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Title: Pedagogical Anthropology
Author: Montessori, Maria
Language: English
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PEDAGOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
[Illustration: Maria Montessori]
PEDAGOGICAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
BY
MARIA MONTESSORI
AUTHOR OF "THE MONTESSORI METHOD"
TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN BY
FREDERIC TABER COOPER
_WITH 163 ILLUSTRATIONS AND DIAGRAMS_
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
MCMXIII
_Copyright_, 1913, by
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
_All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign_
_languages, including the Scandinavian_
_July, 1913_
THE·MAPLE·PRESS·YORK·PA·
TO
MY MOTHER
RENILDE STOPPANI
AND MY FATHER
ALESSANDRO MONTESSORI
ON THE OCCASION OF THE FORTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY
OF THEIR UNCLOUDED UNION, I DEDICATE THIS
BOOK, FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT OF LOVE AND
CONTENTMENT WITH WHICH THEY
HAVE INSPIRED ME
PREFACE
For some time past much has been said in Italy regarding Pedagogical
Anthropology; but I do not think that until now any attempt has been
made to define a science corresponding to such a title; that is to
say, a method that systematises the positive study of the pupil
for pedagogic purposes and with a view to establishing philosophic
principles of education.
As soon as anthropology annexes the adjective, "pedagogical," it
should base its scope upon the fundamental conception of a possible
amelioration of man, founded upon the positive knowledge of the laws
of human life. In contrast to general anthropology which, starting
from a basis of positive data founded on observation, mounts toward
philosophic problems regarding the _origin of man_, pedagogic
anthropology, starting from an analogous basis of observation and
research, must rise to philosophic conceptions regarding the _future
destiny_ of man from the biological point of view. The study of
congenital anomalies and of their biological and social origin, must
undoubtedly form a part of pedagogical anthropology, in order to afford
a positive basis for a universal human hygiene, whose sole field of
action must be the school; but an even greater importance is assumed by
the study of _defects of growth_ in the normal man; because the battle
against these evidently constitutes the practical avenue for a wide
regeneration of mankind.
If in the future a scientific pedagogy is destined to rise, it will
devote itself to the education of men already rendered physically
better through the agency of the allied positive sciences, among which
pedagogic anthropology holds first place.
The present-day importance assumed by all the sciences calculated to
regenerate education and its environment, the school, has profound
social roots and is forced upon us as the necessary path toward further
progress; in fact the transformation of the outer environment through
the mighty development of experimental sciences during the past
century, must result in a correspondingly _transformed man_; or else
civilisation must come to a halt before the obstacle offered by a human
race lacking in organic strength and character.
The present volume comprises the lectures given by me in the University
of Rome, during a period of four years, all of which were diligently
preserved by one of my students, Signor Franceschetti. My thanks are
due to my master, Professor Giuseppe Sergi who, after having urged me
to turn my anthropological studies in the direction of the school,
recommended me as a specialist in the subject; and my free university
course for students in the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Medicine
was established, in pursuance of his advice, by the Pedagogic School
of the University of Rome. The volume also contains the pictures used
in the form of lantern slides to illustrate the lectures, pictures
taken in part from various works of research mentioned in this volume.
Acknowledgment is gratefully made to the scientists and scholars whose
work is thus referred to.
I have divided my subject into ten chapters, according to a special
system: namely, that each chapter is complete in itself--for example,
the first chapter, which is very long, contains an outline of general
biology, and at the same time biological and social generalisations
concerning man considered from our point of view as educators, and thus
furnishes a complete organic conception which the remainder of the book
proceeds to analyse, one part at a time; the chapter on the pelvis,
on the other hand, is exceedingly short, but it completely covers
the principles relating to this particular part, because they lend
themselves to such condensed treatment.
Far from assuming that I have written a definitive work, it is only
at the request of my students and publisher that I have consented to
the publication of these lectures, which represent a modest effort to
justify the faith of the master who urged me to devote my services as a
teacher to the advancement of the school.
MARIA MONTESSORI.
CONTENTS
(_The figures in parenthesis refer to the number of the page_)
INTRODUCTION
MODERN TENDENCIES OF ANTHROPOLOGY AND THEIR RELATION TO PEDAGOGY
The Old Anthropology(1)--Modern Anthropology(4)--De
Giovanni and Physiological Anthropology(11)--Sergi and
Pedagogic Anthropology(14)--Morselli and Scientific
Philosophy(21)--Importance of Method in Experimental
Sciences(23)--Objective Collecting of Single Facts(24)--Passage
from Analysis to Synthesis (26)--Method to be followed in
the present Course of Lectures(30)--Limits of Pedagogical
Anthropology(34). The School as a Field of Research(37).
CHAPTER I
CERTAIN PRINCIPLES OF GENERAL BIOLOGY
The Material Substratum of Life(38)--Synthetic Concept of
the Individual in Biology(38)--Formation of Multicellular
Organisms(42)--Theories of Evolution(46)--Phenomena of
Heredity(50)--Phenomena of Hybridism(51)--Mendel's Laws(51).
THE FORM AND TYPES OF STATURE
The Form(67)--Fundamental Canons regarding the Form(74)--Types
of Stature, Macroscelia and Brachyscelia; their Physiological
Significance(75)--Types of Stature in relation to Race(77),
Sex(80), and Age(81)--Pedagogic Considerations(88)--Abnormal
Types of Stature in their relation to Moral
Training(91)--Macroscelia and Brachyscelia in Pathological
Individuals (De Giovanni's Hyposthenic and Hypersthenic
Types)(95)--Types of Stature in Emotional Criminals and in
Parasites(101)--Extreme types of Stature among the Extra-social:
Nanism and Gigantism(103)--Summary of Types of Stature(105).
THE STATURE
The Stature as a Linear Index(106)--Limits of Stature according to
Race(108)--Stature in relation to Sex(111)--Variations in Stature
with Age, according to Sex(118)--Variations due to Mechanical
Causes(119)--Variations due to Adaptation in connection with
various Causes, Social, Physical, Psychic, Pathological, etc.
(124)--Effect of Light, Heat, Electricity(132)--Variations
in Growth according to the Season(138)--Pathogenesis
of Infantilism(151)--Stature affected by Syphilis
(157), Tuberculosis(158), Malaria(160), Pellagra(161),
Rickets(164)--Moral and Pedagogical Considerations(168)--Summary
of Stature(170).
THE WEIGHT
The Weight considered as Total Measure of Mass(172)--Weight of
Child at Birth (173)--Loss of Weight(176)--Specific Gravity of
Body(178)--Index of Weight(181).
CHAPTER II
CRANIOLOGY
The Head and Cranium(187)--The Face(188)--Characteristics
of the Human Cranium(191)--Evolution of the Forehead;
Inferior Skull Caps; the Pithecanthropus; the Neanderthal
Man(192)--Morphological Evolution of the Cranium through
different Periods of Life(197)--Normal Forms of Cranium(202)--the
Cephalic Index(207)--Volume of Cranium(220)--Development
of Brain(220)--Extreme Variations in Volume of
Brain(229)--Nomenclature of Cranial Capacity(242)--Chemistry
of the Brain(247)--Human Intelligence(252)--Influence of
Mental Exercise(254)--Pretended Cerebral Inferiority of
Woman(256)--Limits of the Face(259)--Human Character of the
Face(260)--Normal Visage(262)--Prognathism(268)--Evolution of the
Face(272)--Facial Expression(276)--the Neck(282).
CHAPTER III
THE THORAX
Anatomical Parts of the Thorax(281)--Physiological and
Hygienic Aspect of Thorax (286)--Spirometry(288)--Growth
of Thorax(294)--Dimensions of Thorax in relation
to Stature(295)--Thoracic Index(297)--Shape of
Thorax(299)--Anomalies of Shape(301)--Pedagogical Considerations:
the Evil of School Benches(302).
CHAPTER IV
THE PELVIS
Anatomical Parts of the Pelvis(304)--Growth of Pelvis(306)--Shape
of Pelvis in relation to Childbirth(307).
CHAPTER V
THE LIMBS
Anatomy of the Limbs(308)--Growth of Limbs(309)--Malformations:
Flat-foot, Opposable Big Toe(311), Curvature of Leg,
Club-foot(312)--The Hand(312)--Chiromancy and Physiognomy;
the Hand in Figurative Speech; High and Low Types of
Hand(312)--Dimensions of Hand(315)--Proportions of
Fingers(316)--the Nails(317)--Anomalies of the Hand(317)--Lines
of the Palm(318)--Papillary Lines(319).
CHAPTER VI
THE SKIN AND PIGMENTS
Pigmentation and Cutaneous Apparatus(320)--Pigmentation of the
Hair(323)--of the Skin(325)--of the Iris(325)--Form of the
Hair(327)--Anomalies of Pigment: Icthyosis, Birth-marks,
Freckles, etc.(329)--Anomalies of Hair(330).
MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF CERTAIN ORGANS (STIGMATA)
Synoptic Chart of Stigmata(332)--Anomalies of the Eye(333)--of the
Ear(334)--of the Nose(335)--of the Teeth(336)--Importance of
the Study of Morphology(338)--Significance of the Stigmata of
Degeneration(342)--Distribution of Malformations(344)--Individual
Number of Malformations(347)--Origin of
Malformations(355)--Humanity's Dependence upon Woman(357)--Moral
and Pedagogical Problems within the School(358).
CHAPTER VII
TECHNICAL PART
The Form(361)--Measurement of Stature(362)--the
Anthropometer(363)--the Sitting Stature(365)--Total Spread
of Arms(367)--Thoracic Perimeter(368)--Weight(368)--Ponderal
Index(368)--Head and Cranium(369)--Cranioscopy
(370)--Craniometry(373)--Cephalic Index(376)--Measurements of
Thorax(385)--of Abdomen (386).
THE PERSONAL ERROR
Need of Practical Experience in Anthropology(387)--Average Personal
Error(388)--Susceptibility to Suggestion(389).
CHAPTER VIII
STATISTICAL METHODOLOGY
Mean Averages(391)--Seriation(396)--Quétélet's Binomial Curve(398).
CHAPTER IX
THE BIOGRAPHIC HISTORY OF THE PUPIL AND HIS ANTECEDENTS
Biographic Histories(404)--Remote Antecedents(406)--Near
Biopathological Antecedents(407)--Sociological
Antecedents(411)--School Records(411)--Biographic
Charts(422)--Psychic Tests(425)--Typical Biographic History
of an Idiot Boy(434)--Proper Treatment of Defective
Pupils(446)--Rational Medico-pedagogical Method(448).
CHAPTER X
THE APPLICATION OF BIOMETRY TO ANTHROPOLOGY FOR THE PURPOSE OF
DETERMINING THE MEDIAL MAN
Theory of the Medial Man(454)--Importance of Seriation(455)--De
Helguero's Curves(460)--Viola's Medial Man(463)--Human
Hybridism(466)--the Medial Intellectual and Moral
Man(469)--Sexual Morality(473)--Sacredness of
Maternity(474)--Biological Liberty and the New Pedagogy(477).
TABLE OF MEAN PROPORTIONS OF THE BODY ACCORDING TO AGE(480).
TABLES FOR CALCULATING THE CEPHALIC INDEX(485).
TABLES FOR CALCULATING THE PONDERAL INDEX(491).
GENERAL INDEX: A. INDEX OF NAMES(501). B. INDEX OF SUBJECTS(503).
INTRODUCTION
THE MODERN TENDENCIES OF ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE RELATION THAT THEY BEAR
TO PEDAGOGY
HUMAN HYGIENE
=The Old Anthropology.=--_Anthropology_ was defined by Broca as "the
natural history of man," and was intended to be the application of the
"zoological method" to the study of the human species.
As a matter of fact, as with all positive sciences, the essential
characteristic of Anthropology is its "method." We could not say, if
we wished to speak quite accurately, that "Anthropology is the study
of man"; because the greater part of acquirable knowledge has for
its subject the human race or the individual human being; philosophy
studies his origin, his essential nature, his characteristics;
linguistics, history and representative art investigate the collective
phenomena of physiological and social orders, or determine the
morphological characteristics of the idealised human body.
Accordingly, what characterises Anthropology is not its subject: _man_;
but rather the method by which it proposes to study him.
The selfsame procedure which zoology, a branch of the natural sciences,
applies to the study of animals, anthropology must apply to the study
of man; and by doing so it enrolls itself as a science in the field of
nature.
Zoology has a well-defined point of departure, that clearly
distinguishes it from the other allied sciences: it studies the
_living_ _animal_. Consequently, it is an eminently synthetic science,
because it cannot proceed apart from the _individual_, which represents
in itself a sum of complex morphological and psychic characteristics,
associated with the species; and which furthermore, during life,
exhibits certain special distinguishing traits resulting from
instincts, habits, migration and geographical distribution.
Zoology consequently includes a vast but well-defined field.
Fundamentally, it is a _descriptive_ science, and when the general
character of the individual living creatures has been determined, it
proceeds to draw comparisons between them, distinguishing genus and
species, and thus working toward a _classification_. Down to the time
of Linnaeus, these were its limits; but since the studies of Lamarck
and Charles Darwin, it has gone a step further, and has proceeded to
investigate the _origin_ of species, an example that was destined to
be followed by botany and biology as a whole, which is the study of
_living things_.
When anthropology attained, under Broca, the dignity of a branch of the
natural sciences, the evolutionary theory already held the field, and
man had begun to be studied as an animal in his relation to species
of the lower orders. But, just as in zoology, the fundamental part of
anthropology was _descriptive_; and the description of the morphology
of the body was divided, according to the method followed, into
_anthropology_, or the method of _inspection_, and _anthropometry_, or
the method of measurements.
By these means, many problems important to the biological side of the
subject were solved--such, for instance, as racial characteristics--and
a classification of "the human races" was achieved through the
evidences afforded by comparative studies.
But the descriptive part of anthropology is not limited to the
inspection and measurement of the body; on the contrary, just as in
zoology, it is extended to include the _habits_ of the individual
living being; that is to say, in the case of man, the language, the
manners and customs (data that determine the _level of civilisation_),
emigration and the consequent intermixture of races in the original
formation of nations, thus constituting a special branch of science
properly known by the name of _ethnology_.
In this manner, while still adhering rigorously to zoological methods,
anthropology found itself compelled to throw out numerous collateral
branches into widely different fields, such as those of linguistics and
archæology; because man is a _speaking animal_ and a _social animal_.
One strictly anthropological problem is that of the origin of man,
and its ultimate analogy with that of the other animal species.
Hence the comparative studies between man and the anthropoid apes;
while palæontological discoveries of _pre-human_ forms, such as the
pithecanthropus, were just so many arguments calculated to bring the
human species within the scheme of a _biological philosophy_, based
upon evolution, which held its own, for nearly half a century, on the
battle-ground of natural sciences, under the glorious leadership of
Darwin.
Yet, notwithstanding that it offered studies and problems of direct
interest to man, anthropology failed to achieve popularity. During
that half century (the second half of the Nineteenth), which beheld
the scientific branches of biology multiply throughout the entire
field of analytical research, from histology to biochemistry, and
succeeded especially in making a practical application of them in
medicine, Anthropology failed to raise itself from the status of
a pure and aristocratic, in other words, a superfluous science, a
status that prevented it from ranking among the sciences of primary
importance. As a matter of fact, while zoology is a required study
in the universities, Anthropology still remains an elective study,
which in Italy is relegated to three or four universities at most. The
epoch of materialistic philosophy and analytical investigation could
naturally hardly be expected to prove a field of victory for _man_,
the intelligent animal, and nature's most splendid achievement in
construction.
The impressive magnificence of this thought, that bursts like pent-up
waters from the results of positive research into _man_ considered as
a _living_ individual, was forced to await the patient preparation
of material on which to build, such as the gathering of partial and
disorganised facts, which were accumulated through rigorous and minute
analyses, conducted under the guidance of the experimental sciences.
It was in this manner that anthropology slowly evolved a method and,
by doing so, raised itself to the rank of a science, without ever once
being utilised for practical purposes or recognised as _necessary_ as a
supplemental or integral element of other sciences.
One branch of learning which might have utilised the important
scientific discoveries regarding the antiquity of man, his nature
considered as an animal, his first efforts as a labourer and a
member of society, is pedagogy.
What could be more truly instructive and educative than to describe
to children that first heroic Robinson Crusoe, primitive man, cast
away on this vast island, the earth, lost in the midst of the
universe? Mankind, weak and naked, without iron, because it still
remained mysteriously hidden in the bowels of the earth, without
fire because they had not yet discovered the means of procuring it;
stones were their only weapons of defense against the ferocious and
gigantic beasts that roared on all sides of them in the forests.
The rude, splintered stone, the first handiwork of intelligent
man, his first instrument and his first weapon, could be prepared
solely from one kind of mineral, of which the local deposit began
to fail--a state of things which, let us suppose, occurred on some
ocean island. Thereupon the men constructed a small boat from the
bark of trees, and sped over the waters, in search of the needed
stone, passing from island to island, with scanty nourishment,
without lights in the night-time, and without a guide.
These marvelous accounts ought to be easily understood by children,
and to awaken in them an admiration for their own kinship with
humanity, and a profound sense of indebtedness to the mighty power
of labour, which to-day is rendered so productive and so easy by
our advanced civilisation, in which the environment, thanks to the
works of man, has done so much to make our lives enjoyable.
But pedagogy, no less than the other branches of learning, has
disdained to accept any contribution from anthropology; it has
failed to see man as the mighty wrestler, at close grips with
environment, man the toiler and transmuter, man the hero of
creation. Of the history of human evolution, not a single ray sheds
light upon the child and adolescent, the coming generation. The
schools teach the history of wars--the history of disasters and
crimes--which were painful necessities in the successive passages
through civilisations created by the labour and slow perfectioning
of humanity; but civilisation itself, which abides in the evolution
of labour and of thought, remains hidden from our children in the
darkness of silence.
Let us compare the appearance of man upon the earth to the
discovery of the motive power of steam and to the subsequent
appearance of railways as a factor in our social life. The railway
has no limits of space, it overruns the world, unresting and
unconscious, and by doing so promotes the brotherhood of men, of
nations, of business interests. Let us suppose that we should
choose to remain silent about the work performed by our railways
and their social significance in the world to-day, and should
teach our children only about the accidents, after the fashion of
the newspapers, and keep their sensitive minds lingering in the
presence of shattered and motionless heaps of carriages, amid the
cries of anguish and the bleeding limbs of the victims.
The children would certainly ask themselves what possible
connection there could be between such a disaster and the progress
of civilisation. Well, this is precisely what we do when, from
all the prehistoric and historic ages of humanity, we teach the
children nothing but a series of wars, oppressions, tyrannies and
betrayals; and, equipped with such knowledge, we push them out, in
all their ignorance, into the century of the redemption of labour
and the triumph of universal peace, telling them that "history is
the teacher of life."
Modern Anthropology: _Cesare Lombroso and Criminal Anthropology._
_The Anthropological Principles of Moral Hygiene._--The credit rests
with Italy for having rescued Anthropology from a sort of scientific
Olympus, and led it by new paths to the performance of an eminent and
practical service.
It was about the year 1855 that Cesare Lombroso applied the
anthropological method first to the study of the insane, and then
to that of criminals, having perceived a similarity or relationship
between these two categories of abnormal individuals. The observation
and measurement of clinical subjects, studied especially in regard
to the cranium by anthropometric methods, led the young innovator to
discover that the mental derangements of the insane were accompanied
by morphological and physical abnormalities that bore witness to
a profound and congenital alteration of the entire personality.
Accordingly, for the purposes of _diagnosis_, Lombroso came to adopt a
_somatic_ basis. And his anthropological studies of criminals led him
to analogous results.
The method employed was in all respects similar to the naturalistic
method which anthropology had taken over from zoology; that is to say,
the _description_ of the individual subject considered chiefly in his
somatic or corporeal personality, but also in his physiological and
mental aspect; the study of his responsiveness to his environment, and
of his habits (_manners and customs_); the grouping of subjects under
_types_ according to their dominant characteristic (_classification_);
and finally, the study of their origin, which, in this case, meant a
sociological investigation into the genesis of degenerate and abnormal
types. Thus, since the principles of the Lombrosian doctrine spread
with a precocious rapidity, it is a matter of common knowledge that
criminals present anomalies of form, or rather morphological deviations
associated with degeneration and known under the name of _stigmata_
(now called _malformations_), which, when they occur together in
one and the same subject, confer upon him a wellnigh characteristic
aspect, notably different from that of the normal individual; in
other words, they stamp him as belonging to an inferior type, which,
according to Lombroso's earlier interpretation, is a reversion toward
the lower orders of the human race (negroid and mongoloid types), as
evidenced by anomalies of the vital organs, or internal animal-like
characteristics (pithecoids); and that such stigmata were often
accompanied by a predisposition to maladies tending to shorten life.
Side by side with his somatic chart, Lombroso painstakingly prepared
a physio-pathological chart of criminal subjects, based upon a study
of their sensibility, their grasp of ideas, their social and ethical
standards, their thieves' jargon and tattoo-marks, their handwriting
and literary productions.
And, by deducing certain common characteristics from these complex
charts, he distinguished, in his classic work, _Delinquent_ _Man_,
a variety of types, such as the _morally insane_, the _epileptic_
_delinquent_, the _delinquent from impulse or passion_ (irresistible
impulsion), the _insane delinquent_, and the _occasional delinquent_.
In this way, he succeeded in classifying a series of types--what we
might call _sub-species_--diverging from the somatic and psycho-moral
charts of normal men. But the common biopathological foundation of
such types (with the exception of the last) was _degeneration_. We may
well agree with Morselli that, in many parts of his treatise, Lombroso
completed and amplified Morel, whose classic work, _A Study of the
Degeneration of the_ _Human Species_, was published in France at a time
when Lombroso had hardly started upon his anthropological researches.
Both of these great teachers based their doctrine upon a naturalistic
concept of man, and then proceeded to consider him, through all his
anomalies and perversions, in relation to that extraneous factor,
his environment. Morel, indeed, considers the _social_ causes of
degeneration, that is to say, of progressive organic impoverishment,
as more important than the individual phenomena; they act _upon
posterity_ and tend to create a human _variety_ deviating from the
normal type. Such causes may be summed up as including whatever tends
to the organic detriment of civilised man: such (in the first rank)
as _alcoholism_, poisoning associated with professional industries
(metallic poisons), or with lack of nutriment (pellagra), conditions
endemic in certain localities (goitre), infective maladies (malaria,
tuberculosis), denutrition (surménage). It may be said that whatever
produces _prolonged_ _suffering_, or whatever we class under the term
_vices_, or even the neglect of our duties, chief among which is that
of _working_ (parasitism of the rich), or any of the causes which
_exhaust_, or _paralyse_, or _perturb_ our normal functions, are causes
of degeneration, of impoverishment of the species.
Such is the doctrine which underlies the etiological concept of
abnormal personality in psychiatry as well as in criminology, or points
the way to its bio-social sources.
Accordingly, just as general Anthropology sought to investigate the
origins of races or that of the human species in the very roots of
life, so criminal Anthropology searches the origins of defective
personality in its social surroundings.
The ethical problems which are raised by such a doctrine cannot fail
to be of interest to us. The Lombrosian theories, by raising these
problems, have not only shaken the foundations of penal law, but have
even brought about a moral renovation of conscience. We will leave to
the jurists the great civic labor resulting from having brought the
_individual_ as well as the _crime_ under consideration, in relation
to the social phenomenon of delinquency--in other words, of having
substituted an anthropological for a speculative attitude. Whether the
delinquent should be cured, or simply isolated, or even subjected to
punishment; whether the prison should be transformed into an asylum
for the criminal insane; whether the penal laws should be reformed on
principles of a higher order of civil morality: these are problems
which interest us only secondarily.
What does interest us directly as educators is the necessity of _laying
our course_ in accordance with the standard of social morality which
such a doctrine reveals and imposes upon us: since it is our duty to
prepare the conscience of the rising generation. And, furthermore, to
consider whether the organisation of our schools and of their methods
is in conformity with such social progress.
If we cast a general glance at social ethics, from the primitive
beginnings of human intercourse, we witness the _evolution of the_
_vendetta_. There was, first, the individual vendetta. It was a form
of primordial _justice_, with which were associated the sentiments
of dignity, honour and solidarity; the injured party avenged himself
by slaying; and the family of the slain retaliated by a new vendetta
against the family of the slayer; and thus from generation to
generation the tragic heritage continued to be handed down. Even now,
in certain districts of civilised countries there exist survivals of
these primitive forms of justice. In such cases, the slayer is held
to be, not only _honourable_ but _virtuous_. Analogously, in course
of time, the individual vendetta, regulated by special formalities,
developed into the _duel_ for a point of _honour_.
At a more advanced period, in the course of the organisation of
society, the task of vengeance was taken away from the individual, and
the social administration of justice was established. Thereafter, the
act of an offender was _punished_ by the people collectively, and the
victims of the act had no other recompense from society than that of a
sense of satisfied hatred.
But throughout all civil progress, from the most primitive forms of
society down to our own times, there persisted, as a fundamental
principle, the concept of vengeance, coupled with the two great moral
principles, individually and collectively, of human society: _honour_
and _justice_. The naturalistic concept introduced by the Lombrosian
doctrine, namely, _living man_ entering as a concrete reality into the
midst of abstract moral principles, shatters this association of ideas,
and by so doing prepares the way for a new order of things--which is
not a process of evolution, but the beginning of an epoch. Vengeance
disappears in the new conception of the defense of society and of an
active campaign for the progress of humanity; and it ushers in an epoch
of redemption and of solidarity, in which all limitations of human
brotherhood are swept away.
The theories of Morel and Lombroso have resulted in calling the
attention of civilised man to all the types of the _physiologically_
_inferior_; the mentally deficient, epileptics, delinquents; shedding
light upon their pathological personality, and transforming into
interest and pity the contempt and neglect that were formerly the
portion of such creatures. In this way science has accomplished in
their behalf a work analogous to that of certain saints on behalf of
lepers and sufferers from cancer in the middle ages. At that epoch, and
even down to the beginning of modern times, the sick were abandoned
to themselves and languished, covered with sores, in the midst of the
horrors of infection; lepers were universally shunned, and their bodies
decomposed without succor. It was only when these miserable beings
began to awaken pity, in the place of loathing and repulsion, and to
attract the charity of saints, instead of spreading panic among egoists
and cowards, that the _care_ of the sick began upon a vast scale, with
the foundation of hospitals, the progress of medicine, and later of
hygiene.
To-day those purulent plague-spots of the middle ages no longer exist;
and infection is being combated with progressive success, in the
triumph of physical health.
Yet, we are standing to-day on the selfsame level as the middle ages,
in respect to moral plague-spots and infections; the phenomenon of
_criminality_ spreads without check or succor, and up to yesterday it
aroused in us nothing but repulsion and loathing. But now that science
has laid its finger upon this moral fester, it demands the cooperation
of all mankind to combat it.
Accordingly we find ourselves in the epoch of _hospitals_ for the
morally diseased, the century of their treatment and cure; we have
initiated a social movement toward the triumph of _morality_. We
educators must not forget that we have inaugurated the _epoch_ of
_spiritual health_; because I believe that it is we who are destined
to be the true _physicians_ and _nurses_ of this new _cure_. From the
middle ages until now, the science of medicine has slowly been evolving
for us the principles required to guarantee our bodily health; but
we know very well that while cleanliness and hygiene are _signs_ of
civilisation, it is its moral standard that establishes its level.
This moral solidarity is something which it is our duty to understand
thoroughly, if we wish to undertake the noble task of educators in
the Twentieth Century, which was prepared in advance by the intensive
intellectual activity of the century of science.
Granting the social phenomenon of _crime_, we ought to ask ourselves:
where does the fault lie? If we are to acquit the individual criminal
of responsibility, it falls back necessarily upon the social community
through which the _causes of degeneration_ and disease have filtered.
Accordingly, it is we, every one of us, who are at fault: or rather,
we are beginning to awaken to a consciousness that it is a sin to
_foster_ or to _tolerate_ such social conditions as make possible the
suffering, the vices, the errors that lead to physiological pauperism,
to pathology, to the degeneration of posterity. The idea is not a new
one: all great truths were perceived in every age by the elect few; the
fundamental principles of the doctrine of Lombroso are to be already
found in Greek philosophy and in that of Christ; Aristotle, in his
belief that there is some one particular organism corresponding to
each separate manifestation of nature, foreshadows the concept of the
correspondence between the morphological and psychic personality; and
St. John Chrisostom expounds the principle of moral solidarity in the
collective responsibility of society, when he says: "you will render
account, not only of your own salvation, but of that of all mankind;
whoever prays ought to feel himself burdened with the interests of the
entire human race."
Now, if it is not yet in our power to achieve a social reform based on
the eradication of degenerative causes--since society can be perfected
only gradually--it is nevertheless within our power to _prepare the
conscience_ for acceptance of the new morality, and by _educational_
means to help along the civil progress which science has revealed to
us. The honest man, the worthy man, the man of honour, is not he who
avenges himself; but he who works for something outside himself, for
the sake of society at large, in order to purify it of its evils and
its sins, and advance it on its path of future progress. In this way,
even though we fail to prepare the material environment, we shall have
prepared _efficient men_.
In addition to this momentous principle of social ethics, the
Lombrosian doctrines confront us squarely with the philosophic
question of liberty of action, the controverted question of Stuart
Mill, namely that of "free will." The libertarians admit the freedom
of the will as one of the noblest of human prerogatives, on which the
responsibility for our acts depends; the determinists recognise that
the act of volition obeys certain predetermined _causes_. Now the
Lombrosian theories find these _causes_, not after the fashion of the
Pythagoreans, in cosmic laws or astrology, but in the _constitution
of the organism_, thus serving as a powerful illustration of that
_physiological determinism_, under whose guidance modern positive
philosophy draws its inspiration.[1]
In the case of criminality, the actions of the degenerate delinquent
are dependent upon a multiplicity of internal factors, that are
almost necessarily governed by special predispositions. But, also in
accordance with the Lombrosian doctrine, there are external factors
which concur in determining acts of volition, factors relating to the
environment, studied in accordance with rather vast conceptions: the
actions of the individual are determined in advance by that social
intercourse in which the great phenomena of any given civilisation
have their necessary origin--phenomena such as crime, prostitution,
the grade of culture accessible to the majority, the character of
industrial products, the limits of general mortality. Now, just as
there are necessary fluctuations in the tables of mortality, so also
there are fluctuations in the quantity and quality of those individual
phenomena that are looked upon as crimes: and in the one case no less
than in the other, those who are predisposed are the ones in whom
occurs the necessary outbreak of phenomena having their origin in
society.
This constitutes in criminology, as well as in psychiatry, the
resultant of all etiological concepts, pertaining to the interpretation
of individual phenomena. It is precisely the same concept as that
so exhaustively demonstrated by Quétélet, with the aid of European
statistics, in his _Social Physics_, and it has come to represent
in modern science that fundamental concept which was to be found
in all the great religions, of the dependence of the individual
upon a governing force that is superior to him. This interpretation
of individual phenomena cannot be ignored in the great problems of
education; because the more literally we interpret the doctrine here
set forth, just so much the less trust must be placed in the efficacy
of education as a modifying influence upon personality, while it will
acquire new importance as a co-worker in the interpretation of social
epochs and individual activities, over which it should exercise a
watchful guidance.
But meanwhile it is of interest to us to note how the anthropological
movement, introduced with great simplicity of method, without any
scientific or philosophical preconceptions, has led the investigations
of psychiatry into vast and unsuspected fields of social ethics,
bringing into practice fundamental reforms, analogous to those relating
to penal law.
_Achille De Giovanni and Physiological Anthropology; Anthropological_
_Principles of Physical Hygiene._--Another practical development of
anthropology is that instituted by Professor De Giovanni, who has
introduced into his medical clinic at Padua the anthropological method
in the clinical examination of patients. He applies the well-known
naturalistic procedure, namely, the description of individuals,
their classification into types, according to common fundamental
characteristics, and the etiological study of their personality. But
while Lombroso took note of malformations solely in relation to other
symptoms of degeneration, De Giovanni has established a strictly
physiological basis for his investigations. Accordingly, he considers
the human individual in his entirety, as a _functionating organism_,
and he regards all inharmonious bodily proportions as signifying a
necessary predisposition to certain determined forms of illness.
With this end in view, he does not concern himself about single
malformations, such for example as prognathism, the frontal angle,
etc., but rather with the general relations of development between
the bust which contains the organs essential to vegetative life, and
the limbs; and from the external morphology of the bust, determined
by measurements, he seeks to establish the reciprocal relations in
development within the visceral cavities: "the proportions of the human
body depend upon the development of its organs; and equally with its
proportions, the whole physiological strength of the body depends upon
its organs taken collectively." Whoever has a defective chest capacity
not only possesses a smaller allowance of organs fitted for respiration
and circulation of the blood, but as a result of such anomaly of
development he is also predisposed to attacks of special maladies, such
for example as chronic catarrh of the bronchial tubes or pulmonary
tuberculosis. Whoever, on the contrary, is overdeveloped in abdominal
dimensions, will be subject to disturbances of the digestive system
and of the liver. In his classic work, _Morphology of the Human Body_,
De Giovanni proceeds to elaborate a doctrine of temperaments, and of
their several predispositions to disease, the tendency of which is to
transfer the basis of medicine from a study of diseases to that of the
individual patients, and to revive in modern days the ancient concepts
of the Greek school of medicine, which from the time of Hippocrates
and Galen drew up admirable charts of the fundamental physical types.
