On the relation between the quantity of brain and the size of the body in vertebrates / by Eugène Dubois ; [communicated by H. Zwaardemaker].

  • Dubois, Eugène, 1858-1940.
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: On the relation between the quantity of brain and the size of the body in vertebrates / by Eugène Dubois ; [communicated by H. Zwaardemaker]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    649 brain, on aceonnt of the segmental structure, and the movement by the contraction of rnnscle-fibres. working on levers proportional (o the length of the body in this tribe of animals. Again, the extension or the specification of some definite receptive surface (of sense) may likewise determine the quantity of brain. As the former in its turn must be a (mathematical) function of the size of the bodies of animals that are equal in shape and organisation, it must, according to some (arithmetical) power-proportion of the weight of the body, be one of the factors determining the quantity of brain. However insolvable, at first sight, the problem indicated by the title of this communication may seem to be — as no organ is more complicated of structure and in its physiology more obscure than the brain — in this wa,y it must be possible to make it fit for solution. It must, at .all events, be possible, likewise for groups of animals of different grades of organisation, to repre- sent the cephalisation by figures, and thus to compare them. Be r the required exponent of correlation (indicating the corre- lation of the brain quantity to the mass of the body), be e (ence- phalon) the weight of the brain, .? (soma) the weight of the body of the smaller animal, E and ^ the weight of the brain and'the weight of the body of the larger animal and k (kephalisation) the coefficient of cephalisation, equal for both, then we have the following equations: E \ e := k S'' : ks'’ E: e = S’ : s’’ logE—loq e r = !— log S- log s S’ s’ When working these equations by evidences contributed by Ma.v Weber and others I found in J897') at a seven times repeated 1) file proportion of the weight of the brain to the size of the bodv in Mammals Verhandelingen der Kon. Akademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam. Volume 5. No. 10. Amsterdam 1897. Also in fi’rench and German text : Sur Ic rapport du poids de I’encepbale avec la grandeur du corps d-ez ies Mammiferes. Bulletins de la Societe d’An thropologie de Paris 1897. p. 837-376. Ueber die Abhangigkeit des Hirngewichtes von der Kdrpergrdsse bei den SauR-ptliiercn. Airliiv fur Anthropologie. Banc) 25. Heft 1 und 2. Braunschweio- Joy/, p. 1—28. ^