1886.] 
Zoology. 
901 
{American Naturalist Extra, October, 1886.) 
Human Cerebral Fissures, their Relations and Names 
and the methods of studying them.1—In 1873 Professor Wilder 
read before the Amer. Association for the Adv. of Science a 
paper on the fissures of the Carnivora. Since that time he has 
prepared for the museum of Cornell University many human 
brains, foetal as well as adult, and of several races ; has examined 
nearly all the literature of the subject and published several 
papers on special points, the latest being “ On the paroccipital, a 
newly recognized fissural integer” (Jour, of Nerv. and Mental 
Disease, June, 1886), and communications before the recent meet- 
ing of the Am. Neurol. Assoc. While far from satisfied on cer- 
tain matters, since each fissure should be monographed, the con- 
clusions now presented are, he believes, worthy of consideration. 
The study of the human fissures should be preceded by the study 
of the general characteristics of fissures upon some animal easily 
obtained at all stages of growth, and in which their arrangement 
is more simple. At present no help is gained from the attempt 
to refer the human fissures to a series of regular arches. The 
memorizing of their positions and names may be facilitated by 
regarding the cerebral surfaces simply as unexplored regions, and 
by learning certain fissures before others. The “ landmarks ” are 
the mesal margin of the hemicerebrum, the callosum and the Syl- 
vian fissure. Accepting the usual division of each hemicerebrum 
into lobes, occipital, temporal, parietal and frontal, the last may be 
advantageously subdivided into prefrontal and postfrontal by a 
line continued from the presylvian fissure. The first fissures to 
be studied are the ten interlobar : Sylvian, presylvian, central, cir- 
cuminsular, callosal, occipital, hippocampal, ixoccipital, preoccipital 
and preoccipital fovea, the last three perhaps inconstant. Next 
the seven constant, intergyral fissures with structural correlatives : 
basisylvian, olfactory, amygdaline, calcarine, collateral, postoccipital 
fovea, and lambdoidal (not Owen’s but one lately shown by Profes- 
sor Wilder to be collocated in the foetus with the lambdoidal 
suture). Third, the fifteen constant, intergyral fissures, without struc- 
Abstract of paper read before the A. A. A. S. at Buffalo, Aug., 1886, by Burt G\ 
Wilder, M.D. * 902 
General Notes. 
[October, 
tiiral correlatives: Paracentral, par occipital, supertemporal, meditem- 
poral, subtemporal, subfrontal, superfrontal, insular, supercallosal, or- 
bital, precentral, supercentral (dorsal part of precentral), postcentral, 
parietal and precuneal. Lastly the thirteen intragyral, inconstant 
fissures : Adoccipital, inflected, fronto-marginal, postcalcarine, sub- 
occipital, prepar occipital, postparoccipital, intraparacentral, medi- 
frontal, intermedia, subsylvian, episylvian and hyposylvian. Total, 
including the sagittal (interhemicerebral) forty-six, a larger 
number than before enumerated. The names are mononyms, 
selected or formed from names in common use or already pro- 
posed by some original investigator. Most of them imply either 
the relation of fissures to structural correlatives or their position 
relative to some main fissure. The same is the case with most of 
the gyral names, but a few have been correlated with the border- 
ing fissures; lingual and fusiform, for example, are replaced by 
subcalcarine and subcollateral. The paper was illustrated by dia- 
grams of the mesal and lateral aspects of the hemicerebrum, and 
by lists of the fissures grouped as above. Some of the fissures 
were discussed in detail, and the paper concluded with an expres- 
sion of the belief that the common idea of the usefulness of the 
brains of monkeys as foundations for the study of human brain 
is erroneous, and that, contrary to the view and practice of Mey- 
nert, it is much better to examine foetal brains at various stages 
of growth. 
EXPLANATION OF PLATE XXIX. 
The figures are diagrammatic, but based upon a very simple, adult, mulatto brain, 
No. 322 in the museum of Cornell University, and they probably represent an ex- 
treme degree of fissural independence. 
The gyral names are in capitals. The fissural names are in italics and commonly 
placed just below the fissure lines. All the names on the figures are Latin, but the 
English paronyms are used in the text. The abbreviations F. prs., F. sbs. and F. 6s. 
stand respectively for the presylvian, subsylvian and basisylvian fissures. The ex oc- 
cipital is Wernicke’s fissure, or the occipitalis anterior of Schwalbe. PLATE XXIX. 
Human cerebral fissures.