In place of the ancient classification of temperaments into _nervous_,
_sanguine_, _bilious_ and _lymphatic_, we have to-day as substitutes,
according to the school of De Giovanni, morphological types that are
very nearly equivalent, and in which the predominant disorders are
respectively diseases of the heart, the nervous system, the liver and
the lungs.
In short, the result of this theory has been to establish an internal
factor of predisposition to disease, analogous to that established by
Lombroso as a predisposition to the phenomena of crime. And even here
the mesogenic factors, that is, the influence of environment, must
be taken into consideration: but environment acts equally upon all
individuals: nearly everyone encounters, in his surroundings, that
nerve-strain which leads to cardiac disorders and to neurasthenia;
almost everyone encounters the bacilli of tuberculosis; the causes of
general mortality are dictated by the very conditions of civilisation.
But among the vast majority who pass unharmed along the insidious paths
of adaptation, only a few fall victims to the particular disease to
which some special anomaly of their organism predisposes them. In this
way we can understand how it happens that certain ones have reason
to dread a cold that will develop into bronchitis, and others on the
contrary must guard themselves from errors in diet which will lead to
intestinal disorders.
The part of De Giovanni's theory which is of special interest is that
which leads to a consideration of the _ontogenetic development_ _in
relation_ to the anomalies of the physio-morphological personality:
"At every epoch of life this principle is applicable: Namely, that
the reason for a special predisposition to disease is to be found
in a special organic morphology. The individual is in a ceaseless
state of transformation, and consequently at different periods of his
life he may show a susceptibility to different diseases." A person
who is predisposed to suffer continually from some complaint during
his adult years, was usually unwell during the greater part of his
childhood, although from some other disease; and with this as a basis,
a scientific system of observation could speak prophetically regarding
the physio-pathological destiny of a child. It is known, for example,
that children subject to scrofula are predisposed to arrive at maturity
with an undeveloped chest and a tendency to pulmonary tuberculosis.
From our point of view as educators, the doctrine of temperaments, and
of their respective predispositions to disease, offers a deep interest,
the nature of which is made evident by the author of the theory
himself: for he points out that the period of childhood is the one best
fitted in which to combat the abnormal predispositions of the organism,
wisely guiding its development, to the final end of achieving an ideal
of health, which depends upon the harmony of form and consequently of
functions, in other words, upon the full attainment of physical beauty.
Here also, as in the Lombrosian doctrines, etiology fulfils the lofty
task of throwing light upon the causal links between the biosociologic
causes and the congenital anomalies of the physiological personality.
The hereditary tendencies to disease, the errors of sexual hygiene,
especially those regarding maternity, reveal to us the principal
causes of that accumulation of imperfections that oppress and deform
the average normal human being. It is because of such errors and such
ignorance that hardly any of us attain that harmonic beauty that
would render us immune to the treacheries of environment, and enable
us to achieve, in the triumphant security of good health, our normal
biological development.
It is not too much to say, that it is etiology which, applied to the
Lombrosian doctrines, reveals the _faults of society_, the _sins of
the world_, and, applied to the theories of De Giovanni, reveals its
_errors_; and that from the two together there results a sort of
ethical guide leading toward the supreme ideal of the _purification
of the world_ and the _perfectionment of the human species_. These
are ideals which were in part cherished by the Greeks, who made their
system of education the basis of their physical development. Such
physiological doctrines are precisely what we also need to round out
our plan for a _moral education_.
_Giuseppe Sergi and Pedagogic Anthropology: Anthropological_ _Bases of
Human Hygiene._--It is also an Italian to whom we owe that practical
extension of anthropology that leads us straight into the field of
pedagogy. It was my former teacher, Giuseppe Sergi, who, as early as
1886, defended with the ardor of a prophet the new scientific principle
of studying the pupils in our schools by methods prescribed by
anthropology. Like the scientists who preceded him, he was thus led to
substitute (in the field of pedagogy) the human individual taken from
actual life, in place of general principles or abstract philosophical
ideas.
As a matter of fact, while the doctrines of Lombroso and De Giovanni
are profoundly reformatory, they nevertheless offer us nothing more
substantial than certain new ideals of morality and social improvement.
But the really practical field in which these ideals might in a large
measure be realised is the _school_.
What progress would result for humanity if, on the basis of these
new ethical principles, we contented ourselves with transforming our
prisons into insane asylums? Such scanty fruit might well be compared
to the mercy of that mediæval lordling who, out of consideration for
a gentleman, commuted his sentence from hanging to decapitation. And
scanty fruit would also be reaped by the science of medicine if, in its
new anthropological development, it should content itself merely with
diagnosing the personality of the patient, in addition to the disease;
that is to say, for example, if, instead of telling a patient that
his attack of bronchitis would be cured within twenty days, it should
go on to predict, on the basis of the morphology of his body, that he
would infallibly fall ill every year, until such time as pulmonary
tuberculosis should put a fatal ending to his days.
On the contrary, behind the light of ideality that shimmers through and
across these doctrines, we perceive our plain duty to trace out a path
that will lead to a regeneration of humanity. If some practical line
of action is to result, it will undoubtedly have to be exerted upon
_humanity in the course of development_, in other words, at that period
of life when the organism, being still in the course of formation,
may be effectively directed and consequently corrected in its mode of
growth.
Accordingly, the possible solution of the most momentous social
problems, such as those of criminality, predisposition to disease, and
degeneration, may be hoped for only within the limits of that space
which society sets aside for guiding the new generations in their
development.
In the school, we have hitherto retained, almost as a principle of
justice, a leveling uniformity among the pupils: an abstract equality
which seeks to guide all these separate childish individualities toward
a single type which cannot be called an idealised type, because it
does not represent a standard of perfection, but is on the contrary
a non-existent philosophical abstraction: the _Child_. Educators are
prepared for their practical services to childhood, by studies based
upon this abstract infantile personality; and they enter upon their
active work in school with the preconception that they must discover
in every pupil a more or less faithful incarnation of the said type;
and thus, year after year, they delude themselves with the idea that
they have understood and educated _the child_. Now, this supposed
uniformity cannot exist in the children of a human race so varied that
it can produce, at the selfsame time, a Musolino[A] and a Luccheni,[2]
a Guglielmo Marconi and a Giosue Carducci. All the different social
types of men who labor with their hands and with their brains, the
transformers of their environment, the producers of wealth, the
directors of governments, equally with the undistinguished crowd of
parasites, the enemies of society, all lived together in childhood,
sitting side by side, upon the same school benches.
It was in 1898 that the first Italian Pedagogical Congress was held
in Turin, and was attended by about three thousand educators. Under
the spur of a new passion, that made me foresee the future mission
and transformation of a chosen social class, setting forth upon a
glorious task of redemption--the class of educators--I attended the
Congress. I was at that time an interloper, because the subsequent
felicitous union between medicine and pedagogy still remained a thing
undreamed of, in the thoughts of that period. We had reached the third
day of our sessions, and were all awaiting with interest an address by
Professor Ildebrando Bencivenni, who was announced to speak upon the
theme of "The School that Educates." The discussion of this subject
was expected to constitute the substantial work of the Congress, which
seemed to have been called together chiefly in order to solve the
problem of the greatest pedagogic importance: _how to give a moral
education_. It was that very morning, just as the session was opening,
that the frightful news burst upon us like a thunderbolt, that the
Empress, Elizabeth of Austria, had been assassinated, and that once
again an Italian had struck the blow! The third regicide in Europe
within a brief time, that was due to an Italian hand!
The entire public press was unanimously stirred to indignation against
the educators of the people; and as a demonstration of hostility, they
all absented themselves that day from participating in the Congress.
There was something approaching a tumult in the ranks of teachers;
inasmuch as they felt themselves innocent, they protested against the
calumny of the newspapers in thus unjustly holding them responsible.
Amid the intense silence of the assembly, Bencivenni delivered a
splendid discourse regarding the reform of educative methods in
the school. Next in order, I took the platform and, speaking as a
physician, I said: It will be all in vain for you to reform the methods
of moral education in our schools, if you do not bear in mind that
certain individuals exist, who are the very ones capable of committing
such unspeakable deeds, and who pass through school without ever once
being influenced in any manner by education. There exist various
categories of abnormal children, who will fruitlessly go through the
same grade over and over again, disturbing the routine and discipline
of the class: and in spite of punishments and reprimands, they will
end by being expelled without having learned anything at all, without
having been modified in any manner. What becomes of these individuals
who, even in childhood, reveal themselves as the future rebels and
enemies of society? Yet we leave such a dangerous class in the most
complete abandonment. Now, it is useless to reform the school and its
methods, if the reformed school and the reformed methods are still
going to fail to reach the very children who, for the protection
of society, are most in need of being reached! Any method whatever
suffices to fit a sane and normal child for a useful and moral life.
The reform that is demanded in school and in pedagogy is one that
will lead to the protection of _all_ children during their years of
development, including those who have shown themselves refractory to
the environment of social life.
Thus I laid the first stone toward the education of mentally deficient
children and the foundation of special schools for them. The work
which followed forms, I think, the first historic page of a great
regeneration in the whole class of teachers and of a profound reform in
the school; a question so momentous that it spread rapidly throughout
all Italy and was followed by the establishment of institutes and
classes designed expressly for the deficient; and, most important of
all, by the universal conviction which it carried, it also constituted
the first page of pedagogy reformed upon an anthropological basis.
This is precisely the new development of pedagogy that goes under the
name of _scientific_: in order to educate, it is essential to know
those who are to be educated. "Taking measurements of the head, the
stature, etc." (in other words, applying the anthropological method),
"is, to be sure, not in itself the practice of pedagogy," says Sergi,
in speaking of what the biological sciences have contributed to this
branch of learning during the nineteenth century, "But it does mean
that we are following the path that leads to pedagogy, because we
cannot educate anyone until we know him thoroughly."
Here again, in the field of pedagogy, the naturalistic method must lead
us to the study of the separate subjects, to a description of them as
individuals, and their classification on a basis of characteristics
in common; and since the child must be studied not by himself alone,
but also in relation to the factors of his origin and his individual
evolution--since every one of us represents the effect of multifold
causes--it follows that the etiological side of the pedagogical branch
of modern anthropology, like all its other branches, necessarily
invades the field of biology and at the same time of sociology.
Among the types which it will be of pedagogic interest to trace in
school-children, we must undoubtedly find those that correspond to the
childhood of those abnormal individuals already studied in Lombroso's
_Criminal Anthropology_, and in De Giovanni's _Clinical Morphology_.
Nevertheless, it is a new study, because the characteristics of the
child are not those of the adult reduced to a diminutive scale, but
they constitute _childhood_ characteristics. Man changes as he grows;
the body itself not only undergoes an increase in volume, but a
profound evolution in the harmony of its parts and the composition of
its tissues; in the same way, the psychic personality of the man does
not grow, but evolves; like the predisposition to disease which varies
at different ages in each individual considered pathologically. For all
those anomalous types which to-day are included under the popular term
of _deficients_, for the pathological weaklings who reveal symptoms of
scrofula or rickets, there is no doubt that special schools and methods
of education are essential. We teachers would like, through educative
means, to counteract the ultimate consequences of degeneration and
predisposition to disease: if criminal anthropology has been able
to _revolutionise the_ _penalty_ in modern civilisation, it is our
duty to undertake, in the school of the future, to _revolutionise the
individual_. And by achieving this ideal, pedagogic anthropology will
to a large extent have taken the place of criminal anthropology, just
as schools for the abnormal and feeble, multiplied and perfected under
the protection of an advanced civilisation, will in a large measure
have replaced the prisons and the hospitals.
We owe to the intuitive genius of Giuseppe Sergi the conception of
a form of pedagogic anthropology far more exact in its methods of
investigation than anything which had hitherto been foreshadowed. This
master takes the ground that a study of abnormal and weakly children
is a task of absolutely secondary importance. What is imperative for
us to know, he claims, is _normal humanity_, if we are to guide it
intelligently toward that biological and moral perfection, on which the
progress of humanity must depend. If general pedagogy is destined to be
transformed under a naturalistic impulse, this will be effected only
when anthropology turns its investigations to the normal human being.
Educators are still very far from having a _real knowledge_ of that
collective body of school-children, on whom a uniformity of method,
of encouragement and punishment is blindly inflicted; if, instead of
this, the child could be brought before the teacher's eyes as a _living
individuality_, he would be forced to adopt very different standards of
judgment, and would be shaken to the very depths of his conscience by
the revelation of a responsibility hitherto unsuspected.
Let us take one or two examples; let us consider, among the pupils, one
child who is very poor.
Studied by the anthropological method, he is revealed, in every
personal physiological detail, as an inferior type. The child of
poverty, as Niceforo has well shown, is an inferior in stature, in
cranium, in weight, in muscular and intellectual strength; and the
malformations, resulting from defects of growth, condemn him to an
æsthetic inferiority; in other words, environment, mode of living,
and nutrition may result in modifying even the relative _beauty_ of
the individual. The normal man may bear within him a germ of physical
beauty inherited from parents who begot him normally, and yet this
germ may not be able to develop, because impeded by environment.
Accordingly, physical beauty constitutes in itself a class privilege.
This child, weak in mind and in muscular force, when compared with
the child of wealth, grown up in a favorable environment, shows less
attractive manners, because he has been reared in an atmosphere of
social inferiority, and in school is classed as a pariah. Less good
looking and less refined, he fails to enlist the sympathy which the
teacher so readily concedes to the courteous manners of more fortunate
children; less intelligent himself, and unable to look for help from
parents who, more than likely, are illiterate, he fails to obtain
the encouragement of praise and high credit marks that are lavished
upon stronger children, who have no need of being encouraged. Thus it
happens that the down-trodden of society are also the down-trodden
in the school. And we call this justice; and we say that demerit is
punished and merit is rewarded; but in this way we make ourselves the
sycophants of nature and of social error, and not the administrators of
justice in education!
On the other hand, let us examine another child, living in an agreeable
environment, in the higher social circles; he possesses all the
physical attraction and grace that render childhood charming. He is
intelligent, smiling, gentle-mannered; at the cost of small effort he
gives his teacher ample satisfaction by his progress, and even if the
teacher's method of instruction happens to be somewhat faulty, the
child's family hasten privately to make up for the deficiency. This
child is destined to reap a harvest of praise and rewards; the teacher,
egotistically complacent over the abundant fruit gathered with so
little effort, and the moral and æsthetic satisfaction derived from
the fortunate pupil, gives him unmeasured affection and smooths his
whole course through school. But if we study the rich, intelligent,
prize-winning child carefully, we find that he, too, is not perfect in
his anthropological development; he is too narrow-chested. This is the
penalty of the rich and the studious; every privilege brings its own
peril; every benefit contains a snare; every one of us to-day, without
the light of science, runs the risk of diminishing our physiological
equilibrium, by living in an environment that contains so many defects.
The child of luxury, living continually indoors, diligently studying in
his well-warmed home, under his mother's vigilant eye, is impeding the
development of his own chest; and when he has completed his growth and
his education, will find himself with insufficient lungs; his physical
personality will have been permanently thrown out of equilibrium by
a defective environment. This highly cultured man may some day find
himself urged on to big endeavour; his intelligence will create vast
ideals, but he will not have at his disposal the physical force that
is so strictly associated with the power to draw from the surrounding
air a sufficient quantity of oxygen by means of respiration. The spirit
is ready, but the flesh is weary; and all his ambitious hopes may be
shattered in the very flower of life by pulmonary tuberculosis, to
which he has himself created an artificial predisposition.
It is our duty to understand the individual, in order to avoid these
fatal errors; and to arise to higher standards of justice, founded upon
the real exigencies of life--guided by that spirit of love which is
essential to the teacher, in order to render him truly an educator of
humanity.
Love is the essential spirit of fecundity whose one purpose is to beget
life. And in the teacher, love of humanity must find expression through
his work, because the very purpose of love is to create something.
Accordingly, this spirit of fecundity ought to produce the teacher's
_mission_, which to-day is the mission of reforming the school and
accepting the proud duty of universal motherhood, destined to protect
all mankind, the normal and abnormal alike. This is a reform, not only
of the school, but of society as a whole, because through the redeeming
and protective labours of pedagogy, the lowest human manifestations of
degeneration and disease will disappear; and, more important still, it
will make it henceforth impossible for normal human beings, conceived
from germs that promise strength and beauty, little by little to
lose that beauty and strength along the rough paths of life, through
which no one has hitherto had the knowledge to guide them. "In the
social life of to-day an urgent need has arisen," says our common
master, Giuseppi Sergi, "a renovation of our methods of education
and instruction; and whoever enrolls himself under this standard, is
fighting for the regeneration of man."
_Enrico Morselli and Scientific Philosophy._--Among the names of
Italian scientists that must be called to mind, in discussing the
modern developments of anthropology, a special lustre attaches to
that of Enrico Morselli, who has earned the right to call himself the
critic, or rather, the philosopher of anthropology. Notwithstanding
that he has made his name famous in the vast field of psychiatry,
this distinguished Genoese practitioner has found time to assimilate
the most diverse branches of science and the most widely separated
avenues of thought, qualifying himself as a _critic_, and systematising
experimental science on the lines of scientific philosophy.
His great work, _General Anthropology_, is developed on synthetic
lines, embracing in a single scientific system all the acquired
knowledge of the past two centuries, and may rightfully be called the
first treatise on philosophic anthropology. While the experimental
sciences, by collecting and recording separate phenomena, were
gradually preparing, throughout the nineteenth century, a great mass of
analytical material, chosen blindly and without form, they apparently
engendered a new trend of thought positively hostile to philosophy: the
_odium antiphilosophicum_, as Morselli calls it. And conversely, the
speculative positivism of Ardigo remained throughout its development a
stranger to the immediate sources of experimental research, and adhered
strictly to the field of pure philosophy. It remained for Morselli to
perceive that the scientific material prepared by experimental science
was in reality philosophical material, for which it was only necessary
to prepare instruments and means in order to systematise it and lead
it into the proper channels for the construction of a scientific
philosophy.
Throughout the whole period of his intellectual activity, Morselli
sought to unite experimental science and philosophy, by taking his
content from the former and his form from the latter. To gather and
catalogue bare facts could not be the scope of science; such labour
could result only in sterilising the mind. "The human mind," says
Morselli, "does not stop at the objective study of a phenomenon and its
laws; it wants also to fathom their nature; the how does not content
it, but it must also have the _wherefore_." It must mount from facts
to synthesis, constantly achieving a new and fuller understanding.
But what determines the content of philosophy is not speculative
thought, but facts that have been collected _objectively_. Such is
the view of Enrico Morselli, expressed in the introduction to his
_Review of Scientific_ _Philosophy_: "We think the moment has come for
professional philosophers to allow themselves to be convinced that the
progress of physical and biological sciences has profoundly changed
the tendencies of philosophy; so that it is no longer an assemblage of
speculative systems, but rather the synthesis of partial scientific
doctrines, the expression of the highest general truths, derived
_solely_ and _immediately_ from the study of facts. On the other
hand, we hope also that in every student of the separate sciences,
whether pure or applied, the intimate conviction will take root that
no science which applies the method of observation and experiment to
the particular class of phenomena which form its subject, can call
itself fully developed so long as it is limited to the collection and
classification of facts. Scientific dilettantism of this sort must end
by sterilising the human mind, whose natural tendency is to advance
from observed phenomena by successive stages to the investigation of
their partial laws, and from these to the research of more and more
general truths. But philosophy, thus understood, can never confine
itself within the dogmatism of a system, but rather will leave the
individual mind free to make constant new concessions, in the pursuit
of the truth.
"The human mind is condemned to search forever, and perhaps never to
find, the ultimate solution to the eternal problem which it offers to
itself; accordingly, let it keep itself at _liberty_ to accept to-day
as probable, a solution which further researches or newly discovered
facts will compel it to reject to-morrow in favor of another. We must
admit that in philosophic concepts there is a constant evolution, or
rather natural selection, thanks to which the strongest concepts, those
best constituted, those that are fitted to make use of scientific
discoveries with the broadest liberality, are predisposed to prove
victorious or at least to hold their own for a long time in the
struggle."[3]
It is this _liberty_ that makes it possible for us to pursue
experimental investigations, without fear that our brains may become
sterile. And by liberty we mean the readiness to accept new concepts
whenever experience proves to us that they are better and closer to the
truth which we are seeking. Even though the absolute truth were never
reached, the experimental method is the path most likely to lead us
toward it step by step.
Accordingly, what we should demand of investigators is not a creed, a
philosophic system, but "_the objective method in their_ _researches
and in the sources of their inductions_." For this is the way to train
the workers and philosophers of experimental science.
And the same lines must serve us for building up a philosophy capable
of shaping a regenerated method of pedagogy.
THE METHOD
The determining factor in anthropology is the same that determines all
experimental science: the _method_. A well-defined method in natural
science applied to the study of living man offers us the scientific
content, which we are in the course of seeking.
The content bursts upon us as a surprise, as the result of applying
the method, by means of which we make advances in the investigation of
truth.
Whenever a science prescribes for itself, not a content but a method of
experimenting, it is for that reason called an _experimental_ science.
It is not easy for those who come fresh from the pursuit of philosophic
studies to adapt themselves to this order of ideas. The philosopher,
the historian, the man of letters prepare themselves by assimilating
the _content_ of one particular branch of learning; and thereby they
define the boundaries of their individual knowledge and close the
circle of their individual thought, however vast that circle may be.
Indeed, the elaboration of human thought, the series of historic deeds,
the accumulated mass of literature, may offer immense fields; but
after the student has little by little assimilated them, he cannot do
otherwise than contain them within him precisely as they are. Their
extent is limited by the centuries that cover the history of civilised
man, and it is invariable, since it exists as a work accomplished by
man.
Experimental science is of an entirely different sort. We must look
upon it as a _means_ of investigation into the field of the infinite
and the unknown. If we wish to compare it to some branch of learning
that is universally familiar, we may say that an experimental science
is similar to _learning to read_. When as children we learn to read,
we may, to be sure, estimate the effort that it costs us to master a
mechanical device; but such a mechanical device is a means, it is a
magic key that will unlock the secrets of wisdom, multiply our power to
share the thoughts of our contemporaries, and render us dexterous in
despatching the practical affairs of life.
Thus considered, _reading_ is a branch of learning that has no
prescribed limits.
It is our duty to learn to read the _truth_, in the book of _nature_;
I. by collecting separate facts, according to the objective method; II.
by proceeding methodically from analysis to synthesis. The subject of
our research is the individual human being.
1. _The Objective Collecting of Single Facts._--In the gathering of
data, our science makes use of two means of investigation, as we
have already seen: observation or _anthroposcopy_; and measurement
or _anthropometry_. In order to take measurements, we must know the
special _anthropometric instruments_ and how to use them; and in making
observations, we must treat ourselves as instruments, that is, we must
divest ourselves of our own personality, of every preconception, in
order to become capable of recording the real facts _objectively_. For
since our purpose is to gather our facts from nature and await her
revelations, if we allowed ourselves to have scientific preconceptions,
we might distort the truth. Here is the point which distinguishes
experimental science from a speculative science; in the former, we
must banish thought, in the latter we must build by means of thought.
Accordingly _at the moment_ _when we are collecting our data_, we must
possess no other capacity than that of knowing how to collect them with
extreme exactness and objectivity.
Accordingly we need a _method_ and a mental preparation, that
is, a _training_ which will accustom us to divest ourselves of
our own personalities, in order to become simple _instruments of
investigation_. For instance, if it were a question of measuring the
heads of illiterate children and of other children of the same age,
who are attending school, in order to learn whether the heads of
educated children show greater development, we need not only to know
how to use the _millimetric scale_ and the cranial calipers which are
the instruments adapted to this purpose; we need not only to know the
_anatomical points_ at which the instruments must be applied in the
manner established by the accepted method; but we need in addition
to be _unaware_, while taking the measurements, whether the child
before us at a given moment is educated or illiterate because the
preconception might work upon us by suggestion and thus alter the
result. Or again, to take what in a certain sense is an opposite case,
and nevertheless analogous, we may undertake a research into some
absolutely unknown question, as for instance, what are the psychic
characteristics of children whose development has kept fairly close to
the normal average, and of those whose anthropological measurements
diverge notably from the average: in such a case we ought to measure
all the children, make the required psychological tests separately, and
then compare the results of the two investigations.
A woman student in my course, last year, undertook precisely this sort
of investigation, namely, to find out what was the standing in school
of children who represent the normal average anthropological type, that
is to say, those whose physical development had been all that was to be
desired: and she found that normal children are _vivacious_ (happy),
_very intelligent_, but _negligent_; and consequently their number
never includes the _heads of the classes_, the _winners of prizes_.
In addition to gathering _anthropological data_, which requires a
special _technique_ of research, we need to know how to proceed to
interpret them.
We are no longer at the outset of our observations. No sooner was the
method established, than there were a multitude of students in all
parts of the world capable of objective research, that is to say, of
anthropological investigations. The sum total of all these researches
forms a _scientific patrimony_, which needs to be known to us, in
order that our own conclusions may serve to complete those of other
investigators, who have preceded us, and thus form a contribution to
science.
In other words, there have already been certain _principles_
established and certain _laws_ discovered, on an experimental basis;
and all this forms a _true_ and fitting content of our science. It
will serve to _guide_ us in our researches, and to furnish us with a
_standard_ _of comparison_ for our own conclusions. Thus, for example,
when we have measured the stature of a boy of ten, we have undoubtedly
gathered an individual anthropological fact; but in order to interpret
it, we must know what is the average stature of boys of ten; and the
average will be found established by previous investigators, who have
obtained it from actuality, by applying the well-known method of
measuring the stature, to a great number of individuals of a specified
race, sex, and age, and by obtaining an average on the basis of such
research.
Accordingly, we ought to _profit from_ the researches of others,
whenever they have been received, as noteworthy, into the literature
of science. Nevertheless, the patrimony which science places at our
disposition must never be considered as anything more than a _guide_,
an expression of universal collaboration, in accordance with a uniform
method. We must never _jurare in_ _verba magistri_, never accept any
master as infallible: we are always at liberty to _repeat_ any research
already made, in order to verify it; and this form of investigation
is part of the established method of experimental science. One
fundamental principle must be clearly understood; that we can never
become anthropologists merely by reading all the existing literature
of anthropology, including the voluminous works on kindred studies and
the innumerable periodicals; we shall become anthropologists only at
the moment when, having mastered the method, we become investigators of
_living human individuals_.
We must, in short, be _producers_, or nothing at all; assimilation is
useless. For example, let us suppose that a certain teacher has studied
anthropology in books: if, after that, he is incapable of making
practical _observations_ upon his own pupils, to what end does his
theoretical knowledge serve him? It is evident that theoretic study can
have no other purpose than to guide us in the interpretation of data
gathered directly from nature.
Our only book should be the living individual; all the rest taken
together form only the necessary means for reading it.
2. _The Passage from Analysis to Synthesis._--Assuming that we have
learned how to gather anthropological data with a rigorously exact
technique, and that we possess a theoretic knowledge and tables of
comparative data: all this together does not suffice to qualify us as
interpreters of nature. The marvellous reading of this amazing book
demands on our part still other forms of preparation. In gathering
the separate data, it may be said that we have learned how to _spell_,
but not yet how to read and interpret the sense. The reading must
be accomplished with broad, sweeping glances, and must enable us
to penetrate in thought into the very synthesis of life. And it is
the simple truth that _life_ manifests itself through the living
individual, and in no other way. But through these means it reveals
certain general properties, certain laws that will guide us in grouping
the living individuals according to their common properties; it is
necessary to know them, in order to interpret individual differences
dependent upon race, age, and sex, and upon variations due to the
effort of adaptation to environment, or to pathological or degenerative
causes. That is to say, certain general principles exist, which serve
to make us _interpreters_ _of the meaning_, when we read in the book of
life.
This is the _loftiest_ part of our work, carrying us above and beyond
the individual, and bringing us in contact with the very fountain-heads
of life, almost as though it were granted us to materialise the
unknowable. In this way we may rise from the arid and fatiguing
gathering of analytical data, toward conceptions of noble grandeur,
toward a _positive philosophy of life_; and unveil certain secrets of
existence, that will teach us the moral norms of life.
Because, unquestionably, we are _immoral_, when we disobey the laws of
life; for the triumphant rule of life throughout the universe is what
constitutes our conception of beauty and goodness and truth--in short,
of divinity.
The technical method of proceeding toward synthesis, we may find well
defined in biology: the data gathered by measurement can be grouped
according to the statistical method, be represented graphically and
calculated by the application of mathematics to biology: to-day,
indeed, _biometry_ and _biostatistics_ tend to assume so vast a
development as to give promise of forming independent sciences.
The _method_ in biology, considered as a whole, may be compared to the
microscope and telescope, which are instruments, and yet enable us to
rise above and beyond our own natural powers and come into contact with
the two extremes of infinity; the infinitely little and the infinitely
large.
_Objections and Defences._--One of the objections made to pedagogical
anthropology is that it has not yet a completely defined content, on
which to base an organic system of instruction and reliable general
rules.
It is the _method_ alone that enables us to be eloquent in defence of
pedagogic anthropology, against such an accusation. For the accusation
itself is the embodiment of a conception of a method differing widely
from our own: it is the accusation made by speculative science, which,
resting on the basis of a content, refuses to acknowledge a science
that is still lacking and incomplete in its content, because it is
unable to conceive that a science may be essentially summed up in its
method, which makes it a means of revelation.
How could we conceive of the _content_ of pedagogic anthropology
otherwise than as something to be derived by the experimental method
from the observation of _school-children_? And where could we conceive
of a possible laboratory for such a science, if not in the school
itself? The _content_ will be determined little by little, by the
application of the anthropological study to school-children in the
school, and never in any other manner.
Now, if it were necessary to await the completion of a content before
proceeding to any practical application, where could we hope to get
this content from--especially since we look for no help either from
speculative philosophy or divine revelation?
When a _method_ is applied to any positive science, it results in
giving that science a new _direction_, that is to say, a new avenue
of progress: And it is precisely in the course of advance along that
avenue that the content of the science is formed: but if we never
made the advance, the science would never take its start. Thus, for
example, when the microscope revealed to medicine the existence
of micro-organisms, and bacteriology arose as the positive study
of epidemiology, it altered the whole procedure in the cure and
prophylaxis of infective maladies. Prior to this epoch people believed
that an epidemic was a scourge sent by divine wrath upon sinners; or
else they imagined it was a miasma transported by the wind, which
groves and eucalyptus trees might check; or they pictured the ground
ejecting miasmatic poisons through its pores:--and humanity sought
in vain to protect itself with bare-foot processions and religious
ceremonies, attended by jostling throngs and cruel flagellation; or
else they betook themselves to the shade of eucalyptus trees, in the
midst of malarial lowlands. Entire cities were destroyed by pestilence,
and malarial districts remained uncultured deserts, because entire
populations, in the brave effort to perform their work, were destroyed
by successive impoverishment of the blood.
It is bacteriology that has put to flight this darkness of ignorance
that was the herald of death, and has created the modern conditions of
environment, which, by a multitude of means, defend the individual and
the nation from infective diseases; so that to-day civilised society
may be said to be advancing toward a triumph over death.
But the microbes have not all of them been discovered; bacteriology
and general pathology are still very far from having completed their
_content_. If we had been obliged to wait for such completion, we
should still be living quite literally in the midst of mediæval
epidemics; or, to state the case better, where in the world would the
science of medicine ever have attained its new content? For it has
been building it up, little by little, _by directing_ _medicine upon a
new path_. It was the introduction of this new method of investigating
the patient and his environment that experimentally reaped the
fruit of new etiological discoveries, and new means of defence: the
microscope became perfected because it came into universal use in
practice; bacterial cultures owe their perfectionment to the fact
that they became the common means of investigation for the purpose of
diagnosis; just as tests in clinical chemistry have become perfected
through practical use. Without which, who would ever have perfected
the microscope, or the science of bacteriology? In a word, whence are
we to get the content of any positive science, if not from practical
application?
A direction and an applied method represent a triumph of progress; and
in progress, a _content_ cannot have defined limits. We do not know its
goal; we know only that at the moment when it finds its goal, it will
cease to be _progress_.
It is many years since medicine abandoned the speculative course, and
we see it to-day hourly enriching itself with new truths; its triumphal
march is never checked, and it moves onward toward the invasion
of future centuries. In the wake of its progress, that frightful
phenomenon which we call _mortality_ tends to fall steadily to a lower
level; giving rise to the hope that through future progress it will
cease to be the mysterious, menacing fate, ever watchful and ready to
sever the invisible threads of human life. These threads are to-day
revealing themselves as the resistant fibres of a fabric; because,
humanity by engaging collectively in the audacious search after truth,
and by thus protecting the interests of each individual through the
common interests, has succeeded in offering a powerful resistance to
the mysterious sheers.
Accordingly, we may say that the substitution to-day of an
anthropological development of pedagogy, in the place of a purely
philosophical and speculative trend, does not offer it merely an
_additional content_, an auxiliary to all the other forms of teaching
on which it now comfortably reposes; but it opens up new avenues,
fruitful in truth and in life; and as it advances along these avenues,
regenerated from its very foundations upward, it may be that pedagogy
is destined to solve the great problem of human redemption.
