Clinical manual of mental diseases : for practitioners and students / by A. Campbell Clark.

  • Clark, Archibald Campbell.
Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Clinical manual of mental diseases : for practitioners and students / by A. Campbell Clark. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    with no cerebral counterpart. A bad form of head is that which shelves back at a sharp angle from above the eyes, and shelves forward also, though less suddenly, from the occipital protuberance. This is frequently seen in criminal types, and with less angular acuteness in microcephales (small- headed idiots); but though it is the extreme deviation, the angle of deviation varies, and when it comes nearer the right angle in front and the obtuse angle behind, a very serious mistake may be made in gauging the potentiality of the child, if head measurements are not taken. In addition to circumferential measurement, the tape should be taken from mastoid process to mastoid over the summit. The head may show narrowness of forehead, bosses at the ossific centres of the two halves of the frontal bone, over the parietal centres and elsewhere. There may be marked prominence of the vertical suture joining the two frontal bones, a linear boss which is very ugly and gives a suggestion of the prow-shaped forehead of the scapho-cephalic child. In its minor degrees it is often associated with vaso-motor changes externally, and the skin becomes the site of a red blush when excited. It has of itself no mental significance in its milder forms, but is a sign not to be disregarded. The two extremes in head measurements are the hydro- cephalic (large head) and the microcephalic (small head). These do not necessarily mean idiocy or imbecility, and the large head may not be hydrocephalic, though that is the rule, especially if the frontal bone overhangs very perceptibly. The committee found small heads more common among girls, which is contrary to expectation : but they came to the conclusion that, ' where there is no other defect, the mental faculty may be average, but the child usually remains thin and delicate. Such children may in after-life undertake good work and do it, but are more liable than others to ex- haustion, migraine, and breakdown of the nervous system.' It was found that the dolichocephalic (long-headed), the oxycephalic—with elevated conical head—and others with large front and narrower occiput, did not afford data for precise knowledge, without a more detailed examination and inquiry than was possible in such an investigation. It may