and Dei Vecchio[195]have shown, the occipital condyle, in man normally convex, abnormally varies between two extremes, the flat and angular condyles. The flat condyle indicates a degenerative type. In the angular condyle the anterior face is derived from that portion of the basi-occipital nucleus that normally takes part in the formation of the anterior condyle region; the posterior face forms the embryonal germ of the occipital.
The occipital of the adult is the final outcome of the fusion of an uncertain number of vertebræ. The occipital bone in man is practically made up of five bones, union between which does not occur completely until the fifth or sixth year. The deficiencies in the chondrocranium appear in the occipital bone, which requires a small portion of the dermal bone to complete it on each side.
The variability of the occipital bone which, as just shown, is so frequently associated with all forms of degeneracy, is still better understood when we remember that it is of vertebral character. The investing mass of the head and of the notochord is the skeleton of the occipital bone. Between this skeleton and the pituitary body the important portion of the brain formed by the occipital lobes takes its origin. As these lobes are practically, as Spitzka has shown,the great centres of sense and other inter-associations it is not astonishing that their imperfect development should be accompanied by changes in the occipital bone. As Crochley Clapham, Mickle, and Spitzka have shown, a flat occiput is common in imbecility and moral insanity. It has been found quite frequently in “reasoning maniacs” by Campagne. The proper development of the occiput influences the proper development of association tracts which serve as a balance wheel to the individual. The proper development of the occipital bone is, moreover, connected with the proper development of the two last vertebræ, which like it are losing their vertebral characteristics.
The Degenerate Face and Nose
Thedevelopment of the face depends, as I have already shown, upon the enlargement and fusion of the mouth and nose cavities, and upon the later partial separation of the nose and mouth and the nose cavities, leaving the posterior nose open. It depends further upon the growth and specialisation of the face region, of which the elongation is the most prominent indication, and finally upon the development of a prominent external nose. The relations of face to cranium in embryology have already been described. When the medullary tube of the notochord enlarges to form the brain the end of the head bends over to make room for that enlargement. The bending of the head carries the mouth plate, which is to be the mouth, over to the front of the head. The changes which develop the mouth cavity are the growth of the brain and the increase in size of the heart cavity, which expand to the front, leaving the mouth cavity between them. The mouth cavity represents two gill-slits united in the front line. The nose is formed from two olfactory plates situated just in front of the mouth and in contact with the fore-brain. These olfactory plates grow in size by theincrease of tissue, and the resulting pits pass away from the brain. At first these pits, although widely separated by what is called the nasal process, communicate freely with the mouth. The nasal process includes the origin of the future nose and of the future intermaxillary region of the upper lip.
The human face is modified backward from the vertebrate type. It is an additional illustration of the degeneracy of a series of related structures for the benefit of the organism as a whole. The progress of development of the face in the vertebrates is checked in man. First, as Minot remarks,[196]because the upright position renders it unnecessary to bend the head as in quadrupeds. Second, because the enormous cerebral development has rendered an enlargement of the brain cavity necessary. This has taken place by extending the cavity over the nose region as well as by enlarging the whole skull. Third, because the development of the face is arrested at an embryonic stage; the production of a long snout being really an advance of development which does not take place in man. From what has been said of the relations of the dermal bones to the nose and face in the chapter on the skull, it will be obvious that these must follow the same laws as to degeneracy as the skull itself. These checks from degeneracy in arrest of development are apt to affect most obviously the unilateral development of the face. From this results the exaggerated asymmetry so frequently observed.
Jacob Baumler, the founder of the Zoar community of the United States, a religious fanatic, had a very marked asymmetry of the face and themind of a degenerate. His orbits were unequal, one being exceedingly large and the other correspondingly small.
The human face at birth is so near that of the monkeys that if only the heads of both were exposed to view at birth it would be difficult for a casual observer to distinguish one from the other. Cope[197]has made the following classification of the head and face for comparative study: The relative size of the cerebral to the facial regions, the prominence of the forehead, the prominence of the superciliary regions, the prominence of the alveolar borders of the jaws, the prominence and width of the chin, the relation of length to width of the skull, the prominence of the cheek-bones, the form of the nose, the relative size of the orbits and eyes, the size of the mouth and lips.
At birth in the infant ape the facial region of the skull is smaller than in the adult, the forehead is more prominent, the superciliary ridges are more prominent, the edges of the jaws are more prominent, the chin is less, while the cheek-bones are more prominent, the nose is without a bridge and has short and flat cartilages, the face is flattened, the orbits and eyes are smaller and closer together, the mouth is small and the lips thin.
In the typical infant child as he begins to develop the cerebral part of the skull predominates over the facial more than in the adult, the superciliary ridges are not developed, the alveolar borders are not prominent, the cheek-bones are not prominent, the nose is without a bridge and the cartilages are flat and generally short, the eyes are larger. In this last particular the human infant resembles the lemurs andthus retains an embryonic tendency. In some degenerates this tendency remains unchecked, and the result is unusually large orbits as in Fig.18. In other instances the human fœtus passes through this lemurian stage to reach and even exceed the anthropoid in smallness and closeness together.
FIG. 18.
In determining a standard by which to measure the face two principles come into play: the general principle of evolution, and also that æsthetic principle governing profile, which has practically obtained supremacy, after long struggles for existence, from the Egyptian period of the first dynasty until itsfinal acceptance by the Greeks, as shown, for instance, in the Apollo Belvedere. Indeed, so nearly does the modern standard approximate to the Greek, that Kingsley,[198]speaking of modern profiles, remarks that if he were to describe the American type he should be as much inclined to give that name to the form of features of the Apollo Belvedere as any other, since it is quite universal, distinctive, and possesses the same elements of beauty.