THE METHOD TO BE FOLLOWED IN THESE LECTURES
Lastly, just one more word regarding the didactic method that I intend
to follow, in delivering this course of lectures. From the purpose
already stated, it follows that this Course in Anthropology must be
eminently practical. Of the three weekly lectures, only one will be
theoretical; that is to say, only one in which I shall expound the
_content_ of our science; a second lecture will treat of the _technique
of the method_; that is to say, I shall devote it to describing the
practical way of gathering anthropological data, and how we must study
them and re-group them in order to extract their laws; and finally, the
third lecture will be _practical_ _and clinical_; I shall devote it to
the collection of anthropological data from human subjects, and little
by little I shall try to work toward the individual study of pupils,
until we reach the compilation of biographic charts. At the lectures
of the third type, we shall have present subjects who will be, for the
most part, normal, but some of them will be abnormal, and all will be
drawn from the elementary schools of Rome.
Finally, in further illustration of our course, we shall make
excursions, visiting certain schools that offer some particular
interest from our scientific point of view; to the end that we may
supply what is lacking and what is needed to complete a University
Course in Scientific Pedagogy, namely a "Pedagogical Clinic," where
pupils of the widest variety of types might be educated, and where it
might be possible to lay practical foundations of a far-reaching reform
in our schools.
Accordingly, I shall repeat myself three times, in these lectures;
first, by setting forth the scientific content, secondly, by expounding
the methods of investigation, and thirdly, by applying in practice what
I have already taught in theory. The didactic method of repeating the
same instruction under different forms, is also a feature of scientific
pedagogy, because it represents the method by which positive science
must be taught and acquired; and furthermore, it is the method that
deserves to be applied wherever instruction of any sort is to be given.
Hitherto, we have not learned how to study; we know only, or at least
the majority of us do, how to absorb the contents of books. The only
true student is the scientist, who knows how to _advance slowly_; we
educators on the contrary plunge in a dizzy, headlong rush, through all
acquirable knowledge. To study is to look steadily, to stand still,
to assimilate and to wait. We should study for the sake of creating,
since the whole object of taking is to be able to give again; but
in this giving and taking we ought not to be mere instruments, like
high-pressure suction pumps; in work of this sort we ought to be
_creators_, and when we give back, to add that part which has been
_born and developed_ within us from what we acquired. It is wise to
give our acquired knowledge time not only to be assimilated but also
to develop freely in that fertile psychic ground that constitutes our
innermost personality. In other words: assimilate by every possible
means, and then wait.
In order to start from a point of established knowledge, let us
consider what is meant by _meditation_: to meditate means to isolate
one's thoughts within the limits of some definite subject, and wait to
see what that subject of its own accord may reveal to us, in the course
of assimilation. The Jesuits succeeded in winning souls merely by
encouraging the people to meditate; meditation opened up an unsuspected
inner world, which fascinated the type of person accustomed to flit
lightly in thought across a multitude of diverse matters; and under the
spell of such fascination, their consciences could attribute to nothing
less than some occult power, what was really the application of a great
pedagogic principle.
There is a great difference between reading and meditating: we may read
a voluminous novel in a single night; we may meditate upon a verse of
Scripture for an entire hour. Anyone who reads a novel in a night
undoubtedly squanders his physical powers, like a wind that passes over
arid ground; but one who meditates assimilates in a special manner that
surprises the meditator himself, because he feels something unforeseen
coming to life within him, just as though a seed had been planted in
fertile soil and, while remaining motionless, had begun to germinate.
Accordingly, the act of holding acquired knowledge within ourselves for
a period of time results in self-development; superficial learning,
on the contrary, means the exhaustion of our personal resources. We
become steadily more exhausted and more inefficient, through too much
study; and instead, we ought to become all the time more flourishing
and more robust, if we studied in the proper way: and this is because
we squander our psychic powers, instead of acquiring new energy. The
consequence of this mistaken method is that we rapidly forget all
that we have learned. Everything is acquired at the cost of effort;
what we need is to labor patiently, in order to acquire in the real
sense. To-day it is the fashion to study in order to enter upon that
particular business or profession that is destined to be our life's
work; what we ought to do instead, is to devote our energies to the
conquest of thought and the elevation of the spirit.
The didactic method that I am trying to illustrate is not a new
one; it dates back to the first precursors of scientific pedagogy.
Half a century ago, a marvellous work on pedagogy, based on similar
principles, was issued from the press; it was the method elaborated by
Séguin, based on thirty years of practical experience in the education
of idiotic children. Such a system cannot be foreign to the interests
of schools intended for average, normal children, because it is not a
specialised method, like that for deaf-mutes or for the blind. Being
designed for the mentally deficient, this method applies to any class
of undeveloped beings who are striving to grow bigger; we may even
apply it to ourselves, and thereby increase our own mental stature. In
short, pedagogically considered, it is a rational method.
Perhaps it is already familiar to a good many of you; but an example
or two will serve to illustrate it. Let us suppose that we have to
impart a lesson in history to a deficient pupil: first of all, a
picture is shown him, representing an historic fact; then the same fact
will be shown him in as many different ways as possible--through the
cinematograph, for example. Finally it will be acted on the stage; and
in this case, it is the children themselves who prepare the setting and
endeavor, to the best of their ability, to impersonate the historic
figures. Now, it is precisely at the moment when they are reproducing
the scene that these children _feel it_, and it is only then that they
_learn_. But this is not peculiar to deficient children: the same path
is the common path for all; it is necessary for all of us to assimilate
mentally and to feel, before we can say: I have learned. If there
is a latent tendency in the mind of a normal child to love historic
happenings, then he will love them, and thus reveal to his teacher one
of his intimate and secret tendencies; in other words, we shall have
developed a taste, of which the hidden germs already existed. Perhaps
it was in some such way that Sabatier succeeded in realising the
environment and the life of St. Francis of Assisi.
Let us suppose, again, that we have to teach a child what is meant, in
geography, by a mountain, a lake, or an island. According to Séguin's
method, we should take the child out into the garden, and make him
construct a miniature mountain with earth, a lake with water, etc.,
than make him trace their geographical outline with chalk, then make
him paint them in oils or water-colours, so that in the end he will
have, as the result of his handiwork, a little monument, so to speak,
of the acquired lesson. It is only after a child has worked that he
begins to learn and to be interested. Does not everyone know that, as
between the one who receives, and the one who confers a favor, it is
the latter who cares the more, because he has done something? The next
step is to take the pupil to the top of some hill, so that he may see
with his own eyes the things that we have taught him in the garden and
through the medium of work; and in the silent contemplation of nature,
it may happen that a normal child will hear the call of her mysterious
voice, and reveal a dormant tendency to become some day, perhaps, a
geographer, or an explorer, like the Duke of the Abruzzi; or perhaps he
will feel that lure of nature which, some day or other, when he reaches
maturity, will lead him to investigate the secrets of the earth and of
meteorological phenomena, even to the point of such heroic sacrifice as
was exemplified by Professor Matteucci, during the eruption of Vesuvius.
Repeating the same things over and over, keeping the mind fixed upon
the selfsame lesson, teaching how to reproduce objects by the work of
the hands, bringing the pupil into direct contact with the object
that he is desired to study, such is the true way to enable him to
learn. The man who has been educated according to this method has not
fruitlessly expended his energy in fatiguing study; he has preserved
his forces unimpaired; indeed, if anything, they are all the sounder
and more flourishing. By such a system of education, we launch upon
the world a sturdy generation, imbued with that living energy, that
constitutes the one and only mainspring that really makes the world
move.
Accordingly this is the method that we shall follow: studying,
repeating, working experimentally: the subject of our study is
humanity; our purpose is to become teachers. Now, what really makes a
teacher is love for the human child; for it is love that transforms
the social duty of the educator into the higher consciousness of a
_mission_.
THE LIMITS OF PEDAGOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
In concluding this preamble, it may be well to define the form of study
and the purposes of pedagogical anthropology; in order to distinguish
it clearly from general anthropology and from the allied branches of
applied anthropology (criminal and medical anthropology).
Pedagogical anthropology, like all the other branches of anthropology,
studies man from the naturalistic point of view; but, unlike general
anthropology, it does not concern itself with the philosophic problems
related to it, such, for instance, as the origin of man, the theories
of monism or polygenism, of emigration, and classification according
to race; problems which, as everyone knows, are difficult of solution,
and which constitute the pivot on which biological anthropology
revolves. Thus, for example, bacteriology has its origin in biology,
in so far as it has certain orders of living organisms for the subject
of its research; but it well nigh ignores the problems of biological
philosophy associated with them, such as the origin of living matter
and of the primitive cell; the fixity or variability of monocellular
species; the possibility of life in the isolated nucleus (the microbe),
or in the isolated protoplasm (the monera), but it devotes itself to
the direct study of microscopic organisms, both in themselves alone and
in their influence upon their environment; in short, bacteriology has
for its purpose the acquirement of that practical knowledge necessary
for a successful campaign against the causes of infective maladies,
and for rendering infected districts sanitary. In much the same way,
pedagogical anthropology, considered as a form of study, departs from
general anthropology. It studies man from two different points of view:
his _development_ (ontogenesis), and his _variations_.
Since many causes concur in producing variations in the individual
during his development (social causes, pathological causes, etc.),
we have to take into consideration, and frequently invoke the aid of
subsidiary sciences (sociology, pathology, hygiene). _Variations_
constitute the most important subject of inquiry in pedagogic
anthropology, just as _fixed characteristics_ constitute the essential
matter of research in general anthropology: because the latter
endeavours, by the help of fixed characteristics, to trace back to the
origin of species, while the former tries, through the help of variable
characteristics, to discover a way for the future perfectionment of
the human species and the individual: indeed, this is precisely what
constitutes the practical purpose of its application to pedagogy.
In comparison with criminal and medical anthropology, pedagogic
anthropology differs substantially in its declared intentions. These
other two kindred branches endeavour to _diagnose_ the personality
of the individual; we must admit that both psychiatry and general
medical practice profit by the application of anthropology to the
extent of securing greater accuracy in diagnosis and prognosis; but
whenever the study of a patient's _personality_ sheds light upon
decisions of this sort, it generally follows that the personality
is fixed and unalterable. For instance, when, in medical practice
an individual _constitution_ is shown to be fatally predisposed to
certain definite diseases, that is precisely one of the cases where
medical _treatment_ is most impotent; and the same may be said when,
in the practice of criminal law we find a defendant whose personality
is profoundly degenerate. It follows that the application of these
new anthropological methods is substantially diagnostic; furthermore,
they are limited to special classes of human beings, to those who
are physiologically the most impoverished, such as criminals and the
diseased. Pedagogic anthropology, on the contrary, embraces _all
humanity_; but it pays special attention to that part of it which
is psychologically superior: the normal human being. Its purpose is
none the less diagnostic; but it regards diagnosis as constituting a
_means_, and not merely indicating an end; because the end projected
by pedagogic anthropology is a far-reaching and rational system of
_hygiene_.
More than that, the proposed system is the one true one, a hygiene
that pays more attention to the man himself than to his environment;
striving to perfect him in his physiological functions, or to correct
any tendency to abnormal and pathological deviations.
It follows that, in pedagogic anthropology, the direction taken by the
naturalistic study of man is predominantly _physiological_.
In the same manner as the other two kindred branches of anthropology,
this branch which has joined forces with pedagogy has severed
connection with the original parent stock of general anthropology, and
abandoned its dogmatisms and to a large extent its phraseology.
Criminal anthropology, for example, shows great daring and scant
accuracy in its affirmations and its researches; and to a large extent
it has acquired a nomenclature of its own; and medical anthropology
lays down laws that general anthropology never took into consideration,
and neglects to bestow particular attention upon the _head_, which
formed the object of fundamental research in general anthropology.
In the same way, pedagogic anthropology has had to emancipate itself
from the general science from which it has sprung, in order to proceed
unhampered along the practical line of research, which consists
essentially in a study of the pupil and the compilation of biographic
charts, from which a fund of material will result, destined to enrich
the scientific content of this branch of learning.
But since the study of the pupil must not be morphological alone, but
psychological as well, it is necessary for anthropology to invoke the
aid of experimental psychology, in order to achieve its purpose. Now
it is essential to psychology, no less than to pedagogic anthropology,
to study the reactions of the physiological and psychical personality
of the child in the environment which we call _school_. Consequently
it is reserved for the teacher to make a large contribution to these
two parallel sciences, which are coming to assume the highest social
importance.
It follows further that pedagogic anthropology differs from the other
two allied branches in its practical applications; the progress of
criminal and medical anthropology requires, as a matter of fact,
only the labors of _medical specialists_; in the case of pedagogic
anthropology there is equally a need of _medical specialists_, to
whom the _diagnosis_ and the _treatment_ of abnormal pupils must be
entrusted, as well as the _hygiene_ of their development; but in
addition to these, the teachers also are summoned to a vast task of
observation, which, by its continuity, will supplement and complete the
periodic observations of the physician.
Furthermore, the _teacher_ will acquire under the guidance of
anthropology certain practical rules in the art of educating the
child; and it is this especially that makes the anthropological and
psychological training of the modern teacher so necessary.
The school constitutes an immense field for research; it is a
"pedagogical clinic," which, in view of its importance, can be compared
to no other gathering of _subjects_ for study. Thanks to the system of
compulsory education, it gathers to itself every living human being
of both sexes and of every social caste, normal and abnormal; and it
retains them there, throughout a most important period of their growth.
This is the field, therefore, in which the _culture of the human race_
can really and practically be undertaken; and the joint labour of
physician and teacher will sow the seed of a future _human hygiene_,
adapted to achieve perfection in man, both as a _species_ and as a
_social unit_.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] From a work by E. MORSELLI: _Cesare Lombroso and Scientific
Philosophy_.
[2] MUSOLINO was a brigand, and LUCCHENI an anarchist and regicide.
[3] From a study by Prof. E. Troilo, _Enrico Morselli as a
Philosopher_. In the volume by MORSELLI, MILAN: VALLARDI, 1906.
CHAPTER I
CERTAIN PRINCIPLES OF GENERAL BIOLOGY
In order to _understand_ the practical researches that must be
conducted for anthropological purposes, it is necessary to have an
adequate preparation in the science of biology. The _interpretation_
of the data that have to be gathered according to technical procedure,
demands a _training_; and this training will form our subject in
the theoretic part of the present volume. The limits, however, not
only of the book itself, but of pedagogic anthropology as well,
preclude anything more than a simple general outline; but this can
be supplemented by those other branches of study which are either
collateral to it or constitute its necessary basis (_i.e._, general
biology, human anatomy and physiology, hygiene of environment, general
anthropology, etc.).
THE MATERIAL SUBSTRATUM OF LIFE
THE SYNTHETIC CONCEPT OF THE INDIVIDUAL IN BIOLOGY
According to the materialistic theories of life, of which Haeckel is
the most noted supporter, _life_ was derived from a form of matter,
protoplasm, which not only has a special chemical composition, but
possesses further the property of a constant molecular movement of
scission and redintegration; vital metabolism or interchange of matter,
by which the molecules are constantly renewed at the expense of the
environment.
It was Huxley who defined protoplasm as the _physical basis_ of life;
and, as a matter of fact, life does not exist without protoplasm.
But Schultze and Haeckel carried this doctrine further, to the point
of maintaining that a minute particle of protoplasm was all that was
needed to constitute life; and that such a particle could be formed
naturally, whenever the surrounding conditions were favorable, like any
other inorganic chemical substance; and in this way the materialists
endeavoured, with great ingenuousness, to maintain the _spontaneous
origin_ of life. And when Haeckel thought that he had discovered the
_moneræ_ or living cells composed of a single particle of protoplasm,
he held that these were the first species to have appeared on earth.
But the further researches of physiologists and the improvements in
the technique of the microscope proved that protoplasm does not exist
independently in nature; because living cells are always a combination
of protoplasm and a nucleus. If the nucleus is extracted from a
radiolarium, the latter mortifies, and the protoplasm also dies; if an
_amoeba_ is severed in such a manner that one part contains nucleus and
protoplasm and the other protoplasm alone, it will be found that the
latter part mortifies and dies, while the first part continues to live.
If an infusorium is divided in such a way that each of the separate
sections contains a part of the nucleus and a part of the protoplasm,
two living infusoria are developed similar to the original one.
Experiments of this kind, to which Verworn has given high authority,
serve to prove that life does not exist except in cells divisible
into protoplasm and nucleus. Further discoveries confirm this theory,
as for instance the presence of a nucleus in hemocytes or red blood
corpuscles, which were formerly believed to be instances of anuclear
cells; and the discovery of protoplasm in microbes, which had formerly
been considered free nuclei.
Now, when we have an independent living cell, it represents an
_individual_, which not only has, as a general feature, this primitive
complexity of parts, but also certain special characteristics of
_form_, of reaction to environment, etc., that mark the _species_ to
which this particular living creature belongs.
Accordingly, we cannot assert, without committing the error of
confining ourselves to a generic detail, that life originates in
protoplasm or in a combination divisible into protoplasm and nucleus;
we should say that _life_ originates in living _individuals_; since,
aside from abstract speculation, there can be no other material
substratum of life.
Such a doctrine is eminently _synthetic_, and opens the mind to new
conceptions regarding the _properties_ that _characterise_ life.
Formerly when life was defined as a form of matter (protoplasm) subject
to constant movement (metabolism), only a single general property had
been stated; for that matter, even the stars consist of matter and
movement; and, according to the modern theory of electrons, atoms
are composed of little particles strongly charged with electricity
and endowed with perennial motion. Accordingly, these are universal
characteristics, and not _peculiar_ to life; and _metabolism_ may be
regarded as a _variation_ of such a property, which is provoked by, or
at least associated with the phenomenon of life.
The properties which are really characteristic of life have been summed
up by Laloy in two essential groups; _final causes_ and _limitations
of mass_, or, to use a term more appropriate to living organisms,
_limitations of form and size_.
The term _final causes_ refers to a series of phenomena that are met
with only where there is life, and that tend toward a definite purpose
or _end_. Living organisms take nutriment from their environment,
to the _end_ of assimilating it, that is, transforming it from an
inert, indifferent substance into a substance that is a living part of
themselves.
This phenomenon is undoubtedly one of the most characteristic. But
there are still other forms of _final cause_, such for example as
the transformation of the fertilised ovum into the fully developed
individual, predetermined in its essential characteristics, such as
form, dimensions, colour, activities, etc. There are ova that to all
appearances are exactly alike; the human ovum itself is nothing more
than a simple cell composed of protoplasm and nucleus, measuring only
a tenth of a millimeter (= 1/250 inch); yet all these ovum cells
produce living organisms of the utmost diversity; yet so definitely
predetermined that, if we know to what species the ovum belongs, we
are able to predict how many bones will compose the skeleton of the
animal destined to develop from it, and whether this animal will fly
or creep upon the ground, or rise to take a place among those who have
made themselves the lords of the earth. Furthermore, knowing the phases
of development, we may predetermine at what _periods_ the successive
transformations that lead step by step to the complete development of
the individual will take place.
Another form of _final cause_ is seen in the _actions_ of living
creatures, which reveal a _self-consciousness_; a consciousness that
even in its most obscure forms guides them toward a destined end.
Thus, for example, even the infusoria that may be seen through a
microscope in a drop of water, chasing hither and thither in great
numbers, avoiding collision with one another, or contending over some
particle of food, or rushing in a mass toward an unexpected ray of
light, give us a keen impression of their possession of consciousness,
a dim glimmering of self-will, which is the most elementary form of
that phenomenon that manifests itself more and more clearly, from the
metazoa upward, through the whole zoologic scale: the _final cause_ of
psychic action.
Again, in multicellular organisms there are certain continuous and
so-called _vital_ phenomena, which some physiologists attribute to
cellular consciousness: for example, the leucocytes in the blood seem
to obey a sort of glimmering consciousness when they rush to the
encounter of any danger threatening the organism, and ingest microbes
or other substances foreign to the blood; and it is also due to a
phenomenon that cannot be explained by the physical laws of osmosis,
that the erythrocytes or red blood corpuscles and the plasma in the
blood never interchange sodium salts for those of potassium; and lastly
the cells of each separate gland seem to _select_ from the blood the
special substances that are needed for the formation of their specific
products: saliva, milk, the pancreatic juice, etc.
Still another manifestation of _final cause_ is the tendency exhibited
by each living individual to make a constant struggle for life, a
struggle that depends upon a minimum expenditure of force for a maximum
realisation of life, thanks to which life multiplies, invades its
environment, adapts itself to it, and is transformed.
Another fundamental synthetic characteristic of life is the limitation
of _form and size_ that is a fixed and constant factor in the
characteristics of each species; the body of the living individual
cannot grow indefinitely.
Living creatures do not increase in quantity by the successive
_accumulation_ of matter, as is the case with inorganic bodies, but by
_reproduction_, that is, the multiplication of individuals.
Through the phenomenon of reproduction, life has a share in the
eternity of matter and of force, that is, in a universal phenomenon.
But what distinguishes it is that the individual creatures produced
by other living individuals form, each one of them, an _indivisible
element_ in which life manifests itself; and this element is
_morphologically fixed_ in the limits of its form and size.
The peculiarities which are attributed to the chemical action of
protoplasm are of an analytic character, so far as they concern the
fundamental characteristics of life. The constant interchange of
matter, namely, _metabolism_, constitutes undoubtedly a phenomenon
peculiar to living matter, protoplasm; but protoplasm _does not
exist_ apart from living organisms. And what constitutes its chief
characteristic is that, when brought into contact with it, inert
substances are assimilated, _i.e._, they become like it, or rather, are
transformed into _protoplasm_; mineral salts such as the nitrates or
nitrites of sodium and potassium are transformed in the case of plants
into living plasma capable of germinating either into a rose bush or
a plane tree or a palm, and inert organic substances such as bread or
wine are transformed into human flesh and blood. So that the phenomenon
of _assimilation_ outweighs, as a characteristic of life, the molecular
chemical action through which it is accomplished. Since _metabolism_
does not occur in nature as a chemical phenomenon, and cannot be
produced artificially, but is found only in the matter composing living
organisms, it follows that life is the cause of this form of dynamic
action, and not that this dynamic action is the cause of life.[4]
Even the latest theory, developed especially by Ludwig in Germany--that
protoplasm contains a separate _enzyme_ for each separate function
appointed to a particular task--amounts to nothing more than an
analysis of the living organism.
THE FORMATION OF MULTICELLULAR ORGANISMS
We cannot say that the _cell_ is the element of life, because, in an
absolute sense, it is not alive; it lives only when it _constitutes_
_an individual_. Even the brain cells, the muscular fibres, the
leucocytes, etc., are cells; but they _do not live independently_;
their life depends upon the living individual that contains them. We
may, however, define the cell as the means, the morphological material,
out of which all living organisms are formed: because, from the algæ to
the orchids, from the coelenterata up to man, all complex organisms are
composed of an accumulation of those microscopic little bodies that we
call cells.
The manner of union between the cells in the most primitive _living
colonies_, whether vegetable or animal, is analogous to that followed
in the segmentation of the ovum in its ontogenetic (_i.e._, individual)
development.
But the _manner of construction_ differs notably, as between _animal_
and _vegetable_ cells.
Vegetable cells, on the one hand, have a resistant and strongly
protective membrane; animal cells, on the contrary, have either a
very thin membrane or none at all. Vegetable cells, as though made
_venturesome_ by their natural protection, proceed to invade their
environment in colonies--in other words, the cells dispose themselves
in series of linear ramifications--witness the formation of primitive
algæ; and analogously the expansion of the higher types of vegetation
into their environment, with branches, leaves, etc. And just as though
the vegetable cell acquired self-confidence because it is so well
protected, it becomes stationary and strikes its roots into the soil.
To this same fact of cellular protection must be attributed the
inferior sensibility and hence the permanent state of obscured
consciousness in vegetable life.
This protection against the assaults of environment, and the consequent
lack of sensibility, constitute from the outset an inferior stage of
evolution.
Animal cells have an entirely different manner of forming themselves
into colonies; acting as though they were _afraid_, they group
themselves in the form of a little sphere, enclosing their environment
within themselves, instead of reaching out to invade it; and subsequent
developments of the animal cell consist in successive and complex
_invaginations_, or formations of layers, one within another--instead
of ramifications, after the manner of vegetable cells.
Accordingly, if we advance from that primitive animal type, the volvox,
consisting of a simple group of cells arranged spherically, like an
elastic rubber ball, to the coelenterata, we meet with the phenomenon
of the first invagination, producing an animal body consisting of _two
layers_ of cells and an internal _cavity_, communicating with the
exterior by means of a pore or mouth. The two layers of cells promptly
divide their task, the outer layer becoming _protective_ and the
inner _nutritive_; and in consequence of their different _functions_,
the cells themselves _alter_, the outer layer acquiring a tougher
consistency, while the inner remains soft in order to absorb whatever
nutriment is brought by the water as it passes through the mouth. In
this way, there is a division of labor, such that all the external
cells protect not only themselves, but the whole organism; while the
internal cells absorb nutriment not only for themselves but for the
others. This is the simplest example of a process that becomes more
and more complex in the formation of higher organisms; in adapting
themselves to their work, the cells become greatly modified (formation
of tissues) and perform services that are useful to the entire
organism. And at the same time, because of the very fact that they have
been differentiated, they become dependent upon the labors of others,
for obtaining the means of subsistence. Similar laws seem to persist
even at the present day in the formation of _social organisms_, in
human society.
During the development of the embryo, all animals pass through similar
phases; and to this man is no exception.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Human Ovum, Magnified. _a._ Vitelline membrane;
_b._ Vitellus; _c._ Germinal Vesicle.]
He traces his origin to an ovum-cell formed of protoplasm, nucleus and
membrane, measuring only a tenth of a millimetre, yet vastly large in
comparison with the spermatic cell destined to fertilise it by passing
through one of the innumerable pores that render the dense membrane
penetrable.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--First Segmentation of a Fertilised Ovum.]
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--A Morula as seen from the Outside.]
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--An Egg and Spermatozoon of the same Species,
about to Fertilise It. Note the difference in the proportional size of
the two cells.]
After the ovum-cell is fertilised, it constitutes the _first cell_
of the new being; that is, it contains _potentially a man_. But as
seen through the microscope, it is really not materially anything
more than a microscopic cell, undifferentiated, and in all things
similar to other independent cells or to fertilised ovarian cells
belonging to other animals. That which it contains, namely, _man_,
often already predetermined not only in _species_, but in individual
characteristics--as, for instance, in degenerative inferiority--is
certainly not there in _material_ form.
At an early stage of the embryo's development, it exhibits a form
analogous to that of the volvox; namely, a hollow sphere, called the
_morula_; and subsequently, by the process of invagination, two layers
of cells, an inner and an outer, are formed, together with the first
body cavity, destined to become the digestive cavity, and also a pore
corresponding to the mouth.
This formation has received the name of _gastrula_ (Fig. 10, facing
page 72), and the two layers of cells are known as the _primary_
_layers_, otherwise called the _ectoderm_ and the _entoderm_. To these
a third intermediate layer is soon added, the _mesoderm_. These three
layers consist of cells that are not perceptibly differentiated from
one another; but _potentially_ each and every one contains its own
special _final cause_. In each of the three layers, invaginations
take place, furrows destined to develop into the nervous system, the
lungs, the liver, the various different glands, the generative organs;
and during the progress of such modifications, corresponding changes
take place in the elementary cells, which become differentiated into
_tissues_. From the ectoderm are developed the nervous system and
the skin tissues; from the entoderm, the digestive system with its
associate glands (the liver, pancreas, etc.); from the mesoderm, the
supporting tissues (bones and cartilage) and the muscles. But all these
cells, even the most complex and specialised, as for example those of
the cerebral cortex, the fibres of the striped muscles, the hepatic
cells, etc., were originally _embryonic_ cells--in other words, simple,
undifferentiated, all starting on an equal footing. Yet every one of
them had within it a predestined end that led it to occupy, as it
multiplied in number, a certain appointed portion of the body, in order
to perform the work, to which the profound alterations in its cellular
tissues should ultimately adapt it.
Like children in the same school, these embryonic cells, all apparently
just alike, contain certain dormant activities and destinies that
are profoundly different. This unquestionably constitutes one of
the properties of life, namely, the _final cause_; it is certainly
associated intimately with _metabolism_ and _nutrition_, considered
as a means of _development_ and not as a cause. Upon _metabolism_,
however, depends the more or less complete attainment of the _final
cause_ of life. In man, for example, strength, health, beauty, on the
one hand, degeneration on the other, stand in intimate relations with
the _nutrition_ of the embryo.[5]
=The Theories of Evolution.=--At the present day, there is a general
popular understanding of the fundamental principles involved in the
mechanical or materialistic theories of evolution which bear the names
of Lamarck, Geffroy-Saint-Hilaire, and more especially the glorious
name of Charles Darwin.
According to these theories, the environment is regarded as the chief
cause of the evolution of organic forms. Charles Darwin, who formulated
the best and most detailed theory of evolution, based it on the two
principles of the _variability_ of living organisms, and _heredity_,
which transmits their characteristics from generation to generation.
And in explanation of the underlying cause of evolution, he expounded
the doctrines of the _struggle for existence_ and the _natural
selection_ of such organic forms as succeeded to a sufficient degree in
adapting themselves to their environment.
Whatever the explanation may be, the substantial fact remains of the
_variability of species_ and the successive and gradual transition
from lower to higher forms. In this way, the higher animals and plants
must have had as antecedents other forms of _inferior species_, of
which they still bear more or less evident traces; and in applying
these theories to the interpretation of the personalities of human
degenerates, he frequently invoked the so-called principle of
_atavism_, in order to explain the reappearance of atavistic traits
that have been outgrown in the normal human being, certain anomalies
of form more or less analogous to parallel forms in lower species of
animals.
There are other theories of evolution less familiar than that of
Darwin. Naegeli, for instance, attributes the variability of species
to _internal_, rather than external causes--namely, to a spontaneous
activity, implanted in life itself, and analogous to that which is
witnessed in the development of an individual organism, from the
primitive cell up to the final complete development; without, however,
attributing to the progressive alterations in species that predestined
final goal which heredity determines in the development of individual
organisms.
The internal factor, namely life, is the primary cause of _progress_
and the _perfectionment_ of living creatures--while environment
assumes a secondary importance, such as that of _directing_ evolution,
acting at one time as a stimulus toward certain determined directions
of development; at another, permanently establishing certain useful
characteristics; and still again, effacing such forms as are unfit.
In this way the external causes are associated with evolution, but
with very different effects from those attributed to them by Darwin,
who endowed them with the creative power to produce new organs and new
forms of life.
Naegeli compared the internal forces to invested capital; it will draw
a higher or lower rate of interest, according as its environment proves
to be more or less favourable to earning a profit.
The most modern theory of evolution is that of De Vries, who, after
having witnessed the spontaneous and unforeseen transformations of a
certain plant, the OEnohtera Lamarckiana, without the intervention of
any external phenomenon, admitted the possibility of the unexpected
occurrence of other new forms, from a preexistent parent form--and to
such phenomena he gave the name of _mutations_.
It is these _mutations_ that create new species; the latter, although
apparently unheralded, were already _latent_ in the germ before they
definitely burst into life. Consequently, new species are formed
potentially in the germinating cells, through spontaneous activity.
The characteristics established by _mutations_ are hereditary, and the
species which result from them persist, provided their environment
affords favourable conditions, better suited to them than to the
preexisting parent form.
Accordingly new species are _created_ unexpectedly. De Vries draws a
distinction between mutations and variations, holding that the latter
are dependent upon environment, and that in any case they constitute
simple _oscillations of form_ around the normal type determined in each
species by mutation.
Species, therefore, cannot be transformed by external causes or
environments, and the mechanism of transformation is not that of a
succession of very gradual variations, which have given rise to the
familiar saying: _natura non facit saltus_. On the contrary, what
produces stable characteristics is a _revolution_ prepared in a latent
state, but unannounced in its final disclosure. A parallel to this is
to be found, for example, in the phenomena of _puberty_ in its relation
to the evolution of the individual.
Now, when a species has once reached a fixed stability as regards its
characteristics, it is _immutable_, after the analogy of an individual
organism that has completed its development; henceforth its further
evolution is ended. In such a case, the oscillations of variability are
exceedingly limited, and adaptation to new environments is difficult;
and while a species may offer the appearance of great strength (_e.g._,
certain species of gigantic extinct animals), it runs the risk of dying
out, because of a lower potentiality of adaptability; or, according to
the theory of Rosa, it may even become extinct spontaneously.
Accordingly it is not the fixed species that continue the process
of _evolution_. If we compare the tree of life to a plant, we may
imagine evolution as soaring upward, sustained by roots far below; the
new branches are not put forth by the old branches, but draw their
sustenance from the original sources, from which the whole tree draws
its life. When a branch matures and flowers, it may survive or it may
wither but it cannot extend the growth of the tree.
Furthermore, the new branches are always higher up than the old ones;
that which comes last is the highest of all.
Thus, the species which are the _latest_ in acquiring a stable form
are the highest up in the biological scale, because the privilege of
carrying forward the process of evolution belongs to those species
which have not yet become fixed. An apparent weakness, instability,
an active capacity for adaptation, are consequently so many signs of
_superiority_, as regards a potential power of evolution--just as the
nudity and sensibility of animal cells, for example, are signs of
superiority, as compared with vegetable cells--and of man, as compared
with the lower animals.
In order to show that the inferiority of a species is in proportion to
its precocity in attaining fixed characteristics, Rosa conceived the
following striking comparison. Two animals are fleeing, along the same
road, before an advancing flood. One of the two climbs to the top of a
neighboring tree, the other continues in its flight toward a mountain.
As the level of the water rises, it threatens to isolate and engulf
the animal now stalled upon the tree; the other animal, still fleeing
toward the heights, reaches, on the contrary, a higher and more secure
position.
