He seldom shed tears; his discomfort was manifested chiefly by shrill
screaming. He died of pulmonary paralysis at the end of the fourth year.
The autopsy showed that the frontal lobes were surprisingly small, and
that there was a partial deficiency of the median longitudinal fissure.
The fissure did not begin till beyond the crown of the head, in the
region of the occiput. The anterior half of the cerebrum consequently
lacked the division into lateral hemispheres. It had few convolutions
also, and the smoothness of its surface was at once obvious. The _corpus
callosum_ and the _fornix_ were undeveloped. "The gray cortical layer
attained in general only about a third of the normal thickness, and was
especially weakly represented in the frontal region." The cerebellum not
being stunted, seemed, by the side of the greatly shrunken cerebrum,
surprisingly large.
In this case the microcephalous of four years behaves, as far as the
development of will is concerned, like the normal boy of four months.
The latter is, in fact, superior to him in _seizing_, while the former
in no way manifests any advantage in a psychical point of view.
Two cases of microcephaly have been described by Fletcher Beach (in the
"Transactions of the International Medical Congress," London, 1881, iii,
615-626).
E. R. was, in May, 1875, received into his institution at the
age of eleven years. She had at the time of her birth a small
head, and had at no time manifested much intelligence.
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