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Show CRANIUM CULTURE. j A Field for Scientific Experiments. Experi-ments. "IS IDIOCY CURABLE BY SURGERY ? " A Physician's Comment on the Subject. Future Eaeurch. "How many Shakespearcs have we j lost by skull pinching? How many ; Platos have gone down to the grave as J non compos mentis? Can idiocy be wholly abolished'" Thus asks a somewhat some-what prominent medical authority and newspaper writer. The world of possibilities iu tho nbove suggestion is tho outgrowth of a recent surgical operation performed in London 1 on the skull of an idiot child for tho purpose pur-pose of releasing tho brain from tho confinement con-finement of a malformed bono case. The experiment was entirely successful. The subject immediately began to develop a brightened intellect, while evil effects upon the nervous system were practically unnoticed. The problem presented by this result Is a very wido and a very complex one. If the darkness of idiocy in a few coses can bo banished by lifting ttie brain covering, thus permitting the brain's expansion ex-pansion to the limits which nature doubtless intended, why may it not prove effective in the great majority of cases of young children now doomed to live out their lives in eternal gloom? To those who delight to wander in the realms of the fanciful, and trace still greater effects and results from similar causes, it will not appear unreasonable to say that the conformation of the skull is, after all, tho incident which determines deter-mines whether a human being is born to be a Nero or a King Arthur, a Cleopatra Cleo-patra or a Florence Nightingale, a Napoleon Napo-leon or a nobody. CULTURE OF TITH SKULL. There was a case in a Philadelphia hospital not many months ago which was not dissimilar to tho one in London. An epileptic was relieved, perhaps restored re-stored to perfect health, by an operation which lifted the bono pressure upon certain cer-tain nerve centers in the brain. Certainly Cer-tainly there are mental idiosyncrasies inherited for generations where the brain case varies most remarkably in form. But when we find a peculiar trait suddenly sud-denly bursting out in one of onr children, chil-dren, a trait unlike parent or grandparent, grandpar-ent, are we quite sure that it is not owing ow-ing to some modification of the skull ' case? Most assuredly, if it is finally determined de-termined that the pressure of bone on tho brain determines the mental ability, Bhapes the character and molds the tendencies, ten-dencies, we shall have to recast all our theories of heredity, Hero, then, is presented a newproblem. Is not the question of brain culture about to become to a greater extent a question of cranium culture? If it can be demonstrated that an idiot can lie made by pinching a skull, and unmade by the knife and saw of a surgeon, have we not a new and wonderful field of experiment ex-periment before us? Dr. Briuton tells ns that experiments on the lower ani- , mals prove that the skull is easily mold- ed by trifling causes; that is, in the 1 earlier Btages of growth, Darwin found that he could produce long or short or non-symmetrical skulls in rabbits by training. Ethnologists affirm that the skull is modified even by the cradle and the pillows pil-lows on which the infant sleeps. Dr. Jaralld proves from his own observation that the skull may be modified from the head being held in an unnatural position. posi-tion. possroruTrES of Tire future. If this nev,' line of investigation can be pursued persistently and successfully it will result in disproving the belief that idiocy in children, outside of cases of hereditary mental defect, is a visitation visita-tion upon the children for the sins of the fathers, and showing that it is an unnatural un-natural but essentially curable physical condition. The ability to cure idiocy will therefore depend entirely to what extent the bony case has closed its sutureB and hardened itself to the brain. Dr. Maurice, the authority quoted at the beginning of this article, in discussing discuss-ing this range of subjects, a few of which are embraced in the above, closes by saying: The world has of late grown enormously enor-mously in its tendencies toward the preservation pres-ervation and merciful care of the malformed mal-formed and helpless. Civilization has badly overloaded itself by merciful tenderness ten-derness toward criminals and diseased. Are we at last to find relief by discovering discover-ing that crime and disease and idiocy are all curable? And the next stage, what will that be? Possibly the marked decrease in human fertility and the increase in-crease of our average life quite beyond what now eeems possible. The removal of life's social terrors must precede the largely prolonged and happily continued j existence. Philadelphia Press. |