The animal on the tree stands for an inferior species that has earlier
attained a fixed form; the other represents a higher species that
has continued to evolve; but the animal upon the mountain never was
on the tree at all, because, if he had mounted it and become caught
there, he would have lost his chance of continuing on his way. In other
words, the _higher_ species never was the _lower_ species, since the
characteristics of the latter are already fixed.
Some eloquent comparisons might be drawn from the social life of
to-day. We are all of us spurred on to choose as early as possible some
form of employment that will place us in a secure and definite place
at the great banquet of existence. The idea of continuing to follow an
indefinite and uncertain path, leading upward toward the heights is far
less attractive than the safe and comfortable shelter of the shady tree
that rises by the wayside. The same law of inertia applies to every
form of life. Biological evolution bears witness to it, in the _forms_
of the different species; social evolution, in the _forms_ of the
professions and trades; the evolution of thought, in the _forms_ of the
different faiths. And whoever first halts in any path of life, the path
of study, for instance, occupies a lower place than he who continues on
his road.
The salaried clerk, armed only with his high-school certificate, has
an assured income and the pleasures of family life, at a time when
the physician, with an independent profession, is still struggling to
establish a practice. But the obscure clerk will eventually hold a
social position below that of the physician; his income will always be
limited, while the physician may acquire a fortune. Now, the clerk,
by _adapting_ himself to his bureaucratic environment, has acquired
certain well-defined characteristics; we might even say that he has
become a representative type of the _species_, clerk. And the same
will be true of the physician in his independent and brilliant life as
high priest of humanity, scientist and man of wealth. Both men were
high-school students, and now they are two widely different social
types; but the physician never represented the type of clerk; or,
in other words, he did not have to be a clerk before he could be a
physician; on the contrary, if he had been a clerk, he never could have
become a physician. It is somewhat after this fashion that we must
conceive of the sequence of species in evolution. It follows that man
never was an anthropoid ape, nor any other animal now living around
us. Nor was the man of the white race ever at any time a negroid or
a mongolian. Consequently, the theory is untenable which tries to
explain certain morphological or psychic malformations of man, on
the principle of atavism--because no one can inherit if he is not a
descendant.
So, for example, reverting to our previous comparisons, if the animal
on the mountain should climb a tree, or if the physician should become
pedantic, this would not prove that the animal from the mountain
was once upon a time the animal in the tree, nor that the physician
recalled, by his eventual pedantry, certain bygone days when he was a
clerk.
The theories of evolution seemed for a time to illumine and definitely
indicate the origin of man. But this illusion has so far resulted only
in relegating to still deeper darkness the truth that the biologists
are seeking. We do not know of whom man is the son.
Even the earlier conceptions regarding the mechanics of evolution are
essentially altered. The mystery of the origin of species, like that of
the mutability of forms, has withdrawn from the forms that are already
developed, and taken refuge in the _germinal cells_; these cells in
which no differentiation is revealed, yet in which the future organism,
in all its details, exists in a potential state; in which, we may even
say, _life exists independent of matter_, are the real _laboratorium
vitæ_. The individual, in developing, does nothing more than _obey_, by
fulfilling the potentiality of the germs.
The direction of research has shifted from the individual to its germs.
And just as the early Darwinian theories evolved a _social ethics_,
seemingly based upon the facts of life, to serve as a guide in the
_struggle for existence_, so in the same way, to-day, there has arisen
from the modern theories a new _sexual ethics_, founded upon a biologic
basis.
=The Phenomena of Heredity.=--The most interesting biological
researches of to-day are in regard to the hereditary transmission of
characteristics.
To-day the phenomena of heredity are no longer absolutely obscure,
thanks to the studies of Mendel, who discovered some of its laws,
which seemed to open up new lines of research prolific in results.
Yet even now, although this field has been invaded by the most
illustrious biologists of our time, among others, De Vries, Correns,
Tschermack, Hurst, Russell, it is still in the state of investigation.
Nevertheless, the _general trend_ of researches relative to Mendel's
laws is too important to permit of their enlightening first steps being
neglected by Anthropology.
The first phenomena observed by Mendel, and the ones which led him
to the discovery of the laws of heredity which bear his name, were
revealed by a series of experiments conducted with peas.
_Exposition of the Phenomena of Hybridism._--If two strains of peas are
crossed, one of them having red flowers and the other white flowers,
the result in the first generation is, that all the plants will have
red flowers, precisely similar to those of one of the parent plants.
Accordingly, in hybridism, the characteristic of one of the parents
completely hides that which is antagonistic to it in the other parent.
We call this characteristic (in the case cited, the red flowers),
_dominant_; in distinction to the other characteristic which is
antagonistic to the first and overcome by it; namely, the recessive
characteristic (in the present case, the white flowers). This is the
law of prevalence, and constitutes Mendel's first law, which is stated
as follows:
_Mendel's First Law_: "When antagonistic varieties or characteristics
are crossed with each other, the products of the first generation are
all uniform and equal to one of the two parents."
This result has been repeatedly reached in a host of researches, which
have experimentally established this phenomenon _as a law_.
Thus, for example, if we cross a nettle having leaves with an indented
margin, with a nettle having leaves with a smooth margin, the product
of the first generation will all have leaves with indented margins, and
apparently identical with the parent plant having indented margins,
in other words, having the characteristic that has proved itself the
dominant one (Russell).
These phenomena discovered by Mendel have been observed in many
different species of plants, such as wheat, Indian corn, barley and
beans.
They have also been verified in certain animals, such as mice, rats,
rabbits, caveys, poultry, snails, silk-worms, etc. One of the most
typical experiments was that of Cuénot, who, by crossing ordinary mice
with jumping mice, obtained as a result a first generation composed
wholly of normal mice; the characteristic of jumping was thus shown to
be recessive.
Notwithstanding that the first generation is apparently in every way
similar to the parent with the dominant character, there is in reality
a difference.
Because, if we cross these hybrids _together_, we meet, in the second
generation, with the following phenomenon: to every three individuals
possessing the dominant character, one is born having the recessive
character. To go back to Mendel's first example, that of the peas with
red flowers (dominant) and with white flowers (recessive), we find, by
crossing together the hybrids of the first generation, that for every
three plants with red flowers, there is one plant with white flowers.
And similarly, the crossing of hybrid nettles with indented leaves will
result in a second generation composed of three plants with indented
leaves to every one with smooth-edged leaves (see Fig. 5).
[Illustration: FIG. 5.]
That is, the characteristics which belonged to the first two parents
all survive, even though in a latent form, in the descendants; and they
continue to differentiate themselves in well established proportions.
In one offspring out of four, the characteristics of the grandfather,
which have remained dormant in the father, once more reappear. This
intermittent heredity of characteristics, that are passed from
grandfather to grandson, overleaping the father, is one of the
best-known laws of _pathological_ _heredity_ in man; and it is called
_atavistic heredity_, to distinguish it from _direct heredity_, which
denotes the transmission from parent to offspring. But no explanation
had ever been found for this sort of phenomenon. Undoubtedly, it must
be connected with the phenomena of Mendelism.
Accordingly, in the second generation Mendel's second law has been
established, the _law of disjunction_, which is stated as follows:
_Mendel's Second Law_: "In the second generation obtained by reciprocal
fertilisation of the first hybrids, three quarters of the offspring
will exhibit the dominant character, and one quarter the recessive."
_Mendel's Hypothesis, Designed to Explain the Phenomena of_
_Heredity._--Mendel's great service is to have conceived a hypothesis
that seems to have disclosed the key adapted to unlock all the secrets
of heredity.
While the body of an individual is the resultant of forces so
mutually exclusive that the appearance of one characteristic means
the disappearance of its antagonist; _in the development of_ _the
sexual cells the two antagonistic characters are distributed in equal_
_proportion_. That is to say, one-half of the male cells contain the
dominant character, and one-half the recessive; and the same holds
true for the female cells. The characters of the two parents, in other
words, never _merge_ in the reproductive cells, but are distributed _in
equal measure_, independently of the question whether they are dominant
or recessive. Thus for example: in the case already cited of the first
hybrid generation of the peas with red flowers, in every one of the
plants, without distinction, half the pollen has potentially the red
character and half has the white; and in the same way the female cells
have, half of them a red potentiality and half of them a white. Such
hybrids of the first generation, therefore, although apparently similar
to the parent with red flowers, _differ in their germinative powers_,
which are not made apparent in the individual. And the same may be said
of hybrid nettles with indented leaves, etc.
Granting Mendel's hypothesis, we have on the one hand pollen and on
the other seed ready to come together in every manner included within
the range of possible combinations; the _individual_ is, in its
characteristics, nothing else than the product of a combination which
must necessarily manifest itself in accordance with the well-known
mathematical laws of _probability_.
For instance, let us proceed to diagram the possible disposition of the
sexual cells of the hybrids of peas, all of them having red flowers. In
terms of percentage, they will give, out of every hundred, fifty red
and fifty white.
_P_ = pollen; _O_ = ova; _R_ = red, dominant; _w_ = white, recessive:
The possible number of combinations between the pollen grains and
the ova are four; namely, _RR_, _Rw_, _wR_, _ww_. But where a
dominant characteristic encounters a recessive (_Rw_, _wR_), the
recessive disappears, to make way in the individual for the dominant
characteristic alone. The definitive result is three individuals of
dominant character, to one of recessive character.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.]
Nevertheless, the hybrids of dominant character are not all equal
among themselves. Those belonging to the combination _RR_, indeed, are
_permanent_ in character and in all respects alike, and they reproduce
the original red-flower progenitor. The other red-flower hybrids,
belonging to the groups _Rw_ and _wR_ are, on the contrary, similar
to the hybrids of the first generation and contain reproductive cells
differentiated in character; such hybrids, if reciprocally fertilised,
will again give three dominant offspring to every one recessive; that
is, they will obey the law of disjunction. The hybrids belonging to
the fourth group, on the contrary, are constant, like those of the
first group, and are permanently of recessive character; and they will
reproduce the original progenitor with white flowers.
The same results may be attained with nettles with smooth and indented
leaves, and with all other types of plant and animal life that obey the
laws of Mendelism.
The figure given actually represents the third generation of nettles;
from a combination corresponding to _RR_, there result only indented
leaves, and from another combination corresponding to our _ww_ there
result only smooth-edged leaves, and from the two mixed groups there
come three offspring with indented leaves to every one with smooth
leaves.
It is possible to represent, by means of a general diagram, the
mathematical succession of characteristics in hybrids, after the
following manner; denoting the dominant character by _D_, and the
recessive by _r_.
[Illustration: First crossing of individuals with antagonistic
characters.
First generation of hybrids, all alike, and similar to the progenitor
_D_ (dominant).
Second generation: for each recessive there are three dominant: but of
these only one is permanent.
Third generation: disjunction of the hybrid groups takes place and new
permanent groups are formed.
FIG. 7.]
In each successive generation, provided the fertilisation takes place
only between uniform individuals, as indicated in the diagram, and as
may be effected by actual experiment with plants, groups identical
with the original progenitors will continue to be formed, through
successive disjunction of the hybrids; the sexual phenomenon operating
in obedience to the laws of probability.
An effective experiment, that anyone may repeat for himself, is the one
originated by Darbishire. He took two boxes, typifying respectively
the male and female organ, and placed in them black and white disks of
equal size, so distributed that each box contained fifty disks of each
colour. After mixing these disks very carefully, he proceeded to take
_at random_ one disk at a time alternately from each box; and he piled
up each pair of disks in such a manner that the black ones should be
on top and the white underneath. The result was that for every three
black disks on top of the piles there was one white disk; but of the
black groups one consisted of two black disks, while in the other
two the lower disk was white. This is simply one of the many games
dependent on the laws of probability.
Now, supposing that instead of one, there are two characteristics that
are in antagonism; in that case, we have the occurrence of double
hybridism (dihybridism).
Let us take the strains of peas already considered, but let us choose
for observation the character of their seed. One of the plants has
round seed and yellow cotyledons; and the other angular seed and green
cotyledons. These two characteristics, therefore, are both inherent in
the seed; condition of surface (rough, smooth), and colour (green, and
yellow).
After fertilisation, Mendel's first law, that of the prevalence of
the dominant character, will operate, and all the plants of the first
generation will have round seed and yellow cotyledons. Hence these
are the dominant characteristics, which we will represent by capital
letters: _R_ (round), _Y_ (yellow), to distinguish them from the
recessive characteristics, which we will designate with small letters:
_a_ (angular), and _g_ (green).
According to Mendel's hypothesis, all these hybrids with round seed and
yellow cotyledons, contain sexual cells of opposite potentialities,
numerically equal and corresponding to the antagonistic characters of
the parent plants. That is, they must have in their pollen grains and
their ovarian cells all the possible combinations of their different
potentialities.
They should produce in equal quantities:
pollen grains (_P_) with round seed and yellow cotyledons: _R Y_
" " green " _R g_
angular " yellow " _a Y_
" " green " _a g_
ovarian cells (_O_) with round " yellow " _R Y_
" " green " _R g_
angular " yellow " _a Y_
" " green " _a g_
The total number of combinations that may result is sixteen; that is,
each one of the four combinations of pollen may unite with any one of
the ovarian cells; thus constituting four groups of four. And these
groups represent the combinations (of pollen and ova) capable of
producing individuals:
_R Y - R Y = R Y | a Y - R Y = R Y_
_R Y - R g = R Y | a Y - R g = R Y_
_R Y - a Y = R Y | a Y - a Y = a Y_
_R Y - a g = R Y | a Y - a g = a Y_
_-----------------|-----------------_
_R g - R Y = R Y | a g - R Y = R Y_
_R g - R g = R g | a g - R g = R g_
_R g - a Y = R Y | a g - a Y = a Y_
_R g - a g = R g | a g - a g = a g_
[Illustration: FIG. 8.]
Every time that a dominant characteristic encounters a recessive
one (_R_ with _a_ or _Y_ with _g_), it overpowers and hides it:
consequently the results of the different combinations are quite
definitely limited as determining forms of different individuals. In
fact, the results of the sixteen combinations are as follows:
_R Y | R Y_
_R Y | R Y_
_R Y | a Y_
_R Y | a Y_
_---------_
_R Y | R Y_
_R g | R g_
_R Y | a Y_
_R g | a g_
That is to say, the only forms which occur are the following:
_R Y, R g_
_a Y, a g_
whose relative probability of occurrence is:
_R Y_ 9 times in 16 = 56.25%
_R g_ 3 times in 16 = 18.75%
_a Y_ 3 times in 16 = 18.75%
_a g_ 1 time in 16 = 6.25%
Now, as a result of actual experiment, the forms obtained show the
following relative percentage:
Results of experiments according to the combinations
with plants and laws of probability
_R Y_ 56.5% 56.25%
_R g_ 19.75% 18.75%
_a Y_ 18.2% 18.75%
_a g_ 5.8% 6.25%
The correspondence between these figures is close enough to warrant
the acceptance of Mendel's hypothesis as the true interpretation of
the phenomena that are shown to take place within the sexual cells;
the germinal cells of the hybrid contain potentialities belonging to
one or the other only of the parents, and not to both; one-half of the
cells contain one of these potentialities, and the other half the other
potentiality.
But in the phenomena of hybridism, we have seen the results of
another fact which determines Mendel's third law; the _Law of_ _the
Independence of Characteristics_.
That is, that while the original progenitors had angular seed and
green cotyledons, and round seed and yellow cotyledons, certain hybrid
plants inherited the round seed of the one and the green colour of the
other; or the angular seed of the one and the yellow colour of the
other. In the same way, it may happen, for example, that the colour of
one plant may combine with the height of another, etc. That is, that
each separate characteristic of the progenitor is independent and may
combine with the characteristics of the other progenitor--even to the
point of separating the colour from the form, as in the case cited.
What we find in hybrids, then, is not a separation into two types of
generative cells, considered as united and complex entities; but every
separate germ cell may _break up_ into as many different potentialities
as there are separate characteristics in the individual; and that,
too, not only as regards the separate minute parts of the individual
body, but, within the same organ, as regards the shape, colour,
character of the surface, etc.
Such phenomena of Mendelism cannot as yet be generalised; yet it has
already been established by a host of experiments that a great number
of characteristics obey the laws of Mendel, such, for example, as
the character of the hair or plumage; the gradations of colour, the
abundance or absence of hair; physical malformations, such as cerebral
hernia in poultry; the character of locomotion, as in the jumping mice:
and even normal physiological attributes connected with the epoch of
maturity in certain plants.
But the manner in which the dominant character asserts itself is
not always uniform. There are times when a _fusion_ of antagonistic
characters takes place. Thus, for example, when two varieties of the
_mirabilis jalapa_ are crossed, one having red flowers and the other
white, a fusion of the colours takes place in the first generation,
and _all_ the plants have pink flowers. In the second generation we
get, for every plant with red flowers, two with pink flowers and one
with white. That is, the law of disjunction has again asserted itself,
but the individual hybrids merge their antagonistic attributes, which
remain, nevertheless (as their differentiation proves), separate one
from the other in the sexual cells.
Another phenomenon observed in individual hybrids is the
_intermingling_ of characteristics. For instance, there are cases
where the flowers of a hybrid produced by a plant with red flowers and
another with white are _variegated_ with red and white stripes.
Accordingly, the transmission of antagonistic attributes through the
individual may be divided into three different methods:
{ Exclusive.
Transmission { By fusion.
{ By intermingling.
In the first case, the character of one of the parents is transmitted
intact; in the second, the formation of a new characteristic results,
constituting a form more or less nearly midway between those from which
it comes and whose fusion it represents; in the third case (which is
very rare and seems to obey Mendel's laws in quite an uncertain way),
the result is a _mosaic_ of the fundamental attributes.
Of special interest to us are the two first methods of hereditary
transmission of characteristics. Even before Mendel's discoveries,
anthropologists had observed that in the intermixture of races certain
human attributes remained _distinct_ while others _merged_. In the
first case they called the individuals _hybrids_, and in the second
case they called them _metics_. Take, for example, the colour of the
skin when black and white merge in the so-called _mulatto_.
Other characteristics, instead of merging, intermingle, as for instance
those that are internal or related to the skeleton, and those that are
external or related to the soft tissues and the skin. It may happen,
for example, that where one race has an elongated head and black hair
and another has a round head and blond hair, the result of their
union will be hybrids with elongated heads and blond hair or _vice
versa_. Similarly, if one of the parents is tall of stature and fair
complexioned, and the other of short stature with a dark skin, these
characteristics may be interchanged in the hybrids. A very common
occurrence, as regards the colour of the hair, is the _fusion_ of
blond and brunette into chestnut; while parents with chestnut hair may
have either fair-haired or dark-haired children. In his book entitled
_Human Races and Varieties_, Sergi says in regard to hybridism: "It is
impossible to ignore human hybridism, which, for that matter, has been
demonstrated under various forms by all the anthropologists; America,
in itself alone, offers us a true example of experimental anthropology
in regard to this phenomenon. Already the result of investigations
shows that human hybridism is multiform among all the peoples of the
earth; but what is best known of all is the exchange of external
characteristics and their intermingling with the internal; that is,
the combination of external characteristics of one type with internal
characteristics of another type. It is easy, for instance, to find
cases in which a certain colour of skin and hair, with the special
qualities proper to them, are found combined with peculiarities of the
skeleton that do not rightfully belong to types of that particular
colouring, and _vice versa_; and this same phenomenon may be observed
regarding certain separate attributes, and not all of them--such as the
stature, or the face with its outer covering of soft tissues, or the
shape of the skull alone.
"If we observe our European populations, that call themselves a
white-skinned race, but whose whiteness has many different gradations,
we are convinced of the great _intermixture_ of characters, and, what
is more, a varied mixture resulting in a great variety of individual
types, consisting of characters differing widely from one another.
It requires a very accurate and very minute analysis to distinguish
the different elements that are found in the composition of ethnic
characters in individuals and peoples. Undoubtedly these intermixtures
and combinations of character differ in their constituent elements and
in the number of such elements in the different nations, according to
whether we study those of the south, or the centre, or the north of
Europe; and this results from different degrees of association with
mongrel races.
"But a more important fact, and one that seems to have escaped the
attention of anthropologists, is the _absence of fusion_ of internal
and external characteristics in the product of such intermixture.
We find only a positional relationship between the different ethnic
elements, a syncretism or superposition of characteristics, and
a consequent _readiness to disunite and form other unions_. This
phenomenon has already been demonstrated in America, on a mass of
evidence; but it is apparent also in Europe, among the peoples that are
seemingly most homogeneous, if by careful observation we _separate the
characteristics_ that constitute the ethnic types; and not only the
types, but the individuals belonging to the different peoples."
And in the following passage, Sergi expresses himself still more
clearly:
"From my many observations, it follows, further, that human hybridism,
or meticism, as others choose to call it, is a syncretism of distinct
characteristics of great variety, and that these do not modify the
skeletal structure or the internal characteristics, excepting by way
of individual variation; it may happen that separate parts of the
skeleton itself acquire characteristics peculiar to themselves. The
stature, the chest formation, the proportion of the limbs, may all be
in perfect correlation and be united with external characteristics
of diverse forms, as for instance with different forms of cranium,
or the cranium may be associated with different facial forms, and
conversely. Furthermore, the _forms adapted_ _separately_ and in part
in hybrid composition _remain unvaried in_ _their typical formation_.
The face retains its typical characteristics in spite of its union with
different forms of cranium; and similarly the cranium preserves its
architectural structure when combined with different types of face.
The stature maintains its proportions in spite of combinations with
diverse cranial and facial types, and in spite of varied colours of
skin and hair."
The foregoing page, that I have borrowed from this masterly
investigator, is most eloquent testimony that, in regard to the
phenomena of hybridism, man also comes within the scope of Mendel's
laws. There is something wonderful in the power of observation and
intuition shown by Sergi, who, running counter to the convictions of
the majority of anthropologists, arrived through these conclusions
at a _truth_ the key to which was destined to be discovered later on
through studies, very far removed from anthropology, such as were
pursued by the botanists Mendel and De Vries. While Mendel was led by
his _experiments_ to the discovery of the laws based upon his ingenious
hypothesis, Sergi was drawn simply by _observation_ to conclusions that
to-day are confirmed by experience. And from difficult observations of
_single_ _characteristics taken separately_, Sergi demonstrated, in his
ingenious studies, their _persistence_ through innumerable generations;
while, through the identification of separate characteristics, he
achieved that brilliant analysis of the races which revealed to his
anthropological insight that the European varieties of man originated
among the peoples of Africa and Asia. Unquestionably, the laws of
Mendel confirm what hitherto were considered, in the scientific world
of Europe, simply as the individual hypotheses of Sergi, but which
American anthropologists recognise and welcome as a scientific truth,
brilliantly observed and expounded by the Italian anthropologist.
Thus, through single characteristics, through _particularities_, we
may read the origins of races; and recognise which are the constant
characteristics and which the transitory ones.
Accordingly, let us keep these principles in mind, as we proceed
further in our investigation of the phenomena of heredity.
Mendel's laws, however much they may be discredited or illuminated
by further experience, serve in the meanwhile to give an absolutely
new conception of the individual and to shed light upon many obscure
problems relating to heredity.
The individual is the product of a combination of germ potentialities,
which, in the case of hybrids (and consequently always in the case of
man, who is the product of racial intermixture), meet in accordance
with the mathematical laws of probability. One might almost conceive of
a _formula_, or, better yet, a calculation, in accordance with which
the _individual_ resulting from any given germs might be predetermined;
if it were not for the fact that the calculations would become
infinitely complicated through the multiplication of characteristics.
With only ten pairs of characteristics it is already possible to form
upward of 1024 kinds of germinal cells and these give rise to 1,000,000
different combinations.
Furthermore, through the law of dominant characteristics, the
combinations of germs would produce in the descendants 1000 varieties
distinguishable by their external appearance, and 60,000 differing only
internally, that is, in their germinal cells.
There remains, however, one general principle: the individual contains
not only his personal attributes, but also other attributes which
belonged to his ancestors, and which are latent in him, and may
reappear in his descendants. Consequently, if the individual is a
hybrid, he must be interpreted _not only through himself alone,_ _but
through the history of his family_; and the characteristics which he
may transmit are not those of his own body, but those of his origin.
The individual body is nothing more than a "temporary expression"
of those germinal characteristics which have united to give it
consistency; but the complex transmission of characteristics rests
wholly with the germinal cells. The problem of heredity is transferred
from the individual and from the series of individuals, who are
simple and transitory products of combinations, to the sexual cells
and their potentialities. And this is unquestionably an absolutely
new scientific concept, and a _revolutionary_ one as well, capable
of drawing in its wake a lengthy evolution of thought. Since the
_germinal potentialities_ determine the single characteristics, they
may be considered as the _atoms_ of the biologist. "The field of
investigation," says Bateson, "does not appear to differ greatly from
that which was opened to the students of chemistry at the beginning
of the discovery that chemical combinations are governed by definite
laws.... In the same way that the chemist studies the properties of
every _chemical substance_, the characteristics of organisms ought to
be studied, and their composition determined." (_First Report_, p. 159.)
This brings us to two widely diverse facts that demand consideration:
first, the subdivision of antagonistic characteristics in the germinal
cells that form, so to speak, the atomic and chaotic substratum
of characteristics--characteristics that combine according to the
mathematical laws of probability; and, secondly, the _dominance_ of
characteristics, or else their fusion, which, independently of anything
that may happen in the germinal cells, serves to determine and define
the individual.
What sort of characteristics are the dominant ones?
According to the latest researches of Mendelism, the dominant
characteristics are those acquired latest in the course of evolution,
in other words, the _youngest_, or, if you prefer, the _most highly_
_evolved_. Accordingly, in hybrids, the most perfected characteristics
and forms are the ones that triumph in the end.
This is quite a new principle. Hitherto it was held that the _pure_
species or race was the most perfect; and the hybrid or bastard
was under a cloud of contempt. And, as a matter of fact, the first
crossings of different races may result in some combinations lacking
in harmony, and calculated to sanction the old-time conception of the
æsthetic inferiority of the bastard.
But it is necessary to leave time for new generations and
further crossings, in order that _all of the more highly evolved
characteristics_ may unite and end by triumphing in reciprocal harmony.
This the followers of Mendel cannot yet give us, because it would
require decades or centuries, according to the species, to produce
experimentally such æsthetic forms of hybridism.
But in the human race we have an experiment already accomplished,
which actually shows us the _æsthetic triumph_ achieved in the region
where the races have for the greatest length of time been crossed and
recrossed, through the agency of the most ancient civilisation: the
Europeans surpass in physical beauty the people of any other continent;
and the Neo-Latin races, the most ancient hybrids of all, seem to
be nearing the attainment of the greatest æsthetic perfection. In
fact, when I was engaged in compiling an anthropological study of the
population of Latium, in accordance with Sergi's principles, and was
making a most minute examination of all the different characteristics
and their prevalence, as a possible basis for a delineation of the
fundamental racial types, I found that complete beauty is never
granted to any one race, but distributed among different races: "as a
result of my labours, I find perfect artistic proportion as to certain
facial features, in a race having inferior hands and feet; and, _vice
versa_, I find facial irregularities in the race having the smallest
extremities, and the most artistically proportioned hands. What we
now consider as standards of human beauty, and delight in bringing
together artificially in a single figure in a work of art, are found in
nature scattered and distributed among different races." (See _Physical
Characteristics of Young Women of Latium_, p. 69.)
Upon the combination of all the different points of beauty in a single
individual depend Quétélet's biological theories of the medial man
(l'homme moyen), lately revived and extensively developed by Viola. The
new importance acquired by the reconstruction of the _medial man_ is
due precisely to the fact that the new method of reconstructing him is
by bringing together all the single characteristics taken separately
and worked out mathematically according to the laws of individual
variations that behave precisely like those of probability. (See
_Biometry and the Theory_ _of the Medial Man_.)
Viola considers, in its relation to the physiological laws of _health_,
the combination in a single individual of the maximum number of average
characteristics, which at the same time are the characteristics
numerically prevalent in individuals (dominant characteristics?). The
man who accumulates the greater number of average characteristics,
escapes diseases and predisposition to disease; he is consequently
sounder and more robust and _handsomer_. De Giovanni, on the contrary,
through an ingenious conceit, bestows the name of _morphological
combination_ upon the union in a single individual, of parts that are
mutually inharmonic and incapable of performing their normal functions
together, in consequence of which such an individual's morphological
personality is predisposed to special maladies.
Accordingly the meeting and union of germinative potentialities may be
either more or less propitious; as for instance the result sometimes
produced by the combination of a platyopic (broad) face and an aquiline
and extremely leptorrhine (narrow) nose; in other words, combinations
that are discordant from the æsthetic standpoint, but harmless as
regards health; or again, there may be a lack of harmony between the
internal organs, incompatible with a healthy constitution. There
may even exist malformations due to the meeting of forms that clash
violently; each of which parts may be quite normal, when considered by
itself, but cannot adapt itself to the other parts with which it is
united.
It is as though the dominant characteristic in respect to an organ
had been overpowered by another, which ought on the contrary, in this
special case, to have been recessive.
It is precisely on this question of the dominance of characteristics
that the researches of the Mendelists are at present being expended. It
has been observed in the course of experiments that there exist certain
special _correlations between potentialities_, in consequence of which
certain characteristics must always go together; as, for example, when
two characteristics, having once been united, must continue to recur
together, although they each exist separately. These laws, which are
not yet clearly determined, may serve to explain the final harmony of
the sum total of individual attributes.
But in general the _dominance_ of characteristics is not absolute,
but subject to many causes of variation, associated with environment.
Thus, for example, just as a change in nutrition of a young plant will
result in a different height, it is also possible in the mechanics of
reproduction that the original relations of germs may be altered by
external causes, and the dominant characteristics be made recessive.[6]
Many deviations are attributable to the influences that act upon the
germinative cells of hybrids, after the latter have already been
determined in their potentiality; thus for example when certain
germinal cells are less resistant during maturation; or again when
_combinations_ between potentialities are difficult to achieve. That is
to say, there may exist certain phenomena associated with environment,
thanks to which Mendel's natural laws concerning the dominance of
characteristics may become inverted.
Another fact of great significance is this: that, in the course of
extensive experimental plantings, for the purpose of verifying the
laws of Mendel, a widespread sickliness and mortality occurred among
cryptograms, at the expense of the plants of recessive character; which
would go to prove that a lower power of resistance accompanies the
appearance of recessive characteristics. The dominant characteristics
accordingly are not only the most highly evolved, but they also possess
a greater power of resistance. So that, to-day, the dominance of the
strong tends through the workings of the phenomena of Mendelism,
to do away, little by little, in the course of generations, with
characteristics that are weak or antiquated. This has an important
bearing upon human pathology, because it opens the way to hope for a
possible regeneration in families branded with hereditary disease.
The germinal potentialities that contain beauty and strength seem
predestined to that predominance which will achieve the triumph
of life in the individual. To learn the laws of the union, in one
individual and definitive unity, of the infinite dominant and recessive
potentialities that must encounter one another in the mysterious
labyrinth in which life is prepared--therein lies the greatest problem
of the present day.
It is that which should constitute our guiding purpose.
FORM AND TYPES OF STATURE
The Form.--Fundamental Cannons regarding the Form.--Types of
Stature, Macroscelia and Brachyscelia; their physiological
Significance.--Types of Stature in relation to Race, Sex, and
Age.
A few years ago, when anthropology first began to be studied, the skull
was taken as the point of departure; because in the analytical study of
the human body it represents the principal part. Indeed, the same thing
was done by Lombroso, when he applied anthropology to the practice of
psychiatry and later to the study of criminals. It is a matter of fact
that degenerative stigmata of the gravest significance are to be found
associated with the skull; and this he could not fail to take into
account, because of its bearings upon criminal anthropology.
But to-day anthropology is reaching out into vaster fields of
science and striving to develop in diverse directions, such as those
of physiology and pathology; and revolting from the collection of
degenerative details, it undertakes to study normal man in regard to
his external form as related to his functional capacity, or else the
man of abnormal constitution, who in his outward form reveals certain
predispositions to illness; and starting on these lines, it proposes
to investigate principally the metamorphoses of growth, through the
successive periods of life.
From this new point of view, it is not any single malformation, but the
individual as a whole in the exercise of his functions, who assumes
first importance. The study of the cranium (formerly so important as
to be the basis of a special science, craniology), becomes only one
detail of the whole. As a matter of fact, the brain, which is what
gives the cranium its importance, is not only the immediate organ
of intelligence, but it is also the psychomotor organ; and as such
exercises control over all the striped muscles, and is morphologically
associated with the development and the functional powers of the whole
body.
It follows that, the larger the body, the bigger brain it needs to
control it, independently of the question of intelligence. Therefore
the first point of departure should be eminently synthetic, and should
include the morphological personality considered as a whole.
One of the properties of living bodies is that of attaining a
determinate development, whose limits, both in regard to the _quantity
of its mass_ and the _harmony of its form_, are defined by that
biological final cause which is implanted in the race and transmitted
by heredity. Consequently every living creature has determinate limits:
and these constitute a fundamental _biological_ property.
The causality of such limits has not yet been determined by scientific
research; nevertheless it is a phenomenon over which we must pause to
meditate. If the philosopher pauses to contemplate the immensity of
the ocean from the sea shore, marvelling that the interminable and
impetuous movement of the waves should have such exact and definite
limits that it cannot overpass by so much as a metre the extreme
high-water line upon the beach, we may similarly pause to meditate
upon the material limits that life assumes in its infinitely varied
manifestations.
