common gradation of their growth is determinate, and the exceptions to it are not more numerous or important than those exceptions which prove a general rule in any of the sciences or philosophy. By the tenth year, their horizontal diameter is scarcely half a line; by the fifteenth year, it seldom exceeds one line; by the twentieth, it is rarely one line and a half; by the fortieth, it approaches occasionally to two lines; and after the fiftieth year of man's life, it is about two lines and a half in extent.

V. The Frontal Cavities result from a natural process; but the causes of their formation, and its mode, remain among the desiderates of physiology. They depend apparently on simple absorption of the interosseous cellular texture; and with the progress of this absortion their dimensions increase. Not till life's decline does the internal plate of the bone recede inwards. It is quite improbable that the external table of the skull ever advances: were such a process certain, it would establish an anomaly from the regular order of organization.

VI. The Frontal Sinuses may be wide, and their depth, nevertheless, not more than was that of the bone's primitive cellular Structure. Their horizontal diameter may be one line; and, at the same time, that of the frontal bone itself, naturally, not more than two. Wherefore, the childish practice of poking these broad but shallow holes, from underneath, with a bit of wire, can never reveal the true distance of the bone's external surface from the brain. Finally, here, the deepness of these cavities may be, and often is, augmented by disease; and they have this much to do with old age that their greatest enlargement and old age are concomitant.

VII. Phrenologists admit that the Frontal Sinuses interfere with those parts of the skull which indicate the relative proportions of the organs of some of the perceptive intellectual faculties. This is the course after which the growth of these cavities usually proceeds. First of all, organic absorption gradually removes the cellular texture from between the tables of the frontal bone where it covers the organ of Individuality. Next, this absorption extends to the region of Size; then to that of Form; and then, in mature age, to that of Weight and the lower angle of Locality. Rarely, indeed, does it pass these limits of length and breadth, except in declining life and disease.

Now these successive formations follow not an increasing dispartition of the bony plates themselves, but the removal only of their intermediate cellular structure: consequently, the bone's horizontal diameter or thickness receives no addition from this process of natural excavation. Since, therefore, the size of these cavities does not move the skull's external surface to a greater than its original distance from the brain, before the prime of life, it is manifest that, until this period at soonest, phrenological observation on the frontal regions may be conducted with all the accuracy admissible by a subject whereon vital action never ceases to operate. Hence, in fine, although difficulties occur in examining the forehead, they never supervene before the positive recession of the bone's two constituent plates from each other-not the extinction of its diploë-has given the bone itself a growing degenerate thickness. The Frontal Sinuses very seldom ascend an inch within the bone; and through the upper half of this space, their transverse diameter never exceeds the thickness of the bone's original cellular substance.

VIII. Such being the organization of the frontal bone generally, and such the general development of its central cavities, it is obvious that, in the young and healthy head, the distance of the bone's external surface from the corresponding peripheral surface of the brain, may be generally ascertained; and, consequently, that the existence and functions of the organs of Individuality, Size, Form, Weight, and Locality, can be discriminated till after the prime of life, by the phrenological process of deriving the elements of positive and negative evidence, from observation of the high and low development of parts. Be it, therefore, remembered that phrenologists have always and explicitly declared, that persons advanced in years, or suffering from cerebral disease, do not constitute subjects of precise observation,-that the observations adduced by phrenologists in support of their organic discriminations, have, in no one instance, been made on such subjects,—and that, moreover, they have as explicitly declared their readiness, not only to rest the demonstration of the frontal organs upon negative evidence, but even to admit a fundamental defect in their system, on being shown one single example of a young, healthy individual in whom a low development of the organs of Individuality, Size, Form, Weight, and Locality, is

accompanied with the manifestation of a high endowment of these intellectual faculties. Should it even, in fine, be conceded that the difficulties which after mature age, occur in examining the forehead were insurmountable, the fact would no more go to overturn the system of phrenological organology, than the insurmountable difficulties which still retain trisection of an angle, and quadrature of the circle, among the desiderates of science, go to demolish the certain principles of geometry.

J. K.

ON THE STUDY OF LATIN, MORE ESPECIALLY AS REGARDS THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.

