The human species

by A. de Quatrefages

The case appears to be somewhat similar in Africa. This discovery, entirely contrary to the ideas generally maintained till the present time, is due to M. Hamy. This excellent investigator recognized brachycephaly in six skulls taken from the Paris collections, and obtained from Cape Lopez, or the mouths of the Fernand Yaz. Shortly afterwards, M. Duchaillu having brought from the same districts ninety-three skulls, the measurements of which were made public by Englishmen, M. Hamy calculated the indices, and found that twenty-seven of these crania were brachycephalic or mesaticephalic. There is then every indication that the Negro stock in Africa presents a special branch corresponding to the Negritoes. This result is confirmed by Schweinfurth, who places the Niams-Niams and some neighbouring tribes amongst the brachycephali.

We see that the horizontal cephalic index cannot serve as a starting point in the classification of human races, as Retzius imagined it might. We also see, however, that all the value which was attributed to it by its author, is preserved in the characterization of secondary groups.

The extreme means given in M. Pruner Bey’s table were found in two American races, the Esquimaux and the inhabitants of the Pampas of Bogota, etc. Whatever the differences may be which separate these two races, it is evident that neither of them belong either to the black or the white type. They show the greatest affinity to the yellow type.

From one extreme mean to the other there is, according to M. Pruner, a difference of 0·246 between the cephalic indices; according to M. Broca of 0·14552 only. This difference rests chiefly upon the fact of M. Broca rejecting, as deformed, skulls which M. Pruner seems to accept without observation. Again, the individual indices present a much wider variation than would, at first sight, be expected. Huxley mentions a Mongol whose cephalic index rises to 0·977, and a New Zealander, of unmistakable Melanesian origin, in whom it descends to 0·629. The difference is, therefore, 0·348.

The general relations of length and breadth in the cranium of human races is apparent from birth. Nevertheless, from the researches of Gratiolet, it appears that dolichocephaly is due to a relative development of bones, which varies with age. In the infant it is essentially occipital, in the child temporal, and frontal in the adult man. In the woman the elongation of the cranium depends essentially on the length of the temporal regions; in this respect, then, the woman remains a child all her life.

Starting from these primary results, the same observer has compared dolichocephalic Whites with African and Melanesian Negroes. He found that the frontal dolichocephaly of the former was replaced in the two black races by an occipital dolichocephaly. M. Broca has established the same fact in comparing Basques with Parisians. Thus the distinction proposed by M. Gratiolet furnishes a secondary character, which may be of use in certain cases, but which falls very short of the importance with which some have attempted to invest it. They would consider occipital dolichocephaly as a character which widely separates the Negro from the White; the observations of M. Broca show that this is not at all the case, and from the observations of M. Gratiolet it appears that we have here only the persistence of an anterior condition common to both. The Negro and the Basque preserve throughout life the cephalic character of the infant Parisian, thus forming one of the many examples of that cessation of evolution which, as we see more distinctly every day, plays a considerable part in the characterization of human races.

The study of the horizontal cephalic index might lead to many other remarks. I shall only recall the results obtained by M. Diétrici. It appears from his calculations that, the total population of the globe given at 1288 millions, there are 1026 millions of dolichocephali, and only 262 millions of brachycephali. But the Berlin savant places in the first category the Chinese, who are mesaticephali, and must alone be reckoned at 421 millions. All these facts considered, it appears to me, from the tables of MM. Pruner Bey and Broca, and other data, received up to the present time, that the mesaticephali are much more numerous than either the brachycephali or dolichocephali. If mesaticephaly is taken in the sense pointed out above, the latter in their turn predominate over the brachycephali, owing chiefly to African black populations, which we are daily learning to estimate as much more dense than they were formerly thought to be.

Retzius only compared the antero-posterior and transverse maximum diameters. Later investigators have sought the relation between the latter and the height of the cranium. The vertical cephalic index has thus been obtained, the importance of which is at once evident. It plays an equally important part in the table of M. Pruner Bey, and gives rise to considerations analogous to those just discussed. I cannot, however, enter into all these details without exceeding the limits of this book. From the same motive I shall not mention the other measurements of the cranium, maximum and minimum frontal diameters, total circumference, antero-posterior arc, and others.

The composition of the cranium can only vary within very narrow limits. Nevertheless, in Negroes, in ancient Egyptians, etc., the squamous portion of the temporal bone is sometimes united to the frontal without the partial interposition of the wings of the sphenoid. This is a remarkable fact, being in direct contradiction to the principles of connections, so justly regarded by Etienne Geoffroy as one of the most essential principles of comparative anatomy.