From the microbe to the mammal, from the lichen to the palm, all living
creatures have inherited these limits, which permit the zoologist and
the botanist to assign to each a _measure_ as one of its descriptive
attributes.
This is the first attribute which we must take into consideration in
the study of anthropology: namely, the _mass_ of the body, and together
with the mass, its morphological _entirety_. The Italian vocabulary
lacks any one word which quite expresses this idea, [and in this
respect English is scarcely more fortunate[7]]. The stature which
represents to us the most synthetic measure of the body in its entirety
(a measure determined by the vertical linear distance between the level
on which the individual's feet are placed, up to the top of his head
as he stands erect), does not represent the entire body in the sense
above indicated. It may rather be considered as a _linear index_ of
this entirety. The French language, on the contrary, possesses the word
_taille_, which may be rendered in Italian by the word _taglia_ [and
in English by the word _form_[8]], provided that we understand it to
signify the conception of the whole _morphological personality_.
No single measurement can express the form; the weight of the body,
indeed, may give us a conception of the _mass_ but not of the _shape_;
and the latter, if it needs to be determined in all its limits,
requires a series of measurements, mutually related, and signifying
the reciprocal connection and harmony of the parts with the whole; in
other words, a _law_. We may establish the following measurements as
adapted to determine the form, in other words, as _fundamental laws_:
the _total stature_, the _sitting_ _stature_, the _total spread of the
arms_, the _circumference of the thorax_, and the _weight_. Of these
measures, the two of chief importance are the stature and the weight,
because they express the linear index and the volumetric measure of
the entire body. The other measurements, on the contrary, analyse this
entirety in a sweeping way: thus, the sitting stature, in its relation
to the total stature, indicates the reciprocal proportions between
the _bust_ and the _lower limbs_; the perimeter of the chest records
the transverse and volumetric development of the bust; and the total
spread of the arms denotes a detail that is highly characteristic in
the case of man: the development of the upper limbs, which, while they
correspond to organs of locomotion in the lower animals, assume in the
case of man higher functions, as organs of labour and of _mimic_ speech.
Such measurements constitute a _law_, because they are in constant
mutual relationship, when the normal human organism has reached
complete development. The stature, in fact, is equal to the total
spread of the arms; the circumference of the thorax is equal to
one-half the stature, and the sitting stature is slightly greater than
the perimeter of the chest. As regards the weight, it cannot be in
direct proportion to any linear measure; nevertheless, an empirical
correspondence in figures has been noted that may be recorded solely
for the purpose of aiding the memory: the normal adult man usually
weighs as many kilograms as there are centimetres in his stature, over
and above one metre (for instance, a man whose height is 1.60 metres
will weigh 60 kilograms, etc.).
To make these laws easier to understand, we may resort to signs and
formulæ. Thus, if we denote the stature by _St_, the total spread
of the arms by _Ts_, the circumference of the thorax by _Ct_, the
essential or sitting stature by _Ss_, and the weight by _W_, we may set
down the following formulæ, which will result in practice in more or
less obvious approximations:
_St_ = _Ts_; _Ct_ = _St_/2; _Ct_ = _Ss_
And for the weight, the following wholly empirical formula:
_W_ = _Kg_(_St_-1 m.).
_Stature._--Among all the measurements relating to the form, the
principal one is the stature. It has certain characteristics that are
essentially human. What we understand by stature is the height of a
living animal, when standing on its feet. Let us compare the stature
of one of the higher mammals, a dog for instance, with that of man.
The stature of the dog is determined essentially by the length of its
legs, while the spinal column is supported in a horizontal position by
the legs themselves. Such is the attitude of all the higher mammals,
including the greater number of monkeys, notwithstanding that these
latter are steadily tending to raise their spinal column in an oblique
direction, in proportion to the lengthening of their forelimbs, which
serve them as a support in walking--a form of locomotion half way
between that of quadrupeds and of man. Man alone has permanently
acquired an erect position, that renders the bust ( = sum of head and
trunk) vertical, and leaves the upper limbs definitely free from any
duty connected with locomotion, thus attaining the full measure of the
human stature, which is the sum of the bust and the lower limbs. Thus,
we may assert that one fundamental difference between man and animals
consists in this: that in animals the spinal column does not enter
into the computation of stature; while in man, on the contrary, it is
included in its entirety. Consequently, in man the stature assumes a
characteristic and fundamental importance, because part of it (that
part relating to the bust) represents, as a linear index, all the
organs of vegetative life and of life in its external relations.
If we examine the human skeleton in an erect position (Fig. 9),
it shows us the varying importance of the different parts of its
structure, according as they are destined to protect, or simply to
sustain. At the top is the skull, an enclosed bony cavity; and this
arrangement indicates that it is designed to contain and protect an
organ of the highest importance. By means of the occipital foramen,
this cavity communicates with the vertebral canal, also rigorously
closed, that is formed by the successive juxtaposition of the vertebræ.
Such protective formation is in accord with the high physiological
significance and the delicate structure of the organs of the central
nervous system, which represent the supreme control over physiological
life and over the psychic activities of life in its external relations.
Below the skull, the structure of the skeleton is profoundly altered;
in fact, the framework of the thorax is a sort of bony cage open at
the bottom; still, the external arrangement of the bones renders them
highly protective to the organs they enclose, namely, the lungs and the
heart--physiological centres, whose perpetual motion seems to symbolise
the rhythm and consequently the continuity of life.
[Illustration: FIG. 9.]
Continuing to descend, we come to a sort of hollow basin, the pelvis,
which seems merely to contain, rather than protect, the abdominal
organs: the intestines, kidneys, etc. Such a structure seems to be in
accord with the minor physiological importance of these organs, whose
function (digestion) is periodic and may be temporarily suspended,
in defiance of physiological stimuli, without suspension of life.
In the lower part of the skeleton, on the contrary, the arrangement
between the soft and bony tissues is inverted: the long bones of the
limbs constitute the inner part; and they are covered over with thick,
striped muscles, organs of mechanical movement for the purpose of
locomotion. Here the function of the skeleton is exclusively that of
support, and in its mechanism it represents a series of levers.
Accordingly, the structure of the skeleton also shows us how the
stature is composed of parts that differ profoundly in their
physiological significance; life as a _complete whole_, the _living
man_, is contained within the _bust_, which holds the organs of
the individual, vegetative life; those of life in relation to its
environment, and those of life in relation to the race, namely, the
organs of reproduction.
Deprived of arms and legs, man could still live; the limbs are nothing
more than appendages at the service of the bust, in all animals; they
serve to _transport_ the bust, that is, the part which constitutes the
real living animal, which without the limbs would be as motionless as a
vegetable, unable to go in pursuit of nourishment or to exercise sexual
selection.
The embryos of different animals, of a dog, a bat, a rabbit and of man
(as may be seen in Fig. 11) show that the fundamental part of the body
is the spinal column, which _limits_ and _includes_ the whole animal in
the process of formation.
If we next examine the embryonic development of man, as shown in
Fig. 13, we may easily see how the limbs develop, at first as almost
insignificant appendages of the trunk, remaining hidden within
the curve of the spinal column; and even in an advanced stage of
development (15th week), they still remain quite accessory parts in
their relation to the whole.
Having established these very obvious principles, we may ask ourselves:
of two men of equal stature, which is physiologically the more
efficient? Evidently, that one of the two who has the shorter legs.
In other words, it is of fundamental importance to determine the
reciprocal relation, in the stature, between the bust and the lower
limbs, that is, between the _height of the bust_ and the _total_
_height of the body_.
[Illustration: FIG. 10.--Gastrula of a sponge.
External surface. Internal section.
(Showing the inner and outer primary layers, and the mouth orifice.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 11.
Dog. Bat. Rabbit. Man.
(From the work by E. Haeckel: _Anthropogeny_.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 12.
Four skeletons of anthropoid apes. Man.]
The height of the bust was called by Collignon the _essential_
_stature_, a name that indicates the biological significance of this
measurement. It may, however, also be called the sitting stature, from
the method of taking the measure, which equals the vertical distance
from the level on which the individual is seated to the top of his
head. The other is the total stature.
[Illustration: FIG. 13.
14 days, 3 weeks, 4 weeks, etc. (natural size).]
Accordingly, in anthropology we may define the physiological efficiency
of a man by the relation existing between his two statures, the total
and the essential. If we reduce the total stature (which for the sake
of brevity we will call simply the _stature_) to a scale of 100, we
find that the essential stature very slightly exceeds 50, oscillating
between 53-54; yet it may fall to 47 and even lower, or it may rise
above 56. In such cases we have individuals of profoundly diverse
types, whose diversity is essentially connected with the proportional
differences between the several parts of their stature.
Hence, we may distinguish the _type of stature_; understanding by this,
not a measure, but a _ratio between measures_, expressed by a number;
that is, "_the type of stature is the name given to the ratio_ _between
the essential stature and the total stature reduced to a scale_ _of
100_." The number resulting from this ratio, since it indicates the
ratio itself, is called the _index of stature_ (See "Technical Lessons:
on the Manner of Obtaining and Calculating the Indexes"). Manouvrier
has distinguished the type with short limbs and preponderant trunk,
by the name of _brachyscelous_; and those of the opposite type, that
is, with long legs, by the name of _macroscelous_; reserving the term
_mesatiscelous_ to designate the intermediate type.
These types differ not only in the reciprocal relation between the
two statures, but in all the recognised _laws of the form_. The
brachyscelous type has a circumference of chest in excess of half
the stature, because the trunk is more greatly developed in all its
dimensions; and the total weight of the body exceeds the normal
proportion in relation to the stature. The contrary holds true of the
macroscelous type; their trunk, being shorter, is also narrower, and
the circumference of the chest can never equal one-half the stature,
while the total weight of the body is below the normal.
CANONS OF FORM
Passing next to a consideration of the total spread of the arms, since
there is an evident correspondence between the upper and lower limbs,
it follows that in the brachyscelous type the total spread is less than
the stature, while in the macroscelous it surpasses it to a greater or
less degree, according to the grade of type; the two types consequently
differ in the level reached by the wrist, when the arms are allowed to
hang along the sides of the body.
This is a very interesting fact to establish, since at one time it was
held that excessive length of arm was an atavistic feature, in other
words, an anthropoid reminder. To-day, since the old interpretation
of the direct descent from species to species has been abandoned in
the light of modern theories of biological evolution, we can no longer
speak of _atavistic revivals_. It is true that the anthropoid apes,
as may be seen in Fig. 13, have extremely long forelimbs, and that
man is characterised by the shortness of his arms, free to perform
work and obedient instruments of his brain. But if it happens that
certain individual men have excessively long arms, even if they should
coincide with an inferior capacity for work and social adaptation,
such a simple coincidence must not be interpreted by the laws of cause
and effect. The modern theories of evolution tend to admit between the
anthropoid apes and man, only a common origin from lower animals not
yet fixed in a determined species. So that in phylogenesis men are
not considered as the children or grandchildren of apes, but rather
their brothers or cousins of a more or less distant degree; and their
resemblance must be attributed to a parallel evolution.
Consequently, it is not possible to speak of _direct transmission_ of
characters.
Therefore, we must interpret an excessive length of arm, or an
excessive shortness, after the same fashion, namely, in its relation to
the _type of stature_, or to the established _canons of the form_--in
other words, as a detail of individual human types.
Let us sum up the three canons in the following table:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Mesatisceles | Brachysceles | Macrosceles
---------------------------------------------------------------------
St = Ts | St > Ts | St < Ts
| |
Ss = St/2 | Ss > St/2 | Ss < St/2
| |
Ct = St/2 | Ct > St/2 | Ct < St/2
| |
W = K(St-1 m.) | W > K(St-1 m.) | W < K(St-1 m.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
From these measurements are derived certain types of _individuality_
which we may now describe in detail.
The _brachyscelous type_ has an excess of bust, consequently a
preponderance of _vegetative life_; the great development of the
abdominal organs tends to make a person of this type a _hearty_
_eater_, a man addicted to all the pleasures of the table; his big
heart, abundantly irrigating the body, keeps his complexion constantly
highly coloured, if not plethoric. We can almost see this man of
big paunch, corpulent, with an ample chest, fat, ruddy, coarse, and
jolly; an excess of nutriment and of blood-supply are favourable to
the ready accumulation of adipose tissue, and as the body constantly
grows heavier it steadily becomes more difficult for the undersized
legs to support it; so that inevitably this man will tend to become
sedentary, and he will select a well-spread table as his favourite spot
for lingering. Whatever elements of the _ideal_ the world contains,
will escape the attention of this type of man, who is far more ready to
understand and engage in _commerce_, which leads by a practical way to
the solution of the material problems of life.
In the other _type_, on the contrary, the macroscelous, the organs
of vegetative life are insufficient and the central nervous system
is defective. Such a man feels, even though unconsciously, that the
abdominal organs are incapable of assimilating sufficient nutriment,
and that his lungs, unable to take in the needed quantity of oxygen,
render his breathing labourious. His small heart is inadequate for
circulating the blood through the whole body, which consequently
retains an habitual pallor; while the nervous system is in a constant
state of excitation. We can almost see this man, so tall and thin that
he seems to be walking on stilts, with pallid, hollow cheeks and narrow
chest, suffering from lack of appetite and from melancholia; nervous,
incapable of steady productive work and prone to dream over empty
visions of poetry and art. The man of this type is quite likely to
devote his entire life to a platonic love, or to conceive the idea of
crowning an ideal love by committing suicide; and so long as he lives
he will never succeed in escaping from the anxieties of a life that has
been an economic failure.
It is interesting to examine the types of stature from different points
of view: such, for example, as the height of stature, the race, the
sex, the age, the social conditions, the pathological deviations, etc.
_The Types of Stature According to the Height of the Total
Stature._--There exists between the bust and the limbs a primary
relation of a _mechanical_ nature, already well known, even before
Manouvrier directed the attention of anthropologists to the types of
stature. When one individual is very tall and another is very short,
the consequence of this fact alone is that the taller of the two has
much longer limbs as compared with the shorter. This is because,
according to the general laws of mechanics, the bust _grows less_ _than
the limbs_ and is _subject to less variation_.
But notwithstanding this general fact, other conditions intervene to
determine the comparative relations between the two portions of the
stature. Indeed, Manouvrier exhibits, within his own school, specimens
of equal stature but of different types; and furthermore, he notes that
the inhabitants of Polynesia are of tall stature and have a long bust,
while negroes, who are also of tall stature, have a short bust.
_Types of Stature According to Race._--Among the characteristics of
racial types, present-day anthropology has included the reciprocal
proportions between the two statures. This means that the medium type
in the different races is not always contained within the same limits
of fluctuation in regard to stature: but some races are brachyscelous,
others are macroscelous, and still again others are mesatiscelous.
The most brachyscelous race is the Mongolian, prevalent in the
population of China; the most macroscelous is the Australian type
that once peopled Tasmania. Other races, as for example the negroid,
while in a measure macroscelous, approach nearer to the mesatiscelous
type, characteristic of the population of Europe. Let us examine the
psycho-ethnic characters of these various peoples. The Chinese are
the founders of the most ancient of all oriental civilisations, and
have established themselves in a vast empire, solid and stable in its
proportions, as well as in the level of its civilisation. It would seem
as though the Chinese people, having accomplished the enormous effort
of raising themselves to a determined civic level, were no longer
capable of advancement. Individually, they have a singularly developed
spirit of discipline, and are the most enduring and faithful workers;
it is well known that in America the Chinese Mongolian does not fear
the competition of labourers of any other race, because no others can
compete with him in parsimony, in simple living, and in unremitting
toil.
The Tasmanians constituted a people that was considered as having the
lowest grade of civilisation among all the races on earth. Even English
domination failed to adapt them to a more advanced environment, and
their race was consequently scattered and destroyed.
Accordingly, we find associated with extreme macroscelia (Tasmanians)
an incapacity for civic evolution; and with the corresponding
extreme of brachyscelia an insuperable limitation to civic progress.
Consequently, the triumph of man upon earth cannot bear a direct
relation to the volume of the bust, or in other words, we cannot assume
that the man most favourably endowed on the physiological side is the
one who has the largest proportion of viscera. As a matter of fact,
the conquering race, the race which has set no limit to the territory
of its empire nor to the progress of its civilisation, is composed of
white men, whose type of stature is mesatiscelous, that is to say,
representative of _harmony_ between its parts. This conception will
serve us in establishing a fundamental principle in morphological
biology: namely, that perfectibility revolves around a centre, which
represents a perfect equilibrium between the various parts constituting
an organism. Hence, in order to determine the deviations of the
individual type, we must always start from those central data, which
represent, as the case may be, normality or perfection.
Even among the populations of Europe, and within the Italian people
themselves, fluctuations occur in the degree of mesatiscelia,
approaching to a greater or less degree the eccentric forms of
brachyscelia or macroscelia; and such fluctuations are an attribute of
race.
We should draw a distinction between a people and a race. The term race
refers exclusively to a biological classification, and corresponds to
the _zoological species_. On the other hand, we mean by a people a
group of human individuals bound together by political ties. Peoples
are always made up of a more or less profound intermixture of races. It
is well known that one of the most interesting and difficult problems
of ethnology is that of tracing out the original types of races in
peoples that represent an intermixture centuries old. Without entering
too deeply into this question, which lies outside of our present
purpose, it will suffice to point out that in the people of Italy it
is possible to trace types of races differing from one another, yet so
closely related as to render them apparently so similar that they might
almost be regarded as a single race.
Now, in an anthropological study of mine on the young women of Latium,
I succeeded in tracing, within the confines of that region, different
racial types that show corresponding differences in degrees of
mesatiscelia. Thus, for example, in Castelli Romani there exists in
an almost pure state a dark-haired race, short of stature, slender,
elegantly modelled in figure and in profile, and showing within the
limits of mesatiscelia a brachyscelous tendency, in contrast with
another race, tall, fair, massive, of coarse build, which within
the limits of mesatiscelia shows a macroscelous tendency, and which
is found in almost pure groups around the locality of Orte, that
is, on the boundaries of Umbria. It is interesting to note the
importance of researches in ethnological anthropology conducted in
small centres of habitation. If it is still possible to trace out
groups even approaching racial purity, they will be found only in
localities offering little facility to emigration and to the consequent
intermixture of races. The fact that we still find in Castelli Romani
types so nearly pure, is due to the isolation of this region, which
up to yesterday was still in such primitive and rare communication
with the capital as to permit of the survival of brigandage. On the
contrary, in localities that have attained a higher civic advancement,
and in which the inhabitants are placed in favourable economic and
intellectual conditions, the facilities of travel and emigration will
very soon effect an alteration in the anthropological characters of
the race. Hence it would be impossible, in a cosmopolitan city like
Rome, to accomplish any useful studies of the sort that I accomplished
in the district of Latium, and which led me to conclude that in the
small and slender race of Castelli Romani we may trace the descendants
of the ancient conquerors of the world: descendants that belong to one
variety of the great Mediterranean race, to whom we owe the historic
civilisations of Egypt, Greece and Rome.
It would seem that this race, disembarking on the coast of Latium,
must have driven back, among the Apennines, the other race, blond and
massive, whose pure-blooded descendants are still found in numerical
prevalence at Orte, an ancient mediæval town and a natural fortress
from the remotest times, through its fortunate situation on the crown
of a rocky height, that easily isolates it from the surrounding country
(see the ancient history of the town of Orte).
Accordingly, within the limits of mesatiscelia, it appears that the
race which in early times won the victory was the more brachyscelous,
_i.e._, the one which had the larger bust, and consequently the larger
brain and vital organs. In other words, within the limits of normality,
brachyscelia is a physiologically favourable condition.
_Variations of Type of Stature According to Social
Conditions._--Independently of race, and from such a radically
different point of view as that of the _social condition_, or
adaptation to environment, we may still distinguish brachyscelous and
macroscelous types. Brachysceles may readily be met with among the
labouring classes, habituated from childhood to hard toil in a standing
position, thus interfering with a free development of the long bones
of the lower limbs; while the macroscelous type will be found among
the aristocratic classes, whose members, spending much time sitting or
reclining, give the long bones an opportunity to attain their growth
(mechanical theories of stature). Without stopping to discuss the
suggested causes of such differentiation in types, we may nevertheless
point out that the brachyscelous type is eminently useful to society,
constituting, one may say, the principal source of economic production,
while the macroscelous and unproductive type settles comfortably down
upon the other like a parasite. But the progress of the world is not
due to the labouring class, but to the men of intellect, among whom
the prevailing type is the medium, harmonic type, with mesatiscelous
stature.
_Types of Stature in Art._--The existence of these different individual
types, which combine a definite relationship of the parts of stature
with the complete image of a well-defined individuality, was long ago
perceived by the eye, or rather by the delicate intuition of certain
eminent artists. These immortalised their several ideals, investing
now the one type and now the other with the genius of their art. Thus,
for example, Rubens embodies in his Flemish canvases the brachyscelous
type, robust and jovial, and usually represents him as a man of mighty
appetite revelling in the pleasures of the table.
Botticelli, on the contrary, has idealised the macroscelous type,
in frail, diaphanous, almost superhuman forms, that seem, as they
approach, to walk, shadow-like, upon the heads of flowers, without
bending them beneath their feet and without leaving any trace of their
passage. Accordingly, these two great artists have admirably realised,
not only the two opposite types of stature, but also the psychic and
moral attributes that respectively belong to them. But it was not
granted to these artists to achieve the supreme glory of representing
perfect human beauty in unsurpassed and classic masterpieces. The art
of Greece alone succeeded in embodying in statues which posterity must
admire but cannot duplicate, the medial, normal type of the perfect man.
_Variations of Stature According to Sex._--It is not always necessary
to interpret the type of stature in the same sense. Even from an
exclusively biological standpoint, it may lend itself to profoundly
different interpretations.
Thus, for example, the type of stature varies normally according to
the sex. Woman is more brachyscelous than man; but the degree of
brachyscelia corresponds to a larger development of the lumbar segment
of the spinal column, which corresponds to the functions of maternity.
In fact all the various segments of the spinal column show
different proportions in the two sexes.
As we know, the spinal column consists of three parts; the cervical
(corresponding to the neck), the thoracic (corresponding to the
ribs), and the abdominal, including the os sacrum and the coccyx.
Now, Manouvrier, reducing the height of the spinal column to a
scale of 100, expresses the relations of these different parts in
the two sexes as follows:
-------------------------------------------------------
Segments | Men | Women
-------------------------------------------------------
Cervical | 22.1 | 23.9
| |
Thoracic | 58.5 | 55.4
| |
Lumbar | 11.4 | 23.7
| |
Sacro-coccygeal | 7.9 | 6.7
------------------------------------------------------------
In woman the thoracic segment is shorter and the abdominal is
longer than in man; but the total sum in woman is relatively
greater in proportion to the whole stature.
In a case like this we have no right to speak of a morphological
or psychosocial superiority of type; nor would a fact of this sort
have any weight, for example, in establishing the anthropological
superiority of woman. Nevertheless, it may be asserted that, if the day
comes when woman, having entered the ranks of social workers, shall
prove that she is socially as useful as man, she will still be, in
addition, the mother of the species, and for that reason preeminently
the greater producer.
Now, it is beyond question that this indisputable superiority is
in direct relation with the type of stature. But without insisting
unduly on a point like this, we should note the connection between
the brachyscelous type and the tendency shown by women to accumulate
nutritive substances, adipose tissue; consequently, as compared with
man, she is the more corpulent--as are all brachysceles as compared
with macrosceles.
_Types of Stature at Different Ages._--Another factor that influences
the types of stature is the _age_; or rather, that biological force
which we call _growth_.
Growth is not an augmentation of volume, but an alteration in form;
it constitutes the _ontogenetic_ evolution, the development of the
individual. The child, as it grows, is transformed. If we compare
the skeleton of a new-born child with that of an adult, we discover
profound differences between the relative proportions of the different
parts. The child's head is enormously larger than that of the adult
in proportion to its stature; and similarly, the chest measure is
notably greater in the child. If we wish to compare the fundamental
measurements of the new-born infant with those of the adult, we get the
following figures, on a basis of 100 for the total stature:
-------------------------------------------------------------------
| | Adult | Child at birth
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Total stature | Essential stature | 52 | 68
| | |
= 100 | Perimeter of thorax | 50 | 70
| | |
| Height of head | 10 | 20
-------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: FIG. 14.]
Accordingly, the child has to acquire, in the course of its growth, not
only the dimensions of the adult, but the harmony of his forms; that
is, it must reach not only certain determined limits of dimension, but
also a certain type of _beauty_.
Among the fundamental differences between the new-born child and the
adult one of the first to be noted is the reciprocal difference of
proportion between the two statures. The child is ultra-brachyscelous,
that is, he presents a type of exaggerated brachyscelia, calling
to mind the form of the human foetus, in which the limbs appear as
little appendages of the trunk. In the course of growth, a successive
alteration takes place between the reciprocal proportions of the two
parts, so that the lower limbs, growing faster than the bust, tend to
approach the total length of the latter. Godin has noted that during
the years before puberty the lower limbs acquire greater dimensions,
as compared with the bust, than are found in the fully developed
individual; in other words, at this period a rapid growth takes place
in the long bones of the lower limbs, and accordingly at this period
of his life the individual passes through a stage of the macroscelous
type. Immediately after puberty, there begins, in turn, an increase in
the size of the bust, which regains its normal excess over the lower
limbs, thus attaining the definite normal type of the adult individual.
After the age of 17 years, by which time these metamorphoses have been
completed, the individual may increase in stature, but the proportions
between the parts will remain unaltered. In Fig. 14 we have a graphic
representation of the relative proportions between the height of the
bust and the length of limbs at different ages, the total stature being
in every case reduced to 100. The upper portion of the lines represents
the bust, and the lower portion the limbs, while the transverse line
corresponding to the number 50 indicates one-half of the total stature.
From such a table, it is easy to see how the bust, enormously in excess
of the limbs at birth, gradually loses its preponderance.
It was drawn up from the following figures calculated by me:
TYPES OF STATURE ACCORDING TO AGE IN YEARS
---------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+---
At birth | 1| 2| 3| 4| 5| 6| 7| 8| 9|10|11|12|13|14|15|16|17
---------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+---
68 |65|63|62|60|59|57|56|55|55|54|53|53|52|52|51|51|52
---------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+---
Godin furnishes the following figures, relating to the type of stature
at the period preceding and following puberty:
RATIO OF SITTING STATURE TO TOTAL STATURE REDUCED TO SCALE
OF 100 (GODIN)
-------------------------------------------------------------
Age |13-1/2| 14 |14-1/2| 15 |15-1/2| 16 |16-1/2| 17 |17-1/2
------|------|----|------|----|------|----|------|----|------
Ratio | 52 | 52 | 51 | 51 | 51 | 52 | 52 | 52 | 52
-------------------------------------------------------------
Hrdlicka has calculated the index of stature for a thousand white
American children and a hundred coloured, of both sexes, and has
obtained the following figures, some of which, based upon an adequate
number of subjects, (10-13 years) are what were to be expected, while
others, owing to the scarcity of subjects (under 6 and above 15 years)
are far less satisfactory:
PROPORTION BETWEEN THE SITTING STATURE AND THE TOTAL
STATURE
(AMERICAN CHILDREN)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Age in| Number of | Males,|Females,| Number of | Males, |Females,
years|subjects of| white | white |subjects of|coloured|coloured
| each age | | | each age | |
------+-----------+-------+--------+-----------+--------+--------
3 | -- | -- | -- | 1 | 60.8 | 59.5
4 | -- | -- | -- | 1 | -- | 58.9
5 | 2 | 57.4 | 57.3 | 3 | 57.3 | 57.9
6 | 15 | 56.6 | 57.4 | 5 | 55.9 | 55.6
7 | 38 | 56.3 | 57.2 | 5 | 54.9 | 55.4
8 | 56 | 55.9 | 56.2 | 13 | 55.1 | 53.3
9 | 62 | 55.2 | 55.9 | 25 | 54.2 | 54.1
10 | 98 | 54.6 | 54.2 | 12 | 54.9 | 53.7
11 | 99 | 54.0 | 55.0 | 12 | 52.8 | 53.8
12 | 93 | 53.5 | 54.1 | 10 | 57.7 | 54.0
13 | 86 | 52.9 | 53.8 | 13 | 52.9 | 51.9
14 | 53 | 52.7 | 54.1 | 7 | 52.3 | 51.8
15 | 20 | 53.1 | 53.7 | 6 | 51.7 | 53.0
16 | 9 | 52.0 | 55.0 | 2 | 53.0 | --
17 | 3 | 52.2 | 54.7 | -- | -- | --
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Which goes to prove (in spite of the inaccuracies due to the numerical
scarcity of coloured subjects of any age) that the females are more
brachyscelous than the males; and that the blacks are more macroscelous
than the whites.
The above table of indices of stature was worked out by Hrdlicka from
the following measurements:
SITTING STATURE
---------------------------------------------------
Age in | Males, | Females, | Males, | Females,
years | white | white | coloured | coloured
-------+----------+----------+----------+----------
3 | -- | -- | 476 | 476
4 | -- | -- | -- | 534
5 | 551 | 576 | 597 | 571
6 | 595 | 608 | 616 | 607
7 | 631 | 621 | 630 | 625
8 | 644 | 635 | 659 | 671
9 | 672 | 663 | 679 | 680
10 | 684 | 687 | 697 | 695
11 | 711 | 718 | 718 | 703
12 | 728 | 734 | 797 | 792
13 | 751 | 770 | 737 | 767
14 | 764 | 809 | 787 | 808
15 | 777 | 825 | 753 | 819
16 | 839 | 824 | 795 | --
17 | 864 | 850 | -- | --
---------------------------------------------------
TOTAL STATURE
---------------------------------------------------
Age in | Males, | Females, | Males, | Females,
years | white | white | coloured | coloured
-------+----------+----------+----------+----------
3 | -- | -- | 783 | 839
4 | -- | -- | -- | 906
5 | 961 | 1004 | 1044 | 985
6 | 1051 | 1060 | 1101 | 1091
7 | 1120 | 1086 | 1147 | 1127
8 | 1152 | 1130 | 1196 | 1260
9 | 1212 | 1187 | 1251 | 1257
10 | 1248 | 1267 | 1271 | 1295
11 | 1315 | 1304 | 1360 | 1307
12 | 1362 | 1357 | 1381 | 1467
13 | 1420 | 1431 | 1392 | 1477
14 | 1449 | 1495 | 1505 | 1559
15 | 1462 | 1535 | 1455 | 1545
16 | 1615 | 1498 | 1500 | --
17 | 1654 | -- | -- | --
18 | -- | 1554 | -- | --
---------------------------------------------------
The following chart, prepared by MacDonald, on the growth of the
total stature and the sitting stature of male white children, born
in America, gives a very clear idea of the rhythm of each of the two
statures. The sitting stature increases quite slowly, and its greatest
rate of growth is immediately after puberty (from 15 to 17 years) (Fig.
15)
[Illustration:
Mac Donald.
FIG. 15.]
Lastly, in order to make this phenomenon still more clear, I have
reproduced an illustration given by Stratz, consisting of a series of
outlined bodies of children representing the proportions of the body at
different stages of growth; and not only the proportions between the
bust and the lower limbs, but also between the various component parts
of the bust, as for instance the head and trunk. The transverse lines
indicate the changes in the principal levels: the head, the mammary
glands, and the bust (Fig. 16).
[Illustration: FIG. 16.]
The different types of stature at different ages deserve our most
careful consideration, yet not from the point of view already set forth
regarding the different types in the fully developed individual. In
the present case for instance, we cannot say of a youth of sixteen
that, because he is macroscelous he is a weakling as compared with a
boy of ten who is brachyscelous; nor that a new-born child represents
the maximum physical potentiality, because he is ultra-brachyscelous.
Our standards must be completely altered, when we come to consider
the various types as stages of transition between two normal forms,
representing the evolution from one to the other. At each age we
observe not only different proportions between the two fundamental
parts of the stature, but physiological characteristics as well,
biological signs of predispositions to certain determined maladies,
and psychological characteristics differing from one another, and
each typical of a particular age. From the purely physical and
morphological point of view, for example, a child from its birth up
to its second year, the period of maximum brachyscelia and consequent
visceral predominance, is essentially a _feeding_ animal. After this
begins the development of psychic life, until finally, just before the
attainment of full normal proportions, the function of reproduction
is established, entailing certain definite characteristics upon the
adult man or woman. In accordance with its type of stature, we see that
the child from its birth to the end of the first year shows a maximum
development of the adipose system together with a preponderance of
the digestive organs; while the adolescent, in the period preceding
puberty, shows in accordance with his macroscelous type of stature,
and reduction in the relative proportion of his visceral organs, a
characteristic loss of flesh.
These evolutionary changes in the course of growth having been once
established, it remains for us to consider the individual variations.
The alterations observed at the various ages, or rather, the notable
characteristics of each age, serve as so many fundamental charts of
the normal average child; and we may consider each successive type
of stature, from the new-born infant to the adult man, in the same
light as we do the average type of the mature mesatiscelous type. In
the case of the latter, we found that both above and below the medium
stature, there were a host of individual types departing more or less
widely from it, and tending toward brachyscelia on the one hand and
toward macroscelia on the other, thus constituting the oscillations of
type in the individual varieties. Similarly, in the case of the medium
type of each successive age we may find brachyscelous or macroscelous
individuals whose complex personal characteristics may be compared to
those already observed in the adult, and may be summed up as follows:
that the macroscele is a weakling; and that the brachyscele may be,
according to the degree of variation, either a robust individual or an
individual that has been arrested in his morphological development, and
retained the type of a younger age.
