Note 43 — Chapter III · (continued 2)

Dr. Bennati read, before the Royal Academy of Sciences, at Paris, a physiological notice of this extraordinary man, in which he gave it as his opinion, that his prodigious talent was mainly to be attributed to the peculiar conformation which enabled him to bring his elbows close together, and place them one over the other, to the elevation of his left shoulder, which was an inch higher than the right; to the slackening of the ligaments of the wrist, and the mobility of his phalanges, which he could move in a lateral direction at pleasure. Dr. Bennati also alluded to the excessive development of the cerebellum, as connected with the extraordinary acuteness of his organs of hearing, which enabled him to hear conversations carried on in a low tone, at considerable distance.—M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire remarked that he had been particularly struck with the prominence of the artist’s forehead, which hung over his deeply-seated eyes like a pent-house.