A KNOWLEDGE of the ancient languages, especially of Latin, is generally supposed to be necessary for those who are to enter the medical profession.* For this notion we shall presently find that there is little or no foundation. The advocates of a "sound classical education," as it is erroneously termed, are daily decreasing; another generation is springing up, unshackled by the antiquated prejudices of their forefathers, and free to judge for themselves, and decide on the side of reason. Indeed, such is the altered state of public opinion, that it is now scarcely possible to open any book on education without finding a chapter dedicated to exposing the folly of the system which makes the dead languages the chief object of education, and the absurdity of calling a man learned for his knowledge of words, no matter how ignorant he may be of matters of far greater importance. In the minds of such persons the ancients excelled us in every particular. Orators! who have we now to be compared to Demosthenes?+ Physicians! where is the Galen of

A "sound classical education"-I should call it a very unsound education -is thought necessary for every gentleman; I shall, however, chiefly confine my remarks to a classical education as regards medical men.

The task of Demosthenes was very easy, as he worked only upon the animal passions of a nation of brutes, as Johnson calls them.

modern times? Poets! who of the present puny race is to be compared to Homer or Virgil? Or who amongst our musicians would dare to compete with Orpheus? whose bewitching strains caused. the very stones to move! As to the latter, there can be no doubt but that, were he now to rise from the dead, he would be surpassed by every common flute-player who earns a miserable pittance by practising his craft in the streets. But let us now proceed to investigate the merits of a "sound classical education" for the medical student.

The inaugural thesis, formerly required to be in Latin, is now written in English, and the matter, not the language, is attended to. As their could be no other object in making the students write their essays in a dead language than to obtain a test of their knowledge of that language, it may fairly be inferred that it is not now considered so necessary. It is, however, still supposed to be of great use to those who are intended for the medical profession. One reason alleged for ascribing to it this usefulness is, that these languages enable the student to read the works of the learned among the ancients. But the moderns began where the ancients left off; the first man who studied Galen knew as much of medicine as Galen himself; and, in fact, saying that a man must study Galen in order to acquire a knowledge of medicine, is tantamount to admitting that we know not so much of the subject as he did—a proposition absurd in the extreme, but one which the advocates of the dead languages force upon themselves by their senseless arguments. The use of reading these ancient authors, even when translated, is to me far from apparent; for we have their experience added to our own.— Why then go back for instruction to authors who, were they now to rise from their graves, would be glad to receive instructions from one possessed of what is now termed an ordinary knowledge of the science. But to waste the best part of our life in obtaining this now useless lumber, appears to me too absurd to be defended, except by those whose minds are warped by prejudice or blinded by in

terest.

Another supposed use of Latin is, that the prescriptions are to be written in that language. How often, however, it happens that Physicians have not had the "advantage of a sound classical educa

tion," and they find no difficulty in writing their prescriptions. As well might it be supposed that the ancient languages are indispensable to the Naturalist, because the scientific names of animals and plants are in Latin. A man may be an excellent Naturalist-nay, he is more likely to be so-and well qualified to give new names to natural objects, without knowing a single word of Latin. So, in the same manner, Physicians must, of course, know all the medical terms which are in use; and what more does he want? The Latin of prescriptions-which, after all consist of little else but terms-is such as any one might write and any one understand: and, indeed, were not this the case, how would it be possible for apothecaries' boys to understand them? In some cases, however, where we may suppose the Physician has wished to show the effects of his "sound classical education," the wrong medicine has been administered, and the luckless patient poisoned, by this absurd practice of writing the prescriptions in a dead language. It appears to me that instead of cloaking the prescriptions in such a dark veil of mystery, they should be rendered as plain and intelligible as possible, especially when we consider the awful effects which may be--and not unfrequently are-produced by a misinterpretation of the Physician's prescription, and when, moreover, we consider the description of persons employed to decipher them.

Another argument frequently brought forward in favor of the classics is, that they are eminently useful as media for the correspondence of scientific men of different nations. But would it not be much easier, and far more useful, to learn the modern languages, as French, German, and Italian, and especially the two first? French is better suited for science than almost any other language; and from its universality, and the facility with which it is acquired, it is preferable to every other for the useful and pleasant intercourse above alluded to. It may, however, be urged that Latin must be learned in order to facilitate the acquisition of the modern languages. The fallacy of this argument is so evident that I consider it quite unnecessary for me to offer any remarks on this subject. I may, however, just state that Franklin advised a method of proceeding diametrically opposed to this. He says that the pupil should begin with Italian, then go to French, Spanish, German, &c., and