_Pedagogic Considerations._--From the above conclusion, we may deduce
certain principles that can be profitably applied to pedagogy,
especially in regard to some of the methods suited to our guidance
in the physical education of children. Let us begin with the
happy comparison drawn by Manouvrier, who describes an imaginary
duel with swords between a macroscelous and a brachyscelous type.
The duel, according to social conventions, must take place under
equal conditions: hence the seconds take rigorous care in measuring
the ground, the length of the swords, and determine the number of
paces permitted to the duelists. But since they have forgotten the
anthropologic side, the conditions are not entirely equal: by having
a longer arm, the macroscele is in the same position as though he had
a longer sword; and because he has a greater development of the lower
limbs, the established number of strides will take him over a greater
space of ground than his adversary. Consequently, the conditions as a
matter of fact are so favourable to the macroscele, that is, to the
weaker individual, that the latter has a greater chance of victory. The
brachyscele might, to be sure, offset this by a different manoeuvre
depending on his superior agility; but both he and the macroscele were
trained in the same identical method, which takes into consideration
only the external factor, the arms of defence, and the immutable laws
of chivalry.
Well, something quite similar happens in the duel of life, which is
waged in school and in the outside social environment. We ignore
individual differences, and concern ourselves solely with the _means_
of education, considering that they are just, so long as they are
equal for all. The fencing-master, if he had been an anthropologist,
might have counteracted the probability that the stronger pupil would
be beaten by the weaker, by advising the brachyscele always to choose
a pistol in place of a sword, or by teaching him some manoeuvre
entirely different from that which affords the macroscele a favourable
preparation for fencing. And in the same way, it is the duty of the
school-teacher to select the _arms_ best adapted to lead his pupil on
to victory.
That is, the teacher ought to make the anthropological study of the
pupil precede his education; he should prepare him for whatever he is
best adapted for, and should indicate to him the paths that are best
for him to follow, in the struggle for existence.
But, aside from general considerations, we may point out that something
very similar to the above-mentioned duel takes place in school when,
in the course of gymnastic exercises, we make the children march,
arranging them according to their total height. We expect them to
march evenly and walk, not run, yet we do not trouble to ask whether
their legs are of equal length. When we wish to know which of our
pupils is the swiftest runner, we start them all together, macrosceles
and brachysceles alike, neglecting to measure their lower limbs, the
weight of their bodies, the circumference of their chests. Then we say
"bravo!" to the macroscele, that is, the pupil who is most agile but at
the same time the weakest, and we encourage him in a pride based upon
a physiological inferiority. When we practise exercises of endurance,
we find that certain children weary sooner, suffer from shortness of
breath, and frequently drop out of the contest, in which the victory
is reserved for others. The latter are the brachysceles, who have
big lungs and a robust heart at their disposal. In this case we say
"bravo!" to the brachysceles. Then we try to arouse a noble rivalry
between the two types, encouraging emulation, and holding up before
the brachyscele the example of the macroscele's agility, and before
the macroscele the example of the brachyscele's endurance--and perhaps
we reward the two types with different medals. Such decisions by the
teacher evidently have no such foundation in justice as he supposes;
the diverse abilities of the two types of children are associated with
the constitution of their organisms. A modern teacher ought instead to
subject the brachyscelous child to exercises adapted to develop his
length of limb, and the macroscelous to gymnastics that will increase
the development of his chest; and he will abstain from all praise,
reward, exhortation and emulation, that have for their sole basis the
pupil's complete anthropological inefficiency.
"_The judgment passed by the teacher in assigning rewards and_
_punishments is often an unconscious diagnosis of the child's_
_anthropological personality._"
Similar unconscious judgments are exceedingly widespread. Manouvrier
gives a brilliant exposition of them in the course of his general
considerations regarding the macroscelous and brachyscelous types. A
brachyscelous ballet-dancer, all grace and endurance in her dancing,
thanks to the strength of her lungs, can never be imitated in her
movements by a macroscelous, angular woman, with legs ungracefully
long. The latter, on the contrary, wrapped in a mantle, may become the
incarnation of a stately matron, extending her long arms in majestic
gestures. Yet it often happens that the stately actress envies and
seeks to imitate the grace of the dancer, while the latter envies and
emulates the grave dignity of the actress.
In any private drawing-room the same thing occurs, in the shape of
different advantages distributed among persons of different types.
_There are some gestures that are inimitable because they_ _are
associated with a certain anthropologic personality._ Every one in the
world ought to do the things for which he is specially adapted. It is
the part of wisdom to recognise what each one of us is best fitted
for, and it is the part of education to _perfect_ and _utilise_ such
predispositions. Because education can _direct_ and _aid_ nature, but
can never transform her.
Manouvrier is constantly observing how the macroscelous and
brachyscelous types are adapted to _different kinds_ of social labour;
thus, for example, the macroscele will make an excellent reaper,
because of the wide sweep of his arms, and he is well adapted to be
a tiller of the soil; while the brachyscele, on the contrary, will
succeed admirably in employment that requires continuous and energetic
effort, such as lifting weights, hammering on an anvil, or tending the
work of a machine.
In the social evolution now taking place, the services of the
macrosceles are steadily becoming less necessary; intensive modern
labour requires the short, robust arm of the brachyscele. Such
considerations ought not to escape the notice of the teacher, who sees
in the boy the future man. He has the high mission of preparing the
duelists of life for victory, by now correcting and again aiding the
nature of each. And the first point of departure is undoubtedly to
learn to know, in each case _le physique du role_.
ABNORMAL TYPES OF STATURE AND GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF BIOLOGICAL ETHICS
Abnormal types of stature in their relation to moral
training.--Macroscelia and brachyscelia in pathologic
individuals (DE GIOVANNI'S hyposthenic and hypersthenic
types).--Types of stature in emotional criminals and in
parasites.--Extreme types of stature among the extra-social
classes: Nanism and gigantism.
Let us start from a picture traced in the course of the preceding
lessons; the types of stature as related to race. The Chinese, being
brachyscelous, ought to be hearty eaters; instead, they are the most
sparing people on earth. Such parsimony, equally with religion and
social morality, may be considered as a racial obligation. The whole
life of the Chinese is founded upon duty: fidelity to religion, to the
laws, to the spirit of discipline, to the spirit of _sacrifice_, which
always finds the Chinese citizen ready to die for his ethics and for
his country, are strong characteristics of these invincible men. Their
whole education rests solely upon a _mnemonic_ basis; and their laws,
which are highly democratic, make it possible for anyone to rise to the
highest circles, provided he can pass the competitive examinations.
In other words, the laws aid in the _natural_ selection of the really
strong, and regard favouritism as a crime against the State. On such
individual and national virtues is founded the survival of the race and
of the massive empire. If to-morrow the Chinese should renounce his
creed, become a _glutton_, a pleasure-seeker, and follow the instincts
of nature, he would be advancing in mighty strides on the path that
leads to death. Accordingly, what we call _virtue_ may have a biologic
basis, and represent the _active force_ that tends to correct the
defects of nature.
We can conceive of a _type_ of man, whose _life_ is associated with
sacrifice; and whose path of evolution is necessarily limited, first
because his personality is imperfect, secondly because a part of his
individual energy is necessarily expended in _conquering_, or if you
prefer, in _correcting_ his own nature. Evolution ought to be free;
but instead, such a type is necessarily in bondage to _duty_, which
stops its progress. Accordingly, the civilisation of China remains the
civilisation of China; it cannot invade the world.
The European on the contrary has no such racial virtues; whatever
virtues he has are associated with transitory forms of civilisation,
and are ready to succeed one another on the pathway of unlimited
progress. The race can permit itself the luxury of not being virtuous
on its own account; its biological conditions are so perfect, that
they have reached the _fullness of life_. If virtue is the goal of the
Chinese, happiness is the goal of the European. The _race_ may indulge
freely in the joys of living; and dedicate its efforts solely to the
_unlimited progress of social civilisation_, and to the conquest of the
entire earth.
The Tasmanian, on the other hand, sparing by nature, lacking sufficient
development of the organs of vegetative life, avoids every form of
civilisation, and precipitates himself, an unconscious victim, upon
the road to death. His natural parsimony, the scantiness of his needs,
have prevented him from ever feeling that _spur_ toward struggle and
conquest which has its basis in the necessities of life. Neither
virtue, nor felicity, nor civilisation, nor survival were possible
to that race, whose extermination began with the first contact with
European civilisation. Hence we may draw up a table that will serve to
make clear certain fundamental ideas that may prove useful guides along
our pedagogic path:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Biological types | Brachysceles | Mesatisceles | Macrosceles
------------------+---------------+-----------------+-----------------
Races and peoples | Chinese. | Europeans. | Tasmanians.
Civilisation | Stable | Changeable | Outside the
| civilisation,| civilisation, | pale of
| but limited. | with unlimited | civilisation.
| | powers of |
| | evolution. |
Psycho-moral types| High ideal of | Happiness. | Insensibility.
| virtue and | |
| sacrifice. | |
----------------------------------------------------------------------
We ought to strive for the supreme result of producing men who will
be _happy_; always keeping clearly before us the idea that the happy
man is the one who may be spared the effort of thinking of himself,
and dedicate _all_ his energies to the unlimited progress of human
society. The preoccupation of _virtue_, the _voluntary_ _sacrifice_ are
in any case forces turned back upon themselves, that expend upon the
individual energies that are lost to the world at large; nevertheless,
such _standards of virtue_ are necessary for certain inferior types.
There exist, besides, certain individuals in rebellion against society,
outcasts whose lives depend upon the succor of the strong, or may be
destroyed by their adverse intervention, but in any case have ceased to
depend upon the will of the individuals themselves.
Between two inferior types the one with the better chances is the
one with the larger chest development; apparently, in the case of
biological deviations, _melius est abundare quam deficere_.
Accordingly, let us draw up a chart. Human perfectionment tends toward
_harmony_. If we wish to represent this by some symbolic or intuitive
sign, we could not do so by a mere line; because perfection is not
reached by the quantitative increase of favourable parts; robustness,
for instance, cannot be indefinitely increased by augmenting the degree
of brachyscelia; nor can intelligence be increased by augmenting the
volume of the head; but perfection is approached, in the race and in
the individual, through a _central harmony_. It is accordingly in the
direction of this centre that progress is made; and whoever departs
furthest from this centre, departs furthest from perfection, becomes
more eccentric, more untypical, and at the same time also loses the
psycho-moral potentiality to attain the highest civic perfection.
In Fig. 17, we have a graphic representation in three concentric
circles.
[Illustration: FIG. 17]
Let us begin by considering the middle circle, that of the abnormals.
Here we have inscribed, as psycho-moral and physio-pathological
traits, abstemiousness, _anti-social tendency,_ _predisposition to
disease_. Abstemiousness represents a _corrective_, without which the
individual tends toward an anti-social line of action and contracts
diseases. Abstemiousness is present within the circle of abnormal
human beings, as a more or less attainable ideal; but it must be
regarded as the pedagogic goal, when the problem arises of educating
an untypical class of individuals. In other words, there are certain
abnormal individuals who, if they are not to turn out criminals, must
exercise a _violent corrective_ _influence over their psycho-physical
personality_, and they must be trained to do so; for it is an influence
unknown to the normal man, who not only has no inclination to commit
a crime, but recoils from doing so, and on the contrary may arise to
degrees of moral perfection that are inconceivable to the abnormal man.
Consequently, in order to maintain a relatively healthy condition,
certain abnormal individuals are constrained to submit themselves to a
_severe hygienic régime throughout their entire life_; a régime useless
to the normal man, who indulges naturally in all the pleasures which
are consistent with the full measure of physical health, and which
remain forever unknown, and unattainable, to the abnormal individual
organically predisposed to disease.
Such self-restraint we may call the _culte of virtue_, a necessity only
to certain categories of men; and we may also call it the _virtue of
inferior individuals_. It applies and is limited almost wholly to the
individual.
Meanwhile, there is the normal man's high standard of virtue, which is
an indefinite progress toward moral perfection; but the path it follows
lies wholly in the direction of society collectively, or toward the
biological perfectionment of the species. In life's attainment of such
a triumph, man both feels and is _happy_ rather than virtuous.
The separation between the circles, or rather between the different
categories of individuals, the normal and the abnormal, is not
clear-cut. There always exist certain imperceptibly transitional forms,
between normality and abnormality; and furthermore, since no one of us
is ideally normal, no one who is not abnormal in _some one thing_, it
follows that this "some one thing" must be corrected by the humbling
practice of self-discipline. At the same time it is rare for a man to
be abnormal in all parts of his personality; in such a case he would be
outside the social pale, a monstrosity; the high, collective virtues
can, therefore, even if in a limited degree, illuminate the moral life
of the abnormals. St. Paul felt that it "is hard to kick against the
pricks"; and the _picciotto_ of the Camorra feels that he is obeying a
society that protects the weak.
It is a question of _degree_. But such a conception must lead to
a separation in _school_ and in method of education, for the two
categories of individuals.
ABNORMAL TYPES ACCORDING TO DE GIOVANNI'S THEORY
Certain very important pathological types have been distinguished and
established in Italy by De Giovanni, the Paduan clinical professor
who introduced the anthropological method into clinical practice.
Through his interesting studies, he has to-day fortunately revived
the ancient theory of temperaments, explaining them on a basis of
physio-pathological anthropology.
De Giovanni distinguishes two _fundamental types_; the one
_hyposthenic_ (weak), the other _hypersthenic_ (over-excitable); these
two types obey the following rules: morphologically considered, the
hyposthenic type has a total spread of arms greater than the total
stature and a chest circumference of less than half the stature:
these data alone are enough to tell us that the type in question is
_macroscelous_; as a matter of fact, the chest is narrow and the
abdomen narrower still. De Giovanni says that, owing to the scant
pulmonary and abdominal capacity the organs of vegetative life are
inadequate; the heart is too small and unequal to its function of
general irrigator of the organism; the circulation is consequently
sluggish, as shown by the bluish network of veins, indicating some
obstacle to the flow of blood.
The type is predominantly lymphatic, the muscles flaccid, with a
tendency to develop fatty tissues, but very little muscular fibre;
there is a predisposition to bronchial catarrh, but above all to
pulmonary tuberculosis. This _hyposthenic type_, which corresponds
to the _lymphatic temperament_ of Greek medicine, is in reality a
macroscelous type somewhat exceeding normal limits and therefore
physiologically inefficient and feeble.
The following is De Giovanni's description:
_Morphologically._--Deficient chest capacity, deficient abdominal
capacity, disproportionate and excessive development of the limbs;
insufficient muscularity.
_Physiologically._--Insufficient _respiration_, and consequent
scanty supply of oxygen (a form of chronic asphyxia of internal
origin), insufficient _circulation_, because the small heart sends
the blood through the arteries at too low a pressure; and this blood,
insufficiently oxygenated, fails to furnish the tissues with their
normal interchange of matter, and therefore the assimilative functions
in general all suffer; finally, the venous blood is under an excessive
pressure in the veins, the return flow to the heart is rendered
difficult and there results a tendency to venous hyperemia (congestion
of the veins), even in the internal organs. This is accompanied by
what De Giovanni calls _nervous erethism_ (in contradistinction to
_torpor_), which amounts to an abnormal state of the central nervous
system, causing predisposition to insanity and to various forms of
neurasthenia (rapid exhaustion, irritability).
This type is especially predisposed to maladies of the respiratory
system, subject to bronchial catarrh recurring annually, liable to
attacks of bronchitis, pleurisy, and pneumonia, and easily falls victim
to _pulmonary tuberculosis_.
Here are a few cases recorded by De Giovanni.[9] (It must be borne in
mind that the total spread of the arms, _Ts_, ought to equal the total
stature, _St_. The measurements are given in centimetres.)
F. M.--_St_ 147; _Ts_ 151.--Extremely frail; frequent attacks of
hemorrhage of the nose; habitually pale and thin. Certain
disproportions of the skeleton, hands and feet greatly
enlarged; extreme development of the subcutaneous veins.
_Pulmonary tuberculosis_.
A. M.--_St_ 161; _Ts_ 193.--Nervous erethism; from the age of
twelve subject to laryngo-bronchial catarrh; every slight
illness accompanied by fever; habitually thin. _Pulmonary_
_tuberculosis_.
F. M.--_St_ 150; _Ts_ 150; _Ct_ 67.--Lymphatic, torpid, almost
chronic bloating of the abdomen. Enlargement of the glands;
scars from chilblains on hands and feet. _Primary tuberculosis
of_ _the glands, secondary tuberculosis of the lungs._
A. M.--_St_ 172; _Ts_ 179.--Extreme emaciation, heart singularly
small. _Chronic bronchial catarrh._
If it is important for us, as educators, to be acquainted with this
type in the adult state, it ought to interest us far more during its
_ontogenesis_, that is, during the course of its individual evolution.
Since, in the process of growth, man passes through different _stages_,
due to alteration in the relative proportions of the different organs
and parts, it follows that this hyposthenic type correspondingly alters
its _predisposition to disease_. Its final state, manifested by various
defects of development, gave unmistakable forewarnings at every period
of growth.
In early infancy symptoms of rickets presented themselves, and then
disappeared, like an unfulfilled threat: dentition was tardy or
irregular; the head was large and with persistent nodules. This class,
as a type, is weak, sickly, easily attacked by infectious diseases,
tracoma, purulent otitis.
When the first period of growth is passed, _glandular_ symptoms begin,
with liability to sluggishness of the lymphatic glands (scrofula) or
persistent swelling of the lymphatic ganglia of the neck. This is
supplemented by bronchial catarrh, recurring year after year; finally
intestinal catarrh follows, accompanied in most cases by loss of
appetite.
Such conditions are influenced very slightly or not at all by medical
treatment.
During the period of _puberty_, _cardiopalmus_ (palpitation of
the heart) is very likely to occur, often accompanied by frequent
and abundant epistasis, or by the occurrence of slight fever in
the evening, and by blood-stained expectorations, suggestive of
tuberculosis. The patient is pale (oligohæmic), very thin, and shoots
up rapidly (preponderant growth of the limbs); he is subject to
_muscular asthenia_ (weakness, exhaustibility of the muscles) and to
various forms of nervous excitability.
These symptoms also (some of them so serious as to arouse fears, at one
time of rickets and at another of tuberculosis), are all of them quite
beyond the reach of medical treatment (tonics, etc.).
Now, a fact of the highest importance, discovered by De Giovanni,
is that of _spontaneous corrections_, that is, the development of
_compensations_ within the organism, suited to mitigate the anomalous
conditions of this type, and hence the _possibility of_ _an artificial
intervention_ capable of calling forth such compensations. Such
intervention cannot be other then _pedagogic_; and it should consist
in a rational system of gymnastics, designed in one case to develop
the heart, in another the chest, in another to modify the intestinal
functions or to stimulate the material renewal of the body; while every
form of overexertion must be rigorously avoided.
"I think that we should regard as an error not without consequences
what may be seen any day in the gymnasiums of the public schools, where
pupils differing in bodily aptitude, and with different gymnastic
capacity and different needs are with little discernment subjected to
the same identical exercises, for the same length of time.
"And day by day we see the results: there are some children who rebel
outright against the required exercise which they fear and from which
they cannot hope to profit, because it demands an effort beyond their
strength. Some have even been greatly harmed; so that one after another
they abandon these bodily exercises, which if they had been more wisely
directed would assuredly have bettered their lot.
[Illustration: FIG. 18. FIG. 19.
Brachyscelous type (from Viola).]
[Illustration: FIG. 20. FIG. 21.
Macroscelous type (from Viola).]
"Experience also teaches that one pupil may be adapted to one kind
of exercise and another to another kind. Accordingly a really
physiological system of gymnastics requires that _those_ _movements and
those exercises which are least easily performed should_ _be practised
according to special methods, until they have strengthened_ _the less
developed functions_, without ever causing illness or producing harmful
reactions.[10]"
So that the final results are an improvement in the morphological
proportions of the organism, and consequently a correction and
improvement in the relative liability to disease.
The other fundamental pathological type described by De Giovanni is the
_hypersthenic_ (second morphological combination), corresponding in
part to the _sanguine_ temperament of Greek medicine, and in part to
the _bilious_ temperament. In this type the total spread of the arms is
generally less than the stature, and the perimeter of the chest notably
exceeds one-half the stature. Consequently we are dealing with the
_brachyscelous_ type.
This type has a greatly developed thorax, a _large heart_, an excessive
development of the intestines; hence he is a hearty eater, subject
to an over-abundance of blood; he is over-nourished, the ruddy skin
reveals an abundant circulation, there is an excess of adipose tissue
and a good development of the striped muscles. Such a constitution
accompanies an _excitable_, _impulsive_, _violent_ disposition, and
conduces to diseases of the heart. "This type is characterised in
general by robustness and a liability to disorders of the central
circulatory system."[11]
But there are still other forms of disease that await the individuals
of this class, such for example as disorders affecting the interchange
of organic matter (diabetes, gout, polysarcia = obesity) and attacks of
an apoplectic nature. In the case of acute illness individuals of this
class suffer from excess of blood and may be relieved by being bled.
They are readily liable to bloody excretions.
Here are a few cases illustrating this _morphological combination_,
which is characterised by an exorbitant chest development (it must be
borne in mind that the circumference of the thorax, _Ct_, should equal
one-half the stature, _St_).
P. A.--_St_ 156; _Ct_ 93.--Endocarditis; insufficient heart-action.
Z. C.--_St_ 168; _Ct_ 95.--Cerebral hyperemia of an apoplectic
nature. Hypertrophy of the left ventricle of the heart.
_Polysarcous_ (gluttonous) _eater_.
B. G--_St_ 166; _Ct_ 104.--Diabetic, obese, subject to diabetic
ischialgia (neuralgia), frequent recurrence of gravel in the
urine. _Tendency to excesses of the table._
D. G.--_St_ 160; _Ct_ 96.--Polysarcia, the first symptoms of which
appeared in early youth. At the age of sixteen, suffered
from all the discomforts of obesity. Shows atheroma (fatty
degeneration) of the aorta, irregular heart-action, hypertrophy
and enlargement of the heart.
In this brachyscelous type it may happen either that the whole trunk
(that is, both the thoracic and abdominal cavities) is in excess, or
else that the excessive development is confined to the abdomen. This
latter case is very frequent, and may easily be found even in early
childhood. Such children are hearty eaters, are very active and, for
this reason, the pride and joy of their parents. Nevertheless, there
are many signs that should give warning of constitutional defects;
constant digestive disturbances (diarrhoea), frequent headaches, pains
in the joints, apparently of a rheumatic character, tendency to pains
in the liver which is excessively enlarged; excess of adipose tissue;
a tendency to fall ill very easily, of maladies that are almost always
happily overcome (but the truly robust person is not the one who
recovers from illness, but the one who _does not become ill_), and
finally an excessively lively disposition, irritability and above all,
_impulsiveness_.
Such individuals ought, like the macrosceles, to live under the
necessary and perpetual tyranny of a hygienic régime, adapted to
correct or to diminish the morbid predispositions associated with the
organism. A special dietetic, a regular hydrotherapic treatment, a
moderate gymnastic exercise designed to _direct_ the child's motive
powers, and thus to prepare the _man_ for that form of existence to
which it is necessary for him to subject himself, if he does not wish
to shorten his own life, or at least his period of activity--all these
things are so many duties which the _school_ ought in great part to
assume.
In this way we have briefly considered the _abnormal_ types of
brachyscelia and macroscelia, which by their very constitution are
_predisposed_ to incur special and characteristic forms of disease,
which may be avoided only by subjecting the organism to a special
hygienic regimen. _Men cannot all live according to the same rules._
TYPES OF STATURE IN CRIMINALS
In these latter times, some very recent researches have been made
by applying De Giovanni's method to the anthropological study of
criminals, especially through the labours of Dr. Boxich. He has
found that the great majority of parasitic criminals, thieves for
example, are macrosceles. They exhibit the stigmata already revealed
by Lombroso: great length of the upper limbs, with elongated hands;
furthermore, a narrow chest and a small heart, insufficient for
its vital function; such individuals are singularly predisposed to
pulmonary tuberculosis, and hence in their physical constitution they
are already stamped as organisms of inferior biological value--having
little endurance and almost no ability as producers--consequently they
are forced to live as they can, that is like parasites, profiting by
the work of others. On the contrary, the great majority of criminals
of a violent character present the brachyscelous type: the thorax is
greatly developed, the heart hypertrophic, the arterial circulation
superabundant. This class of criminals, including a large proportion of
murderers, have a special tendency to _act from impulse_, corresponding
to their large heart which sends an excess of blood pulsing violently
to the brain, obscuring the psychic functions; or, in the speech of the
people, such a man has "lost his reason," "the light goes from the eyes
when the blood goes to the brain."
Here are some notes regarding these two different types: we will
select as measures of comparison the stature and the weight, bearing
in mind that in the macrosceles the weight is scanty and that the
opposite is true of the brachysceles, while normally there ought to be
a pretty close correspondence between the weight in kilograms and the
centimetres of stature over and above one metre.
TYPES OF NON-VIOLENT CRIMINALS (_Parasites_)
Case No. 24.--_St._ 168; _Wt._ 56. Farm steward, three years'
sentence for theft. Pallid complexion, visible veins, scant
muscles. Heart small and weak, pulse feeble and slow.
Case No. 34.--_St._ 175; _Wt._ 61. Baker, comfortable financial
circumstances, has received a number of sentences for theft,
amounting altogether to ten years. Is twenty-four years of age.
Cyanosis of the extremities (bluish tinge, due to excessive
venous circulation). Cardiac action feeble. Scant muscles.
Case No. 43.--_St._ 156; _Wt._ 51. Peasant. Straitened
circumstances. Four years' sentence for theft. Rejected by the
army board for defective chest measurement. Dark complexion.
Extensive acne. Scant muscles. Bronchial catarrh. Has had
hemoptysis (spitting of blood). Cardiac action weak. Pulse very
feeble.
Case No. 52.--_St._ 173; _Wt._ 66. Book-binder. Prosperous
circumstances. Four years' sentence or thereabouts, for theft;
age, twenty-four. Conjunctivitis and blepharitis from early
childhood. Frontal and parietal nodules prominent. Muscles
scant; cardiac action weak; lymphatic glands of the neck
enlarged.
The following is an example of the typical thief:[12]
_St._ 162; _Wt._ 46.--Exceedingly small heart, feeble cardiac
action. Suffers from chronic bronchial catarrh. Cranial nodules
very prominent. Began as a small child to steal in his own
home, and since then has received sentence after sentence for
theft, up to his present age of twenty-nine.
TYPES OF VIOLENT CRIMINALS (_Assault_, _Mayhem_, _Homicide_)
Case No. 54.--_St._ 157; _Wt._ 62. Peasant. Good financial
circumstances. Condemned to thirty years in prison for
homicide. Well-developed muscles. Blood vessels congested.
Strong heart action; the pulsation extends as far down as the
epigastrium. Ample pulse.
Case No. 60.--_St._ 156; _Wt._ 70. Shoemaker. Bad financial
circumstances. Condemned to fifteen years' imprisonment for
homicide, after having been previously convicted three times
for theft. The chest circumference exceeds one-half the stature
by 11 centimetres. Subject to frequent pains in the head. Good
muscles. Corpulent. Full pulse. (It should be noticed that the
florid complexion, accompanying this type of stature, persists
in spite of straitened circumstances!)
Case No. 85.--_St._ 168; _Wt._ 70. Turner in iron. Comfortable
circumstances. Sentenced to thirty years in prison after one
previous conviction for criminal assault. Ruddy complexion.
Veins not visible. Abdomen very prominent. Gastrectasia
(dilation of the stomach). Entire cardiac region protuberant.
Laboured breathing. Cardiac action abundant.
Hence we perceive, in the etiology of crime, the importance of the
organic factor, connected directly with the lack of harmony in the
viscera and their functions, and consequently accompanied by special
morbid predispositions.
As a result of this line of research, criminality and pathology are
coming to be studied more and more in conjunction. For that matter,
it was already observed by Lombroso that in addition to the various
external malformations found in criminals, there were also certain
anomalies of the internal organs, and a widespread and varied
predisposition to disease. In short, his statistics reveal a prevalence
of cardiac maladies and of tuberculosis in criminals, as well as a
great frequency of diseases of the liver and the intestines.
EXTREME OR INFANTILE TYPES, NANISM AND GIGANTISM, EXTRA-SOCIAL TYPES
Whenever the disproportion between the bust and the limbs surpasses
the extreme normal limits, the whole individual reveals a complex
departure from type. Thus, for example, in connection with extreme
_brachyscelia_, there exists a characteristic form of nanism
(dwarfishness), called _achondroplastic nanism_, in which, although
the bust is developed very nearly within normal limits, the limbs on
the contrary are arrested in their growth so as to remain permanently
nothing more than _little appendages_ of the trunk. This calls to mind
the foetal form of the new-born child, and the resulting type, because
of this morphological coincidence, is classed among the infantile types.
Achondroplastic nanism is associated with a _pathological_ deformity
due to foetal rickets. It is not only the child after birth, but
the foetus also which, during its intrauterine life, may be subject
to diseases. Rickets (always a localised disease, usually attacking
some part of the skeleton) in this case fastens upon the enchondral
cartilages of the long bones. As we know, the long bones are composed
of a body or _diaphysis_ and of extremities or articular heads, the
_epiphyses_. Now, these different parts, which form in the adult
a continuous whole, remain separate throughout the foetal and the
immediate post-natal period: so that the heads of the humerus and the
femur, for example, in the case of the new-born child, are found to
be joined to the _diaphysis_ by cartilages (destined to ossify later
on), which are the chief seat of growth of the bones in the direction
of length. Well, in these cases of pre-natal rickets, the union of the
bony segments takes place prematurely, and since the bones can hardly
grow at all in length, they develop in thickness, and the result is
that the limbs remain very short and stocky. Meanwhile the bust, the
bones of which have in no way lost their power of growth, develops
normally.
Now, these dwarfs, who have abundant intelligence, because they have
the essential parts of stature in their favour, constituted the famous
jesters of the mediæval courts, whose misfortune served to solace the
leisure hours of royalty. Paolo Veronese went so far as to introduce a
dwarf buffoon, of the achondroplastic type, into his famous painting,
_The Wedding at Cana_.
Conversely, in connection with an exaggerated _macroscelia_, we have
gigantism.
Ordinarily, a giant has a bust that is not greatly in excess of normal
dimensions. The limbs, on the contrary, depart extremely from the
normal limits, in an exaggerated growth in the direction of length: so
much so that the bodies of giants present the appearance of small busts
moving around on stilts.
Nevertheless, many different forms of gigantism occur. The pathology
of this phenomenon is quite complex; but we can not concern ourselves
with it here. It is a scientific problem of no immediate utility to
our pedagogic problems. Dwarfs and giants, whatever their type and
their pathological etiology, constitute extra-social individuals, who
have been at all times excluded from any possibility of adaptation
to useful labour, and employed, whether in the middle ages or in the
twentieth century, to a greater or less extent as a source of amusement
to normal beings, because of their grotesque appearance, either at
court or in the theatres, or in moving pictures, or (in the case of
giants) as figures suited to adorn princely or imperial gateways. These
individuals are as completely independent of the social conditions of
the environment in which they were born as if they were extraneous to
humanity. In relation to the species, they are _sterile_.
From the biological side, a consideration of these types serves merely
as an illustration of an important law: _the essential part_ _of the
organism_ (the vertebral column) is _less variable_ than the accessory
parts (the limbs).
SUMMARY OF THE TYPES OF STATURE
According to the relative development of bust and limbs we have
distinguished three types, the macrosceles, the brachysceles and the
mesatisceles, within their respective limits of oscillation.
Since the type of stature gives us a proportion between the different
parts of an individual, it constitutes a fundamental criterion for
a morphological judgment of the personality. That is, it leads to a
diagnosis of the individual constitution, with which are associated not
only the "character" but also certain predispositions to disease.
A knowledge of these _types_ shows us the necessity we educators are
under of taking into consideration the individual pupils, each of whom
may have separate needs, tendencies and forms of development; and of
demanding separate _schools_, in which even the _methods_ _of moral
education_ must differ. Because men are not only not all adapted to
the same forms of work, but they are not even all adapted to the same
standards of _morality_. And since it is our duty to assume the task
of aiding the _biological development_ and the _social adaptation_ of
the new generations, it will also be part of our task to _correct_
defective organisms, and at the same time to correct the types of
mental and moral inferiority.
In the following chart we may summarise the points of view from which
we have studied the types of stature:
SYNOPTIC CHART
Types of { Macrosceles {long legs, short bust.
stature { Brachysceles {short legs, long bust.
{ { / Mongols (brachysceles).
{ { { Tasmanians (macrosceles).
{ { { Dark Mediterranean race
{ { { (mesatisceles tending
{ { Race { toward brachyscelia).
Variations in { { { Blond race (mesatisceles
types of { Normal { { tending toward macroscelia).
stature { { / Woman more brachyscelous.
{ { Sex \ Man more macroscelous.
{ { { Childhood brachyscelous.
{ { Age { Old age macroscelous.
{ / De Giovanni's { Macrosceles
{ { hyposthenic { predisposed to
{ Pathologically{ types { tuberculosis.
{ abnormal. { De Giovanni's { Brachysceles predisposed
Variations in { { hypersthenic { predisposed to
types of { { types. { diseases of
stature { { { the heart.
{ Criminals. / Macrosceles......parasites.
{ \ Brachysceles.....violent.
