mon is it in the neighborhood of Toulouse, that a special form of head produced in this manner is known as the "déformation Toulousaine."
Of the ancient notices of the custom of purposely altering the form of the head, the most explicit is that of Hippocrates, who in his treatise, "De Aëris, Aquis et Locis," about 400 b. c, says,[1] speaking of the people near the boundary of Europe and Asia, near the Palus Mœotis (Sea of Azov): "I will pass over the smaller differences among the nations, but will now treat of such as are great either from nature or custom; and first, concerning the Macrocephali. There is no other race of men which have heads in the least resembling theirs. At first, usage was the principal cause of the length of their head, but now Nature coöperates with usage. They think those the most noble who have the longest heads. It is thus with regard to the usage: immediately after the child is born, and while its head is still tender, they fashion it with their hands, and constrain it to assume a lengthened shape by applying bandages and other suitable contrivances, whereby the spherical form of the head is destroyed, and it is made to increase in length. Thus, at first, usage operated, so that this constitution was the result of force; but in the course of time it was formed naturally, so that usage had nothing to do with it."
Here Hippocrates appears to have satisfied himself upon a point which is still discussed with great interest, and still not cleared up—the possibility of transmission by inheritance of artificially produced deformity. Some facts seem to show that such an occurrence may take place occasionally, but there is an immense body of evidence against its being habitual.
Herodotus also alludes to the same custom, as do, at later dates, Strabo, Pliny, Pomponius Mela, and others, though assigning different localities to the nations or tribes they refer to, and also indicating variations of form in their peculiar cranial characteristics.
Recent archæological discoveries fully bear out these statements. Heads deformed in various fashions, but chiefly of the constricted,
- ↑ Sydenham Society's edition, by Dr. Adam, vol. i., p. 207.
