Palla Ákos szerk.: Az Országos Orvostörténeti Könyvtár közleményei 37. (Budapest, 1965)
Tóth Tibor: The Variability of the Brain-Weight by Homo
Since the variability of the mass is quantitatively expressible in weight, recently I analyzed the pertinent data of 6,700 individuals dissected between 1951 and 1963 at the Second Institute of Pathological Anatomy of the Budapest Medical College. Of these 6,700 cases, including pathological ones (Haranghy, 1 959), the data of hydrocephalic adults and generally of those between 0 and 20 years of age were omitted because they do not come under the scope of this study. Thus I thoroughly analyzed the brain-weight values of 3,733 indivifuals (2,007 males and 1,726 females, Table 1). 1 found it important to group the finds into diagnostical categories (Table 1) because — in agreement with Haranghy (1959)- I presume that oedema-, apoplexia-, and atrophia cerebri have an affect on the weight of the brain . This assumption is supported by results proving that the values of the mentioned categories considerably differ from those of the normal (Table 3.). Otherwise the study of Roginsky-Levin (1955) also mentions that extremes in the weight of the brain are [although not always] connected with pathological changes. There is an uneven distribution of the number of cases occuring in our studies for adults in general (20—100 years) (Table I). This cannot be overlooked even from a statistical point of view. In comparison to the data of the work of Roessle-Roulet (1932) this fact is of undeniable demographical importance bacause it marks the increase of the life span (Table 4). The data of RoessleRoulet are derived from a German population and might only be of indirect use in studying the essentially improved social-hygienic conditions of Hungarian populations of the last three decades. Nevertheless it is still a comparison with the results of studies carried out in a nearby geographical area. The comparison of the categories of cases I analyzed (Table 1) shows that the apoplexia-, and atrophia cerebri—comprising only approximately 10/ of the normal cases —are a meaningfully small number of cases. Consequently I primarily analyzed the variability of normal brain weights. Such values were formerly analyzed usually only in a general form; this was likely connected with the small number of cases (Krause, 1882). In previous literature the criterion of variability, or the number