{ Infantile / Achondroplastic nanism.
{ types \ Gigantism.
SUMMARY OF THE SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES ILLUSTRATED IN THE COURSE OF OUR
DISCUSSION
_Biological Laws._--_a._ Growth is not only an augmentation in volume,
but also an evolution in form.
_b._ The more essential parts vary less than the accessory parts in the
course of their transformations.
_The Index._--The index is the mathematical relation between the
measurements belonging to the same individual, and as such it gives us
an idea of the _form_; since the form is determined by the relations
between the various parts constituting the whole.
THE STATURE
While the figure and the type of stature tend to delineate the
_individual_ considered by himself, the different measurements
considered separately may guide us in our study of individuals in their
relation to the race and the environment.
Among the measurements of the _form_, we will limit ourselves to
a study of the _stature_ and the _weight_, which serve to give us
respectively the linear index of development and the volumetric
estimate of the body taken as a whole. We shall reserve the study of
the other measurements, such as the total spread of the arms and the
perimeter of the thorax, until we come to the analytical investigation
of the separate parts of the body (limbs, thorax).
The _stature_ is expressed by a _linear measure_ determined by the
distance intervening in a vertical direction between the plane on which
the individual is standing in an erect position and the top of his head.
It follows that the _stature_ is a measurement determined by the _erect
position_; on the other hand, when a man is in a recumbent position,
what we could determine would be the _length_ of body, which is not
identical with the stature.
In fact, a man on foot, resting his weight upon articulations that are
elastic, and therefore compressible, is a little shorter than when he
is recumbent.
If we examine the skeleton (see Fig. 9), we discover that the single
synthetic measure that constitutes the stature results from a sum of
parts that differ greatly from one another. To be specific, it is
composed of the long and short bones of the lower limbs; of flat bones,
such as the pelvis and the skull; of little spongy bones, such as the
vertebræ; all of which bones and parts obey different laws in the
course of their growth. Furthermore, intervening between these various
bones are _soft_, elastic parts, known as the articulations, which,
starting from below, succeed each other in the following order:
1. _Calcaneo-astragaloid_, between the _calcaneus_ and the superimposed
_astragalus_.
2. _Tibio-astragaloid_, between the _astragalus_ and the superimposed
_tibia_.
3. Of the _knee_, between the _tibia_ and the _femur_.
4. Of the _hip_, between the _femur_ and the _os innominatum_.
5. _Sacro-iliac_, between the _os iliacum_ and the _sacrum_.
6. _Sacro-vertebral_, between the _sacrum_ and the _last lumbar
vertebra_.
7. Of the _vertebræ_, consisting of 23 intervertebral disks, that is to
say interposed between the vertebræ, which include the following: _5
lumbar,_ _12 thoracic, 7 cervical_.
8. _Occipito-atloid_, between the first cervical vertebra, called the
_atlas_ and the _os occipitale_ of the cranium.
Accordingly, there are _thirty_ articulations in all; and of these,
23 are the intervertebral disks, which constitute, taken together, a
fourth part of the complex height of the vertebral column.
Furthermore, the height of the body cannot be considered simply the
_sum_ of the component parts, since these are not superimposed in
a straight line. As a matter of fact, if we examine the vertebral
column, we see that it is not straight as in the case of animals, but
exhibits certain curves that are characteristic of the _human species_,
and must be taken into consideration in their relation to the _erect
position_. In fact, the vertebral column presents two curvatures, the
one _lumbar_, and the other _cervical_, which together give it the
form of an S. These curvatures are _acquired_ along with the _erect
position_, and are not innate; one of the points of difference between
the skeleton of the new-born child and that of the adult is precisely
this, that the former has a _straight_ vertebral column.
A fact of no small importance to note, since in the _course of_
_growth_ a certain _determined_ form of normal curve, and no other,
ought to establish itself; otherwise, _abnormal deviations_ in the
vertebral column will become established. And for the very reason that
it is _plastic_ and _destined_ to assume a _curve_, the vertebral
column may very easily be forced into exaggerating or departing from
its morphological destiny. In such a case, the resulting stature would
be _inferior_ to what it should normally have been.
Accordingly, the stature is the resultant of the sum of _anatomical_
_parts_ and of _morphological conditions_.
Hence it is a _linear index_ not only of _biological man_, that is,
of man considered in relation to his racial limitations; but also of
social man, that is, of man as he has developed in the struggle for
adaptation to his environment.
_The limits of stature, according to race._ Stature is an
anthropological datum of great _biological_ value, since it is a
definite _racial_ characteristic and is preserved from generation to
generation by _heredity_. The first distinguishing trait of a race is
the height of the body in its natural erect position. It is also the
first characteristic that strikes us when a stranger comes toward us
for the first time. And that is why we make it the leading descriptive
trait: a person of tall, or of low stature. If, for a moment, we should
picture to ourselves the legend of Noah's Ark--quite incredible,
because emigration and embarkation of all the known species would have
required more than a century of time (it is enough merely to think of
the embarkation of the tortoises and the sloths!), and the necessity of
an ark as big as a nation, what must inevitably have struck Noah and
his sons would have been the _stature_ of the individuals belonging to
each separate species.
The _stature_ is the linear index of the limit of mass.
Among the human races the variations in stature are included between
fairly wide oscillations: coming down to facts, the average stature
of the Akkas is 1.387 m. (4 ft. 6-1/2 in.) for the males; and that of
the Scotchmen of Galloway is 1.792 m. (5 ft. 10-1/2 in.). Accordingly
between the average heights of the two races that are considered as the
_extremes_, there is a difference of 40 cm. (15-3/4 in.); but since
the averages are obtained from a complex mass of normal measurements,
some of which are _above_ and others necessarily _below_ the average
itself, we may assert that the "_normal human individuals_" may differ
in stature to an extent of more than half a metre; the oscillations of
normal individuals on each side of the racial average being estimated
at about 10 cm. (3.937 in.).
If we should see a little Akka 4 ft. 4 in. (1.33 m.) in height
alongside of a Scotchman 6 ft. (1.83 m.) high we should say "a _dwarf_
beside a _giant_." But such terms are _pathological_ and should
never be employed to indicate _normal individualities_. As a matter
of fact dwarfs and giants are as a class extra-social and sterile;
normal individuals, on the contrary, represent the physiopsychic
characteristics of their respective races. Consequently we may say that
normal people have a _low stature_, or a _high stature_; or if it is a
question of extremely low stature (such as that of the Akkas) we may
make use of the term _pigmies_ or of the _pigmy race_, in speaking of
such individuals. Sergi has proved the existence, among the prehistoric
inhabitants of Europe, of various pigmy races.
In the field of anthropology the scientific terminology ought always
to be based upon certain determined limits. The authorities indicate
the normal extremes of individual stature, beyond which we pass over
the into realm of _pathology_, incompatible with the survival of the
species; and even in the pathological cases they determine the extreme
limits, obtained from the individual monstrosities that have actually
existed in the course of the centuries, and that seem to indicate the
furthest limits attained by the human race.
Deniker, in summing up the principal authorities, assigns the following
limits:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Normal statures, range of oscillations among the races|
|-------|----------------------------------------------|
Statures|Lowest |Exception-|Extreme|Extreme |Exception-|Highest|Statures
less |indi- |ally low |low |high |ally high | indi- |from
than |vidual |individual|racial |racial |individual|vidual |2 m.
1.25 m. | | stature |average|average | stature |extreme|upward
--------+-------+----------+-------+--------+----------+-------+---------
Nanism |1.25 m.| 1.35 m. | Akkas |Scotch- | 1.90 m. |1.99 m.|Gigantism
| | | 1.387 | men of | | |
| | | m. |Galloway| | |
| | | |1.792 m.| | |
----------------|--------------------------------------------------------
The pathological extremes that would seem to indicate the limits of
stature compatible with human life would seem to be on the one hand
the little female dwarf, Hilany Agyba of Sinai, described by Jaest and
cited by Deniker,[13] 15 inches high (0.38 m.--the average length of
the Italian child at birth is 0.50 m. = 19-1/2 in.), and on the other,
the giant Finlander, Caianus, cited by Topinard[14], 9 ft. 3-1/2 in. in
height (2.83); the two extremes of human stature would accordingly bear
a ratio of 1:7. On the other hand, Quétélet[15] gives the two extremes
as being relatively 1:6--namely, the Swedish giant who was one of the
guardsmen of Frederick the Great, and was 2.523 m. tall (8 ft. 3 in.);
and the dwarf cited by Buffon, 0.43 m. in height (16-3/4 in.).
When there is occasion for applying the terms _tall_ or _low_ stature
to individuals of our own race, it is necessary at the same time to
establish limits that will determine the precise meaning of such terms.
Livi[16] gives as the average stature for Italians 1.65 m. (5 ft. 5
in.), and speaking authoritatively as the leading statistician in
Anthropology, establishes the following limits:
STATURE OF ITALIANS (LIVI)
Averages Determining The Terminology of Stature
-----------------------+-------------------------+--------------------
1.60 m. and below, low | 1.65 m. and all between |1.70 m. and above,
statures. | 1.60-1.70, mean statures| tall statures.
-----------------------+-------------------------+--------------------
The individual extremes among the low statures tend to approach the
average stature of the Japanese race (1.55 m.), and those among the
high statures approach the Anglo-Saxon average (the Scotch = 1.79 m.)
There is much to interest us in studying the _distribution_ of statures
in Italy.
In Livi's great charts, he has marked in _blue_ those regions where
the prevailing percentage of stature is high (1.70 m. and upward), and
in red those where the low statures prevail (1.60 m. and below); and
the varying intensity of colouration indicates the greater or lesser
prevalence of the high or low statures.
Thus it becomes evident in one glance of the eye that tall statures
prevail in northern Italy and low statures in the south; while the
maximum of low stature (indicated by the most intense red) is found in
the islands, and especially in Sardinia.
In the vicinity of the central districts of Italy (the Marches, Umbria,
Latium) the two colours fade out; this indicates that here all notable
prevalence of stature, either tall or low, ceases; consequently we have
here, as the prevailing norm, the mean stature (1.65 m.).
Anyone wishing to analyse the natural distribution of stature, has
only to study these charts by Livi, which are worked out with great
minuteness. If a study of this sort, extending over the entire
peninsula, seems too great an undertaking, it is at least advisable
for a teacher to acquaint himself with the _local distribution_ of
stature; in order that when it becomes his duty to judge of the stature
of pupils in his school he will have the necessary idea regarding the
_biological_ (racial) _basis_ on which so important an anthropological
datum can oscillate.
Livi's charts, based upon the male stature, correspond almost perfectly
with my own regional charts based upon the _average_ _statures_ of the
women of Latium. Both Livi and I find that in the region of Latium
the tall statures prevail north of the Tiber, especially toward
the confines of Umbria; while the lowest statures are found in the
neighbourhood of the valley of the Tiber, toward the sea (Castelli
Romani). That is to say, the stature becomes lower from north to south,
and from the mountains toward the sea. Furthermore, there exist certain
nuclei of pure race, such as at Orte and in Castelli Romani, where we
may find the extremes of average stature, which for women are found to
be 1.61 m. at Orte, and 1.47 m. at Castelli Romani; while the extreme
individual statures, according to my figures, oscillate between 1.42
m. (Castelli) and 1.70 m. (Orte). It would be helpful to the teachers
of Rome and Latium, if they would acquire some idea regarding the
racial types of the district, by studying my work on the _Physical
Characteristics_ _of the young Women of Latium_, which is the only work
on regional anthropology taken directly from life that so far exists in
anthropologic literature.[17]
_The Stature in Relation to Sex._--It is sufficient to point out that
the stature varies normally between the sexes, so that the average
figures differ by about 10 centimetres (nearly 4 in.) in the direction
of a lower stature for woman.
VARIATIONS IN STATURE THROUGH THE DIFFERENT AGES
Notwithstanding that growth is an evolution, it manifests itself also
by an _absolute augmentation of mass_; and the linear index of such
augmentation is given by the _growth in stature_, or by its variations
at different ages.
This exceedingly important measurement ought to be taken in the case of
all pupils; and undoubtedly in the course of time anthropometry will
form a part of our school equipment; because, by following the increase
of stature in a child, we follow his physical development.
In Chapter VII, in which the technique of the stature is discussed,
there is a graphic representation of the annual increase of stature
in the two sexes; the upper parabolic line refers to the male sex,
and the lower one to the female. On the vertical line are marked the
measures of growth, from the base upward, and on the horizontal line
the ages. All the dotted vertical lines which rise from the horizontal,
each corresponding to a successive year of life, and stop at the
parabolic line, represent the relative proportion of stature from year
to year; while the parabola which unites the extremities of such lines
may be regarded as a line drawn tangent to the top of the head of an
individual through the successive periods of his life.
If we analyse this table, we find that the greatest increase in stature
takes place during the first year; in fact, a child which at birth has
an average length of body of 0.50 m. for males, and 0.48 m. for females
(the new-born child does not have _stature_, but only _length of body_,
since it has not yet acquired an erect position) has by the end of the
first year augmented the length of body by 20 centimetres, which gives
an average length of 0.70 m. In no other year of life will the stature
acquire so notable an increase; it is very important for mothers to
watch the growth of the child during this first year of its life; and
the following figures may be useful for comparison:
It will be seen that the maximum increase takes place during the first
four months--especially in the first month (4 cm. = 1.57 in.) the rate
diminishing from this point up to the fourth month (2 cm. = 0.78 in.),
after which the monthly increase remains steadily at one centimetre
(0.39 in.).
[Illustration: FIG. 22.--New-born child, seen from in front and from
behind. (Stratz.)]
[Illustration: 1 year. 8 months. 4 months. at birth.
FIG. 23--Skeleton of a child from birth to the age of one year.]
GROWTH IN LENGTH OF BODY DURING THE FIRST YEAR OF LIFE
(FROM FIGUEIRA)
--------------+-------------------+-----------------
Age in months | Length of body in | Monthly increase
| metres |
--------------+-------------------+-----------------
0 | 0.50 | 0
1 | 0.54 | 4
2 | 0.57 | 3
3 | 0.60 | 3
4 | 0.62 | 2
5 | 0.63 | 1
6 | 0.64 | 1
7 | 0.65 | 1
8 | 0.66 | 1
9 | 0.67 | 1
10 | 0.68 | 1
11 | 0.69 | 1
12 | 0.70 | 1
--------------+-------------------+-----------------
The same facts appear from the combination picture given by Stratz,
showing an infant's skeleton at four-month intervals from birth to the
end of the first year.
During the second year of life, the increase in stature is about
one-half that of the preceding year, that is, about 10 cm. (4 in.),
so that at the end of the second year the child attains a height of
about 80 cm. (31-1/2 in.). After this, the annual increase diminishes
in intensity (see "Figures of the increase of stature according to
Quétélet and other authors," in the technical part, Chapter VII), as is
shown by the horizontal dotted lines, which, starting from a vertical
line at points corresponding to the height of various statures,
represent by the intervals of space between them the successive growth
from year to year.
This increase is not regular, but proceeds by periodic impulses that in
early childhood seem to recur at intervals of three years.
Thus for example the increase
between 0- 3 years of age is successively 20, 10, 6 cm.
between 3- 6 years of age is successively 7, 6, 5 cm.
between 6- 9 years of age is successively 7, 6, 5 cm.
between 9-12 years of age is successively 6, 4, 3 cm.
Accordingly we have a _triennial rhythm_, decreasing throughout the
whole period of childhood; the maximum increase is in the first
triennium, the second and third periods of three years correspond
exactly, while the last period shows a lowered rate of increase.
At this point the period of approaching puberty begins (13 years for
boys), after which the rate of increase becomes more rapid than it had
been during the second or third period, attaining its maximum during
the years 13-15; to be specific, the rate from 13 to 18 is successively
4, 8, 7, 5, 6, 3 cm.
When the period of puberty is ended (18 years), the rate of growth is
much slower; in fact, during the two following years (18 to 20) it
hardly attains one centimetre.
Nevertheless, the stature continues to increase up to the twenty-fifth
year; according to Quétélet's figures, the average male stature at the
age of eighteen is 1.70 m. (in Belgium) and at twenty-one it is 1.72 m.
From twenty-five to thirty-five the stature remains stable; this is the
adult age, the full attainment of maturity; at the age of forty the
period of involution insensibly begins, and after fifty in the case of
women, and sixty in the case of men, the stature begins insensibly to
decrease; a decrease which becomes more marked with the advance of age,
corresponding to an anatomical diminution of the soft parts interposed
between the bones in the sum of parts that make up the stature; more
especially the intervertebral disks; and in connection with this
phenomenon the vertebral column tends to become more curved.
According to Quétélet's figures, at the age of eighty the average male
stature is 1.61 m. (5 ft. 3-2/5 in.), a stature corresponding to that
of the age of sixteen.
Accordingly, the variations in stature throughout the different periods
of life are neither a _growth_ nor an _evolution_, but a _parabolic_
_curve_, including _evolution and involution_. This curve represents
the true _human stature_; the measurements taken successively from year
to year representing nothing more than transitory _episodes_ in the
individual life.
_Man_, as he really is, we may represent by portraits taken
successively from time to time, from his birth until his death; the
occasional photograph which it is the custom to have taken represents
nothing; following no rule, it seizes a fugitive instant in the life
of an individual, who is never a fixed quantity but is constantly in
transition during the whole course of his existence. So that the habit
of taking a picture annually on a child's birthday is an excellent
one if we wish to preserve a true likeness; and this practice is
recommended in pedagogic anthropology, when it is desired to preserve
the biographic history of the pupil.
It is interesting to study, side by side with the growth of stature and
the marked rhythms and periods that constitute its laws, the phenomenon
of general mortality in its relation to age.
Lexis gives the following curve of general mortality: the horizontal
line marks the years and the vertical line the corresponding number
of deaths, while the curved line shows the _progress_ of mortality,
and the highest points in the curve indicate the maximum mortality. It
is highest of all during the first year and in general during early
childhood, and is steadily lowered to a point corresponding to the ages
from ten to thirteen, after which it rises again.
[Illustration: FIG. 24.--Curve of general mortality (Lexis).]
Let us examine the curve up to this point, since it has a bearing upon
our school work. We can prove that the _maximum mortality_ corresponds
to the maximum individual growth; in other words, an organism in _rapid
evolution_ is exposed to death, its powers of immunity to infective
diseases are weakened; it constitutes what in medical parlance is known
as a _locus minoris resistentiæ_.
In that period of _calm_ in growth, which would seem to be a _repose_
preceding the evolution of puberty, mortality is at the lowest; only
to rise again rapidly _during the period of puberty_; while the rise
becomes less rapid after the eighteenth year, notwithstanding that
after that age mankind in general are exposed, in their struggle for
existence, to many causes of death that did not exist during the
preceding years. Toward the age of seventy the line of mortality
attains another apex, because the age of _normal death_ is reached;
after which it drops precipitously because of the lack of survivors.
From these facts we may deduce certain very important principles that
throw useful light upon pedagogy: there are certain _ages at which even
the strong are weak_; and their weakness is of such a nature that it
_exposes the individual to death_.
Now, whenever the phenomenon of _mortality_ occurs it is always an
indication of _impoverishment in the survivors_. For example, of every
one person that dies, many persons have been ill who have recovered
from their illness; but there are still many others who, although
they did not actually fall ill, were weakened even though they passed
through the peril unharmed.
In short, for each death, which represents a _final disaster_, there
are many victims. And whenever there is a rise in the phenomenon of
mortality in connection with any one age, it is our duty to give
special attention to those individuals who are not only weak in
themselves, but whom the _social causes affecting_ them tend to weaken
still more and push onward toward illness and death. Whenever there are
many deaths, there are undoubtedly also _many sufferers_.
Now, in pedagogy we have no criterion to guide us in this matter of
_respecting the weaknesses characteristic of the various ages_, as, for
example, that of early infancy and of the age of puberty.
With the most cruel blindness we punish and discourage the lad who,
having reached the age of puberty, no longer makes the progress in his
studies that rendered him the brilliant champion during the period of
physiological repose in his growth; and instead of regarding this as
a psychic indication of a great physiological transformation that it
is necessary to protect, we urge on the organism to _enforced effort_,
without even suspecting that, in proportion to the degree of resistance
of our pupil, we may be doing our share to induce in him a permanent
weakness, or an arrest of development, or disease and death.
Our responsibility as educators is great, because we have the _threads
of life_ entrusted to our care; man represents a continuous transition
through successive forms, and each following period has been prepared
for by the one preceding.
Whenever we have the misfortune to concur in _weakening a_ _child_, we
touch that parabolic line traced in the graphic chart of stature, and
standing as an index of the life of the body, and we give it a shock
throughout its whole length; it may either be shattered or be brought
down to a lower grade.
But the life of an individual does not contain merely that _individual
alone_; the cycle of the stature with its violent period of puberty and
the perfect physiological repose corresponding to the years from 25
to 36, or even 45, indicates the _eternity of the individual_ _in the
species_: his maturity for reproduction. Man in his progress through
the different levels of height, as indicated on the graphic chart
of stature, does not pass through them without reproducing himself,
save in exceptional cases; he commences the ascent alone, but in his
descent he attains the majesty of a creator who leaves behind him the
immortal works of his own creation. Well, even the capacity of _normal
reproduction_, and of begetting a strong species, is related to the
_normal cycle of life_: whoever weakens a child and puts a strain upon
the threads of its existence, starts a vibration that will be felt
throughout posterity.
The parabolic cycle of stature shows us which is the most favourable
period for the reproduction of the species; it is undoubtedly that
period that stands at the highest apex of the curve, and at which the
organism has reached an almost absolute peace, as if forgetful of
itself, in order to provide for its eternity. When it has completed its
period of _evolution_, during which the organism shows that it has not
yet matured; and before the commencement of involution, in which period
the organism is slowly preparing for departure--that is the moment when
man _may_ or rather _ought_ to procreate his species.
Careful forethought not to produce immature or feeble fruit, will
form part of the coming man's regard for his posterity. A new moral
era is maturing, that is giving birth to a _solidarity_, not only
between all living beings, but including also those future beings who
are as yet unborn; but for whose existence the living man of to-day
is preparing through his care of his own strength and his own virtue.
To have intentionally begotten a son better than himself will be a
proud victory for the man who has attained the higher sexual morality;
and such pride will be no less keen than that of the artist, who by
perfecting his marvelous talents has created a masterpiece.
The statistics collected by Quétélet demonstrate that "too precocious
marriages either occasion sterility or produce children that have a
smaller probability of living."
They prove furthermore that the number of children who die is largest
in marriages contracted at the age of sixteen or earlier, and becomes
lowest among the children born of marriages contracted between the
years of 29 and 32. During these years also the parents are most
fertile: as is shown by the following tables:
SANDLER'S FIGURES BASED ON THE FAMILIES OF ENGLISH PEERS
----------------------------------------------------------------------
| Percentage of | |
Age of parents |deaths of children| Average births to| Percentage of
at marriage | before attaining | each marriage |births to each
| marriageable age | | death
---------------+------------------+------------------+----------------
15 years | 35 | 4.40 | 0.283
16-19 years | 20 | 4.63 | 0.208
20-23 years | 19 | 5.21 | 0.188
24-27 years | 12 | 5.43 | 1.171
----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Age at the time | Percentage of deaths | Average number of births
of child's birth | to each birth | in one year of marriage
-----------------+----------------------+-----------------------------
16 years | 0.44 | 0.46
17-20 years | 0.43 | 0.50
21-24 years | 0.42 | 0.52
25-28 years | 0.41 | 0.55
29-32 years | 0.40 | 0.59
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The results of a recent research show that famous men have hardly ever
been the first-born, and that the great majority were begotten of
parents who were at the time between the ages of 25 and 36 years.
_Variations of Stature with Age, According to the Sexes._--The general
laws of the growth and involution of stature are pretty nearly the same
for the two sexes. The female stature, beginning at birth, averages
throughout life somewhat less than the male.
But since the development of puberty takes place earlier in woman
than in man, the female child manifests the characteristic increase
in stature at an earlier age than the male; consequently at that age
(about eleven) she overtakes him, and for the time being both boy and
girl are equal in stature. But as soon as the boy enters upon the
period of puberty, he rapidly surpasses the girl, and his stature
henceforth steadily maintains a superiority of about ten centimetres
(nearly four inches), as is shown by the deviations between the two
parabolic curves, representing the variations of stature in the two
sexes. Even the involution of stature occurs precociously in women, as
compared with man.
VARIATIONS IN STATURE DUE TO MECHANICAL CAUSES OF ADAPTATION TO
ENVIRONMENT
_Variations due to Mechanical Causes. Transitory and Permanent_
_Variations. Deformations._--The individual stature is not a fixed
quantity at all hours of the day; but it varies by several millimetres
under the influence of mechanical causes connected with the habits of
daily life. In the morning we are slightly taller than at night (by a
fraction of a centimetre): in consequence of remaining on foot a good
deal of the time during the day, our stature is gradually lowered. This
is contrary to the popular belief that "while we stand up our stature
grows."
As a matter of fact, in the erect position the soft tissues that form
part of the total stature are under constant pressure; but being
elastic, they resume their previous proportions after prolonged rest in
a horizontal position.
Consequently at night, especially if we have taken a long walk,
or danced, we are shorter than in the morning after a long sleep;
the act of stretching the limbs in the morning completes the work
of restoring the articular cartilages to their proper limits of
elasticity. Nevertheless, according to the mechanical theory accepted
by Manouvrier, persons who are habituated from childhood to stand on
foot much of the time (labourers) interfere with the free growth of
the long bones in the direction of length and at the same time augment
the growth in thickness; hence the skeleton is rendered definitely
shorter in its segments as well as in its bones (_i.e._, a shallower
pelvis, shorter limbs, etc.). The result is a stocky type with robust
muscles: the _europlastic type_, which is found among labourers. On
the contrary, a person who spends much time reclining on sofas among
cushions, and taking abundant nutriment, is likely to tend toward the
opposite extreme; bones long and slender, the skeleton tall in all its
segments, the muscular system delicate; this is the _macroplastic_
or aristocratic type. According to Manouvrier, when a person has a
long, slow convalescence after a protracted infectious malady such
as typhoid, recumbent much of the time and subjected to a _highly
nutritive_ diet, it may happen, especially if he has reached the period
of puberty at which a rapid osteogenesis naturally takes place in the
cartilages of the long bones, that he will not only become notably
taller, but will even acquire the macroplastic type.
The macroplastic type is artistically more beautiful, but the
europlastic type is physiologically more useful.
It is not only the erect position that tends to reduce the stature,
but the sitting posture as well. In fact, whether the pelvis is
supported by the lower limbs or by a chair, the intervertebral disks
are in either case compressed by the weight of the bust as a whole.
If, for example, children are obliged, during the period of growth,
to remain long at a time in a sitting posture, the limbs may freely
lengthen, while the bust is impeded in its free growth, and the
result may be an artificial tendency toward macroscelia. This is why
children are more inclined than adults to throw themselves upon the
ground, to lie down, to cut capers, in other words to restore the
elasticity of their joints, and overcome the compression of bones and
cartilages. Accordingly, such variations of stature recur habitually
and are _transitory_, and since they are associated with the customary
attitudes of daily life, they are _physiological_.
But if special causes should aggravate such physiological conditions,
and should recur so often as not to permit the cartilages to return
completely to their original condition, in such a case _permanent_
_variations_ of stature might result, and even _morphological_
_deviations_ of the skeleton. For example, a porter who habitually
carries heavy weights on his head, may definitely lower his stature;
and in the case of a young boy, the interference with the growth of
the long bones through compression exerted from above downward, may
produce an actual arrest of development of the limbs and spinal column,
presenting all the symptoms of rickets. Witness certain consequences of
"child-labour" chief among which must be mentioned the deformities of
the _carusi_ [victims of child-labour, who from an early age toil up
the succession of ladders, bearing heavy burdens of sulphur from the
mines below.[18]] in the Sicilian sulphur mines.[19] As a general rule,
all _cramped positions that_ _are a necessary condition of labour, if
they surpass the limits of resistance_ _and elasticity of_ the human
frame, and especially if they operate during periods of life when the
skeleton is in process of formation, result in deformities, and when
the skeleton is deformed, the internal organs and hence the general
functional powers of the whole organism, suffer even greater alteration.
[Illustration: FIG. 25.--Vincenzo Militella of Lereata, a Sicilian
caruso.]
[Illustration: FIG. 26.--Aged field labourer.]
[Illustration: FIG. 27. FIG. 28.
Attitude of woman working in the rice fields as seen from the right and
left sides.]
[Illustration: FIG. 29.--A gang of eight workers in the rice fields.]
Consider the postures that miners must endure, or as Pieraccini phrases
it, their "disastrous attitudes."
The transport galleries are ordinarily too low to permit a man
of average height to walk erect; along these galleries little
transport-wagons are run by hand, excepting where the carrying is done
on the backs of the men themselves.
"Even in the front of the advance tunnels and in the galleries that are
being worked, miners are to be seen in the most incongruous attitudes.
These anomalous positions of the body maintained throughout long hours
of toil react upon the functional action of the heart and lungs,
upon the stomach and intestines in the proper performance of their
tasks, and result in producing hernia, varicose veins and eventually
deformities of the skeleton (vertebral column, thorax)."[20]
Field labourers also (Fig. 26) become permanently deformed, with
diminution of stature, from remaining too long bent over in the act of
hoeing or reaping. But a still more painful labour is that of the women
in the rice fields during the period when the weeding is done.
The position necessitated by this work requires a strained and
prolonged dorsal flexion of the vertebral column, accompanied by a
strain on the lower dorsal nerves; great _elasticity_ is required to
endure a position so painful and so apt to induce _lumbago_; only
young women can endure it, and even they become deformed, and suffer
seriously from anemia, intestinal maladies and diseases of the uterus,
which predispose them to abortion or sterility (Figs. 27, 28, 29).
Stone breakers also contract painful diseases and deformities from
their work. They are constantly bowed over their task, performing a
rhythmic, alternating movement of flexion, extension and torsion of the
trunk upon itself, while at the same time there is a slight undulation
in a backward and forward direction, accompanying the rising and
falling of the arm holding the hammer. These movements of extension
and flexion of the trunk involve the whole vertebral column, while the
pelvis remains practically motionless. "At the end of the day they rise
from their task bowed over and they walk home bowed over, holding the
vertebral column rigid; any attempt to force the trunk into an erect
position is extremely painful. In the morning they return to their work
with their loins still aching." And among these stone breakers there
are young men, some of them mere boys! And when we think that these
injurious _attitudes_ are coupled with malnutrition, we must realise
the extent of the organic disaster that accompanies diminution of
stature as a result of adaptation to labour.
We are naturally horrified at such conditions enforced upon a certain
portion of humanity; and we pray for a time to come when machinery
will have universally replaced human labour, in transportation, in
stone-breaking, and in reaping, and when children will be spared from
hard and deforming toil.
But how is it that while we are so sympathetic regarding conditions
at a distance from us, we remain unconscious of similar conditions,
that are close beside us, and of which we are the directors, the cruel
enforcers, the masters?
In the near future, I hope that people will tell with amazement, as if
citing a condition of inferior civilisation, how the school children,
up to the opening of the twentieth century represented one category
of those "deformed by prolonged and enforced labour in injurious
positions!"
Such studies in _school hygiene_ as deal with the type of school
benches, designed to minimise the danger of deformities of the
vertebral column in children--will, I hope, be regarded by the coming
generations with the most utter amazement! And the school benches
of to-day will find their place in _museums_, and people will go to
look at them as if they were relics of bygone barbarism, just as we
now visit the collections from old-time insane asylums, of series of
complicated instruments of wood and iron that in bygone centuries were
considered _necessary_ for maintaining discipline among the insane.
What in the world would we say, if somebody should propose, in order
to obviate the deformities and physiological injuries of labourers,
that certain mechanisms should be applied to them individually for the
purpose of diminishing the harm? Imagine a law being proposed, to the
effect that all miners should be obliged to wear trusses, to keep their
viscera from breaking loose, as a result of prolonged compression! What
would we think of such reforms and such a path toward an orthopedic
state of society?
Our way toward progress and higher civilisation is a very different
one. To remove man from torturing toil that twists the bones and
undermines the health--such is the goal that it is our duty to set
before us!
For the deformed vertebral column is the _extreme_ sign of a great
accumulation of evils; the internal organs are correspondingly affected
with disorders fatal to the entire organism; but even greater is the
corresponding harm done to the human soul! What we want is not only
that the bones shall not be thrown out of their eurhythmic harmony, but
that the souls of the labourers shall be freed from the inhuman yoke
of slavery (progress can consist solely in a radical alteration of the
_form of labour_).
So far as concerns the school, which is not limited to a few categories
of human beings, but is extended to _all_, _by requirements_ _of law_,
is it not possible for us to adopt a different attitude of mind?
The established fact that the pupils may even deform their skeletons in
the course of their work, goes to prove that this work contains some
_error in principle_ that is fatal to successive generations; and so
long as this principle is maintained, we may assert a priori that even
if, with the help of school benches as complicated and as costly as
orthopedic machines, we should succeed in checking the deformation of
the vertebral column, we should fail to check the deformation of the
soul. Because whoever is condemned to labour that deforms is a slave.
And as a matter of fact we employ coercive means, "rewards and
punishments," to enforce upon children a condition that in their eyes
amounts to serving their first sentence.
It is not the school bench, but the _method_ that needs reforming;
it is not the ligaments of the spinal column, but _human life in_
_evolution_ that we ought to respect, and _lead toward the attainment_
_of perfection_! Amid the many banners of liberty that have been
raised in these latter times, one is still missing--one which we ought
to seize upon as the standard of our cause: the liberty of the new
generation, which is groaning in the slavery of compulsory education,
upon iron-bound benches, emblematic of chains!
I foresee, in a radical reform of pedagogic methods, the practical
possibility of taking as guiding principles the _individual liberty_
_of the pupil_ and a _reverential regard for life_. And I affirm
this all the more loudly, because I have applied such a method with
indisputable success in the "Children's Houses," obtaining prodigious
results in the health and happiness of the children, perfect
discipline in the classes, marvelously rapid progress in studies, and
a surprising awakening of souls, a passionate love for the work.
VARIATIONS DUE TO ADAPTATION IN CONNECTION WITH CAUSES OF VARIOUS
KINDS--SOCIAL, PHYSIOLOGICAL, PHYSICAL, PSYCHIC, PATHOLOGICAL, ETC.
=Physiology and Social Conditions.=--_Nutrition._--One of the
effects of environment, of the highest importance in its relation
to the development of stature, is nutrition. In order to attain the
maximum development as biologically determined by heredity in a race,
sufficient nutriment is the first necessity. It is a familiar fact that
material or physiological life consists essentially in the exchange and
_renewal of matter_, or in _metabolism_, which is also a renewal of
vital force.
The living molecules are continually breaking up, thus expressing
in an active form forces that had accumulated in a potential form,
and eliminating the rejected matter; only to form again by means
of new matter, containing potential forces. This breaking up and
renewal constitutes the material of life, that never pauses in its
molecular movement; the cessation of renewal of matter is death,
that is, scission without reparation; consumption without renewal;
and consequently a rapid disintegration of the body. Living matter
consists in metabolism, and is consequently directly related to the
nutritive substances which renew the elements necessary for continual
redintegration.
We may disregard certain individual potentialities, of a purely
biological nature, and that are capable of manifesting vital forces of
varying degrees of intensity: but it may be asserted as beyond question
that every living being, if he is to live according to his biological
destiny, has need of sufficient nutrition. This is not the same as
saving that the food determines the life of an individual in its final
development, in the sense that by eating in excess one may attain
the stature of a giant, or an imbecile become intelligent or a man
of talent become a genius. We all bear within us, in that fertilised
germ that constituted the first cell of our organism, predetermined
biological conditions, on which depend the physical limits of our body,
as well as those of our psychic individuality. But in order that this
germ may develop in accordance with its potentiality, it is necessary
that it shall obtain the requisite material from its environment.
Because otherwise--and here the relation is direct--neither the
volumetric development nor the morphological development can be
accomplished, nor the psychic potentiality express itself; in other
words, the stature will be undersized, in a body defrauded of the
degree of beauty potential in the germ, and the muscular forces, in
common with those of the brain, will remain at a level of development
below that which nature had intended. Consequently, to deprive children
of their requisite nutriment is stealing from life, it is a _biological
crime_.
While we live, we must eat; and while we labour, that is, while we
expend the vital forces, it is necessary to repair them. The schools
should establish a system of luncheons for the pupils; this is a
principle that has already been generally recognised and is already
bearing fruit.
There was a time when a good appetite was regarded as a _low_
_material instinct_; it was also the time when people sang the praises
of _spirituality_, but actually indulged in banquets of Lucullian
lavishness. The vice of the palate and the physiological need of
nourishment were included under one and the same disdain.
To-day science has shed its light upon the true conception of nutrition
and holds it to be the _first necessity_ of life, and consequently the
first social problem to be solved.
From this point of view, food is not a vulgar material thing, nor the
dinner-table a place of debauchery. Indeed, there is nothing which
affords better proof of immateriality than the act of eating. In fact,
the necessity of eating is itself a proof that the matter of which
our body is composed does not endure but passes like the fleeting
moment. And if the substance of our bodies passes in this manner, if
life itself is only a continual passing away of matter, what greater
symbol of its immateriality and its spirituality is there than the
dinner-table?
"... the bread is my flesh and the wine is my blood; do this in
remembrance of what life really is."
Something similar to this is being accomplished to-day by science in
regard to the sexual relations. We are accustomed to consider the
sexual instincts as something contemptible, material and low, praising
abstinence, and leaving these instincts wholly out of consideration
in the course of education, as though they were something degrading,
or even shameful. And undoubtedly our sexual abuses are shameful,
and shameful also is the barbaric tolerance of the masses regarding
prostitution, seduction, illegitimacy and the abandonment of new-born
children. It is criminal abuse that makes us despise sexual relations,
just as at one time excesses of the table made us despise nutrition.
But the day will come when science will raise to the dignity of a new
sexual morality the physiological function which to-day is considered
material and shameful--and that comprehends the most sublime of human
conceptions. In it are to be found the words which ancient races
deposited in their religious tabernacles: creation, eternity, mystery.
And in it are also to be found the most sublime conceptions of modern
races: the destiny of humanity, the perfectionment of the human species.
Accordingly, we must to-day regard the serving of food in the schools
as a necessity of the first order; but it is well, in introducing it
into the schools, to surround it with that halo of gladness and of
high moral significance that ought to accompany all manifestations of
life. The _hymn to bread_, which is a human creation and a means of
preserving the substance of the human body, ought to accompany the
meals of our new generations of children. The child _develops_ because
the substance of his body passes away, and the meals that he eats
symbolise all this: furthermore, they teach him to think of the vast
labour accomplished by men who, unknown as individuals, cultivate the
earth, reap the grain, grind the flour, and _provide_ for all men and
for all children. Where they are and who they are, we do not know; the
bread bears neither their name nor their picture. Like an impersonal
entity, like a god, humanity provides for all the needs of humanity:
and this god is labour. If the child is destined some day to become
himself a labourer, who produces and casts his products to humanity
without knowing who is to receive his contribution toward providing for
humanity, it is well that as he lifts his food to his lips he should
realise that he is contracting a debt toward society at large, and that
he must give because he takes; he must "forgive debts as his have been
forgiven"; and since life is gladness, let him send forth a salutation
to the universal producing power: "Our Father, give us our daily bread!"
The Providence of human labour rules over our entire life; it gives us
everything that is necessary. The God of the Universe, in whose train
come cataclysms, is not more terrible than the god, Humanity, that
can give us War and Famine. While we give bread to the child, let us
remember that man does not live by bread alone: because bread is only
the material of his fleeting substance.
The system of furnishing meals in school constitutes a chapter of
_School Hygiene_ that cannot directly concern us. Nevertheless,
there are three rules of this hygiene which should be borne in mind:
Children should never, in any case, drink wine, alcoholic liquors,
tea or coffee--in other words, stimulants, which are poisons to their
childish organisms. On the other hand, children need _sugar_, because
sugar has a great formative and plastic power; all young animals have
sweetish flesh because their muscles, in the course of development,
are extremely rich in sugar. The method of giving sugar to children
should be as simple as possible, such, for instance, as is endorsed
by the very successful English system of hygiene for children, which
recommends freshly cooked fruits, sprinkled with sugar or served with a
little syrup. But the substantial nourishment for young children should
consist of _soup_ or _broth_ served hot, since heat is as essential as
sugar for organisms in the course of evolution.
The English recommend soups made of cereals and gluten, in which it is
never necessary to use soup stock, just as it is never necessary to use
meat in children's diet.
That nutrition has a noteworthy influence upon growth, and therefore
upon the definitive limits of stature, is exhaustively proved by
statistics.
In his brilliant studies of the poorer classes, Niceforo has collected
the following average statures:[21]
----------+---------------------
Age | Stature
| (in centimetres)
+---------------------
| Children
+---------------------
| Rich | Poor
----------+----------+----------
7 years | 120 | 116
8 years | 126 | 122
9 years | 129 | 123
10 years | 134 | 128
11 years | 135 | 134
12 years | 140 | 138
13 years | 144 | 140
14 years | 150 | 146
----------+----------+----------
from which it appears that, in spite of the strong biological impulse
given by the attainment of _puberty_, the children of the poor continue
to show a stature lower than that of the well-to-do. Ales Hrdlicka
has compiled the following comparative table of the poor or orphaned
children received into the asylums, and the pupils of the public
schools in Boston:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Stature of American children: (1) In asylums;
(2) in Boston public schools
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Boys
-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
Age | | | | | | | | | | | |
in | | | | | | | | | | | |
years| 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16
-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
(1) | 971|1088|1172|1163|1234|1261|1315|1367|1424|1452|1518| --
(2) |1060|1120|1176|1223|1272|1326|1372|1417|1477|1551|1599|1665
-----------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Girls
-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
(1) | -- | -- |1101|1158|1204|1289|1290| -- | -- |1398| -- | --
(2) |1052|1109|1167|1221|1260|1315|1366|1452|1492|1532|1559|1567
-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
Even after reaching the adult age these differences are maintained, as
may be shown by the following statistics taken from various authorities:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Average statures obtained from soldiers (in centimetres)
-------------------------+---------------------+-----------------
Italians | English | French
-------------------------+---------------------+-----------------
Students and |Professional men 175 |Students 169
professional men 167 |Merchants 172 |Domestics 166
Tradesmen 165 |Peasants 171 |Day labourers 165
Peasants 164 |City employees 169 |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
from which it appears that while in Italy the class of labourers having
the lowest stature is the peasant class, which lives under the most
deplorable economic conditions, in England on the contrary it is the
workers in the cities who live under worse economic conditions than
the peasantry, it being well known that the English peasant is the most
prosperous in the agricultural world.
According to Livi, it is nutrition which causes the differences of
average stature that are usually to be found between different social
classes, and those between the inhabitants of mountains and of plains,
or between the dwellers on the mainland and on the islands. In general
the mountain-bred peasants have a _lower_ stature than those of the
plains; and this is because the means of procuring food are fewer and
harder in mountainous regions.
Similarly, the islanders, because of less ready means of communication,
have less likelihood than those on the mainland of obtaining adequate
nutrition.
The same may be said regarding the differences found between the
statures of cultured persons and of the illiterate, to the disadvantage
of the latter (the poorer classes).
Students show the tallest stature of all, because they have in their
favour the joint effect of the two chief factors of environment
that influence this anthropological datum: _mechanical causes_ and
_nutrition_. A sedentary life, and above all a hearty diet both
contribute to the tall stature of students, doctors, and members of the
liberal professions. In this respect, the average figures of all the
authorities agree, as appears from the following tables:[22]
LIVI: 256,166 ITALIAN SOLDIERS
-------------------------------+---------------
Professions and callings |Average stature
| in centimetres
-------------------------------+---------------
Students and professional men | 166.9
Small shopkeepers and the like | 165.0
Peasants | 164.3
Blacksmiths | 165.0
Carpenters | 165.1
Masons | 164.8
Tailors and shoemakers | 164.5
Barbers | 164.3
Butchers | 165.7
Carters | 164.4
Bakers | 164.7
Day labourers in general | 164.4
-------------------------------+---------------
-----------------------------------------------
Professions and employments |Average stature
| in centimetres
-------------------------------+---------------
Professional men | 175.6
Merchants and tradesmen | 172.6
Peasants and miners | 171.5
City labourers | 169.2
Sedentary workmen | 167.4
Prisoners | 168.0
Insane | 166.8
------------------------------------------------
OLORIZ: 1798 CONSCRIPTS FROM THE CITY OF MADRID
-------------------------------------------------
Professions and employments |Average stature
| in centimetres
---------------------------------+---------------
Liberal professions | 163.9
Including: |
Students | 164.0
Other professions | 161.1
Workmen employed in the open air| 160.7
Workmen employed in closed rooms| 159.8
Including: |
Tailors, hatters and the like | 159.0
Shoemakers | 158.9
-------------------------------------------------
Conditions of nutrition, which are always accompanied by a combination
of other hygienic conditions all tending toward the same effects, have
also an influence upon the development of puberty.
Puberty is retarded by malnutrition. As a result of an inquiry made
among the inmates of the Pia Barolo Society, which offers an asylum
to reformed prostitutes, Marro[23] records that out of ninety rescued
girls only those above the age of fourteen had begun to menstruate:
notwithstanding that the normal period for the development of puberty
in Italian women is between the years of twelve and thirteen.
Furthermore, among the girls above the age of fourteen, menstruation
had not yet begun in all cases; on the contrary, a large proportion of
them still failed to show the phenomena of puberty:
---------------------------------------------------
Age in years | Whole number | Number menstruating
-------------+--------------+----------------------
14-15 | 11 | 4
15-16 | 11 | 7
16-17 | 11 | 8
17-18 | 8 | 7
---------------------------------------------------
All the rest (thirty in number) menstruated for the first time after
the age of eighteen.
Among those in whom menstruation had appeared earlier, the order of
appearance was as follows:
Years 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Number 1 3 4 5 12 17 9 5
When we consider that we are dealing with _rescued_ girls, we may
conclude that direct sexual stimulus does not facilitate the normal
development of puberty, but on the contrary, in conjunction with
other causes, _retards it_. Accordingly, we must not confound the
_normal development of the organism_ with its disorders: whatever aids
the natural development of life is useful and healthy. There may be
conditions _unfavourable_ to the development of puberty, which are
favourable to the development of sexual vices (see, further on, the
other causes influencing puberty, and moral conditions in colleges).
In his work above cited, Marro compares his figures obtained from the
Pia Barolo Society with those of Dr. Bianco[24] taken from 78 young
girls in city institutes representing young women in easy circumstances:
--------------+-----------------+-------------------------
Date of first |Girls in the Pia | Girls in city institutes
menstruation. | Barolo Society. | for the wealthy classes.
| Percentage | Percentage
--------------+-----------------+-------------------------
10 years | 1.7 | ----
11 years | 5.3 | 1.3
12 years | 7.1 | 13.3
13 years | 8.9 | 18.7
14 years | 21.4 | 29.3
15 years | 30.3 | 20.0
16 years | 16.0 | 8.0
17 years | 8.9 | 4.0
--------------+-----------------+-------------------------
It should be noted that the cold climate of Turin retards puberty (see
below): but the above table clearly shows the precocious puberty of
young women in easy circumstances; in the great majority, in fact, it
occurs between the ages of twelve and fourteen, with thirteen for the
average; on the other hand, the majority for reformed prostitutes is
between fourteen and sixteen, with fifteen for the average.
Besides labour and nutrition, there are other factors that contribute
to the development of stature (which we regard as an index to the
entire mass of the body). Such factors are:
PHYSICAL CONDITIONS--HEAT, LIGHT, ELECTRICITY
_Thermic Conditions._--Among the physical conditions which may have an
influence upon the stature, the _thermic_ conditions ought to receive
first consideration.
It is a principle demonstrated by nature that organisms in the course
of evolution have need of heat. Even the invertebrates, as for
example the insects, develop during the heat of summer; and the eggs
of the higher vertebrates such as the birds, develop their embryo by
means of the maternal warmth. In placental animals the development
throughout the whole embryonic period takes place within the maternal
womb, in the full tide of animal heat. In order to preserve life in
premature babies, that is, in those born before the expiration of the
physiological term of nine months, _incubators_ have been constructed,
an oven-like arrangement in which the child may be maintained at a
temperature considerably higher than would be possible in the outside
air; the term is also specifically used of the structures in which
fertilised hens' eggs are kept during the required period of time until
the chickens are hatched.
Accordingly it is a principle taught us by nature that organisms in the
course of evolution have need of heat. The most luxuriant vegetation,
the most gigantic animals, the most variegated birds belong to the
fauna and flora of the tropics.
How is this physiological law, which nature expresses in such broad,
general lines, to be interpreted by us in the environment of the
school? It is well known that in this regard there are two conflicting
opinions. There are some who would go to excessive lengths in
protecting small children from the cold, by dressing them entirely in
woolen garments and keeping their apartments well heated; others on
the contrary assert that the _physiological_ _struggle of adaptation_
to the cold invigorates the infant organism, and they advise that the
child's body should never be completely protected, as for example that
the legs should always be left bare, that the child should be lightly
clad, that his apartments should not be heated, etc.
Furthermore, it used to be held in the pietistic schools, and still is
to some extent, that _warmth_ had a demoralising influence, inasmuch as
it tended to enervate both mind and body.
We educators cannot fail to be interested in such a discussion. As
often happens in physiological arguments, the two opposite contentions
each contain a part of the truth. In order to get at the truth of the
matter, it is necessary to distinguish two widely separated facts:
on the one hand, _physiological exercise in the form_ _of thermal
gymnastics_, and on the other, the _development of organisms_ _in a
constantly cold environment_.
To live constantly warm, protected either by clothes or by artificial
heat, so that the organism remains always at a constant temperature,
is not favourable to growth, because it deprives the organism of the
physiological exercise of adapting itself to variations in external
temperature, an exercise which stimulates useful functions. By
perspiring in summer, we cleanse our system of poisonous secretions,
and by shivering in winter we give tone to our striped muscles and to
our internal organs, as is proved by our gain in appetite. Anyone who
wishes to be kept on ice in summer and to transform his apartment into
a hot-house in winter, robs himself of these advantages and enfeebles
his system.
The apparent _comfort_ is not in this case a real physiological
enjoyment but a _weakness of habit_ that is accompanied by a loss of
physiological energy. What makes us robust is a rational exercise
of all our energies. _Thermal gymnastics_ is consequently useful.
It consists in exposing a healthy, resistant organism to changes in
temperature, trusting to our physiological resources for the means of
defense. Thus, for example, a child who is well fed and well protected
from the cold for many hours of the day in the well-heated family
apartment, can go out with bare legs into the snow; and doing so will
make him more robust. In the same way, the ancient Romans exposed
themselves in their hot baths to the steadily increasing temperature
of the _calidarium_, up to the point of 60 degrees (140 Fahrenheit),
and then still perspiring flung themselves into a cold plunge. And it
is a familiar fact that afterward they held lavish banquets in these
same baths. Such exercise which in classic times gave vigour to the
race that made itself master of the world may be summed up as follows:
"_Thermic_ _gymnastics_" of organisms "well nourished and strong."
Our own boatmen also throw themselves into the river in midwinter, half
nude, and half nude they ply their long poles. They expose themselves
to the cold, in the same way that they might raise a weight of many
pounds with their robust arms, for _gymnastic_ _exercise_.
But all this differs radically from living continually in a cold
temperature. It is a very different thing from the life of a child of
the lower classes, who goes bare-foot in winter, clad in a few scant
rags, half frozen in his wretched tenement, and unable to obtain
sufficient nourishment to develop the needed heat-units. He is already
deficient in bodily heat because of malnutrition, and the effects of
cold are cumulative. In this case it is not a question of _thermic
exercise_ but of a permanent _deprivation of heat_, in individuals
who are already suffering from an _insufficient development_ _of
heat-units_. Consequently the organism is enfeebled--it grows under
unfavorable conditions--and the result is a permanent diminution of
development. Whoever grows up, exposed to cold after this fashion, has,
in the average case, a lower stature than those who grow up in the
midst of warmth, or in the practice of that healthful exercise which
constitutes the ideal: _thermic_ _gymnastics_.
The contradictory ideas that are held as to the efficacy of heat in
regard to growth, are due to a large extent to a prejudice which
amounts to this: heat is effective in promoting the evolution of life
as a whole, and consequently the development of that part of life
that is centred in the organs of reproduction; from which comes the
wellnigh antiquated theory that artificial heat should be banished
from the schools, as one of the factors leading to immorality! It is
true that _warmth_ accelerates the development of puberty; but who is
there in this twentieth century who can still conceive the idea that
it is a moral act to silence the forces of nature? Good nourishment
also leads to a more precocious puberty; and the same is true of the
repeated psychic stimulus produced by various forms of intellectual
enjoyment, by conversation, and by social intercourse with individuals
of the opposite sex. Accordingly, if it were a moral act to retard
the development of puberty and to produce a general impoverishment of
sexual life, the moral measures to be taken in education would be cold,
malnutrition, and the isolation of the sexes in the schools, which,
as a matter of fact, form the stumbling-block of environment in our
colleges. But it is well known that all this leads on the contrary to
moral and physical degeneration! As has already been said, the normal
physiological development stands in counterdistinction to immoral
habits; consequently, whatever is an aid to physiological development
is in its very nature moral.
In warm climates the first manifestations of puberty occur precociously
in man as well as in woman; and with them come all the transformations
that are associated with puberty, among others the rapid increase of
stature. In cold climates, on the contrary, such manifestations are
more tardy. The women of Lapland are latest of all to develop. With
them, menstruation begins only at eighteen, and they are incapable of
conceiving under the age of twenty, while the period of the menopause
(involution of sexual life) is correspondingly early; in other words,
the entire period of sexual life is shortened. Furthermore, the
fertility of the women of Lapland is low; they cannot conceive more
than three children. But if these same women leave Lapland and make
their home in civilised countries, as for example in Sweden, they have
a more precocious sexual life, as well as longer and more fertile, and
altogether quite similar to that of the Swedish women.[25]
Cabanis[26] notes that even in cold climates, when young girls spend
much of their time in the vicinity of stoves, menstruation begins at
about the same age as in women who live on the banks of the Ganges--as
is the case with the daughters of wealthy Russians, whose development
is quite precocious. In Arabia, in Egypt, and in Abyssinia the women
are frequently mothers at the age of ten, menstruation having begun at
the eighth year. It is even said that Mahomed married Radeejah when
she was only five and that he took her to his bed at the age of eight.
The religious laws of India permit the marriage of girls when they are
eight years old.
Consequently it is true that _heat_ has an influence upon the
development of the organism independently of other influences; in fact,
heat acts both in the form of _climate_, that is, in a natural state,
and also in an artificially warmed environment. It is also one of the
causes of the different degrees of growth in _stature_ through the
successive seasons (see below).
In conclusion: it is enjoined upon us, as a hygienic necessity, to heat
the schools in winter, especially the schools for the poorer classes;
it means more than increased vigour, it may even mean giving _life_ to
some who otherwise would pine away from deprivation of heat-units, a
condition most unfavourable to organisms in the course of evolution.
_Photogenic Conditions._--Light also has a perceptible influence
upon growth: it is a great physiological stimulant. At the present
day, physical therapy employs _light baths_ for certain forms of
neurasthenia and partial enfeeblement of certain organs; and some
biological manifestations, such as the pigments--and similarly the
chlorophyl in plants and the variegated colouring of birds--receive a
creative stimulus from light.
Light contains in its spectrum many different colours, which act
quite differently upon living tissues; the ultra-violet rays, for
instance, kill the bacilli of tuberculosis and sometimes effect cures
in cases of cancer. Psychiatrists and neuropaths have demonstrated that
many colours of light have an exciting effect, while others, on the
contrary, are sedative.
Hence there has arisen in medicine a vast and most interesting chapter
of _phototherapy_.
In regard to the phenomena of growth, it has been noted that certain
coloured lights are favourable to it, while certain others, on the
contrary, diminish or arrest it, as the red and the green.
Phototherapy ought to concern us as educators, especially in regard to
schools for the _benefit_ of nervous children: a periodic sojourn in
a room lit by _calming colours_ might have a beneficent effect upon
epileptic, irritable, nervous children, in place of the debilitating
hot bath, or, worse yet, the administration of bromides; while
light-baths would be efficacious for weak and torpid children.
But for normal children we must consider the light of the sun as
the best stimulant for their growth. A sojourn at the sea-shore, so
favourable to the development of children, is now believed to owe its
beneficial effects to the fact that the child, playing half naked on
the sea-shore, bathes more in the sunlight than he does in the salt
water. Gymnastics in the sun, while the body is still only half dry, is
what the younger generations should practise on a large scale, if they
would bring about the triumph of physiological life.
We must not forget this great principle when, by planning home work
for the pupils, we practically keep them housed during the entire day,
keeping them for the most part employed in writing or reading; in other
words, using their sense of sight, which, if it is to be preserved
unharmed, demands a _moderate light_. The eye ought to rest its muscles
of accommodation, and the whole body be exposed to the full light of
the sun during the greater part of the day. Let us remember that often
the children of the poor live in a home so dark that even in full
mid-day they are obliged to light a lamp! Let us at least leave them
the light of the street, as a recompense for wretchedness that is a
disgrace to civilisation!
According to certain experiments conducted in Rome by Professor Gosio,
the light of the sun has an _intensive_ effect upon life. Living
creatures reared in the solar light grow and mature _earlier_, but at
the same time their life is shortened; that is, the cycle of life is
more intense and more precocious; conversely, in the shade the cycle of
life is slower, but of longer duration. A plant matures more quickly
in the sun, but its stature is lower than that of a plant in the dark,
which has grown far more slowly, but has become very tall and slender
and lacking in chlorophyl. Similarly, as is well known, the women in
tropical countries attain a precocious puberty, while conversely those
of the North attain it tardily; and this fact must be considered in
relation to the influence of the sun. A life passed wholly in the
sunlight would be too intense; an organism that is exposed a few hours
each day to the rays of the sun is invigorated; the interchange of
matter (metabolism) is augmented; all the tissues are beneficially
stimulated. For this reason sun baths are employed for paralytic
and idiot children, and consist in exposing the body of the child,
reclining upon its bed and with its head well protected, to the direct
rays of the sun for several hours a day; this treatment is found to
be most efficacious in giving _tone_ to the tissues and improving the
general condition of the system.
_Variations in the Growth of Stature According to the Seasons._--One
proof of the beneficent influence of heat and sunlight upon the growth
of the organism, is afforded by the variations in the rate of growth
according to the seasons. Every individual grows more in summer than in
winter. Daffner gives the following figures relative to the increase in
stature according to the seasons:
----------+-------+--------------------------+--------------------
| | Stature | Increase
Number of | Age in| in centimetres | in centimetres
subjects | years+--------+-------+---------+--------------------
| | October| April | October |Winter|Summer|Entire
| | | | | | | year
----------+-------+--------+-------+---------+------+------+------
12 | 11-12 | 139.4 | 141.0 | 143.3 | 1.6 | 2.3 | 3.9
80 | 12-13 | 143.0 | 144.5 | 147.4 | 1.5 | 2.9 | 4.4
146 | 13-14 | 147.5 | 149.5 | 152.5 | 2.0 | 3.0 | 5.0
162 | 14-15 | 152.5 | 155.0 | 158.5 | 2.5 | 3.5 | 6.0
162 | 15-16 | 158.5 | 160.8 | 163.8 | 2.3 | 3.0 | 5.3
150 | 16-17 | 163.5 | 165.4 | 167.7 | 1.9 | 2.3 | 4.2
82 | 17-18 | 167.7 | 168.9 | 170.4 | 1.2 | 1.5 | 2.7
22 | 18-19 | 169.8 | 170.6 | 171.5 | 0.8 | 0.9 | 1.7
6 | 19-20 | 170.7 | 171.1 | 171.5 | 0.4 | 0.4 | 0.8
----------+-------+--------+-------+---------+------+------+------
In the "Children's Houses," I require a record of stature to be made
month by month in the case of every child, the measurement being taken
on the day corresponding to the day on which he was born in the month
of his birth; in addition to which I keep a record of the total annual
increase.
The ages of these children vary between three and four years, and they
all belong to the poorer social classes.
MONTHLY AVERAGE INCREASE IN STATURE
IN THE "CHILDREN'S HOUSES"
(In millimetres)
------------------------------+-------------------------
Cold months | Warm months
---------+---------+----------+-----+------+------------
December | January | February | May | June | July
4 | 3 | 4 | 7 | 8 | 8
---------+---------+----------+-----+------+------------
Another factor of growth is
_Electricity._--One of the most interesting discoveries of recent date
is that of the influence of terrestrial electricity upon the growth of
living organisms.
A series of experiments were made, by isolating cavies (a species of
small Indian pig) from terrestrial electricity, and as a result they
were found to be retarded in growth and to develop very imperfectly,
much as though they had been suffering from rickets. In short, they
manifested an arrest of organic development.
If, in electro-therapy, an electric current is applied to the
cartilages of the long bones in children whose limbs have apparently
been arrested in development, the result is a rapid increase in length,
amounting to a luxuriant _osteogenesis_.
Since we know that the electric current can stimulate the nerve
filaments and the fibres of the striped muscles when they have been
rendered inactive from the effects of paresis or even of paralysis,
we realise that _electricity_ can exert an influence over the entire
physiological life of an organism. We live not only upon nutriment,
air, heat, and light, but also upon a mysterious, imperceptible force,
that comes to us from the mother earth.
In addition to the biological potentialities which control the
development of every individual, all living creatures owe something of
themselves to their environment.
_Space._--An empirical contention, without scientific value,
but nevertheless of some interest, is that there is an ultimate
_relationship_ between the dimensions of living bodies and the
_territorial space_, that is, the environment in which they are
destined to live. In view of the innumerable varieties of living
creatures, such an assertion would seem to be utterly unfounded. But
as a matter of fact we see that while inorganic bodies can increase
indefinitely in dimension, living creatures are limited in form
and size. This fact undoubtedly has some primal connection with
properties innate in corporeal life itself; in fact, in order to
attain its appointed end, life requires the services of certain very
small microscopic particles called _cells_. But the aggregations and
combinations of cells in living organisms are also limited in their
turn, and no matter how willingly we would attribute the greatest share
of causation to biological facts, nevertheless, as always happens in
life, we cannot wholly exclude _environment_.
Both animals and men that are bred on vast continents (Chinese,
Russians) have tended to produce races of powerful and giant build: in
islands, on the contrary, the men and the animals are of small size;
it is sufficient merely to cite the men and the little donkeys of
Sardinia, the small Irishmen who furnish jockeys for the race-track,
and the small Irish horses or _ponies_ that serve as saddle-horses for
the children of the aristocracy the world over.
There is a harmony of associations, as between the container and the
contained, between environment and life, notwithstanding that as yet
science has not made serious investigations in regard to it.
Voltaire, in his _Micromega_, avails himself of this intuitive
conception to create the material needed for his satire; he talks
amusingly of the inhabitant of the planet Sirius, who was eight leagues
in height and at four hundred years of age was still in school, while
the inhabitant of Saturn was a mere pigmy in comparison, being scarcely
a thousand rods tall--in fact, the inhabitants of Saturn could not
be otherwise than pigmies in comparison, since Saturn is barely nine
hundred times larger than the earth.
Gulliver makes use of similar standards in his _Travels_, which are
read with so much delight by children.
=Psychic Conditions.=--_Psychic Stimuli._--Accordingly many chemical
and physical factors associated with the environment concur in aiding
_life_ in its development. From the light of the sun to the electricity
of the earth, the whole environment offers its tribute to life, in
order to cooperate in life's triumph. But, in the case of man, in
addition to these widely different factors, there is still another
distinctly human factor that we must take into consideration and that
we may call the _psychic stimulus of life_: We may scientifically
affirm the Bible statement that "man does not live by bread alone."
Without reverting to the basic physiological explanations of the
emotions, as given by Lange and James, we may nevertheless assert that
sensations of pleasure stimulate the renewal of bodily tissues and
consequently promote health, happiness, and strength; while, on the
contrary, painful events produce physiological effects depressing to
the tone of the nervous system and to the metabolic activity of the
tissues.
But it is precisely these metabolic phenomena that hold the key of
life, and an organism in the course of evolution depends directly upon
them. This problem concerns pedagogy in a very special way: when
we have given food to the children in our schools, we have not yet
completed our task of _nourishing_ these children; for the phenomena of
nutrition which take place in the hidden recesses of their tissues are
very different from a simple intestinal transformation of aliments, and
are influenced by the psychic conditions of the individual pupil.
Great workers not only need abundant nutriment, but they require at
the same time a series of stimuli designed to produce "pleasure." The
pleasures of life, necessary to human existence, include more than
_bread_. In the history of social evolution there exist, side by side
with the _productions of labour_, an entire series of _enjoyments_,
more or less elevated, that constitute the _stimului_ to production,
and hence to evolution, and more profoundly still, to life itself.
The further man evolves and the more he produces, the more he ought to
multiply and perfect his means of _enjoyment_.
Without stimuli, nutrition would grow less and less till it ended in
death. Every-day experience in the punishment of criminals gives us
proof of this. Confinement to a solitary cell is nothing else than a
complete deprivation of psychic stimuli. The prisoner does not lack
_bread_, nor air, nor shelter from the elements, nor sleep; his whole
physiological life is provided for, in the strict material sense of the
word. But the bare walls, the silence, the isolation from his fellow
men in utter solitude, deprive the prisoner of every stimulus, visual,
oral and moral.
The consequences are not merely a state of hopelessness, but a real
and actual _malnutrition_ leading to tuberculosis, to anemia, to death
from atrophy. We may affirm that such a prisoner _dies_ _slowly of
hunger due to defective assimilation_; the solitary cell is the modern
donjon, and far more cruel than the one in which Ugolino died within a
few days, so much so that solitary confinement, being incompatible with
life, is only of short duration.
Labour, love, and sensations apt to stimulate ideas, that is, to
nourish the intelligence, are necessities of human life.
This is further proved by observations made regarding the development
of puberty. Psychic stimuli may render such development precocious,
and, on the contrary, their absence may retard it. Jean Jacques
Rousseau relates in _Émile_ that at Friuli he encountered young people
of both sexes who were still undeveloped, although they were past
the usual age and were strong and robust, and this he attributed
to the fact that "owing to the simplicity of their customs, their
imagination remained calm and tranquil for a longer time, causing the
ferment in their blood to occur later, and consequently rendering their
temperament less precocious."[27]
Recent statistical research confirms the intuitive observation of that
great pedagogist; the women in the environs of Paris attain puberty
nearly a year later than those who live in the city; and the same
difference is observed between the country districts around Turin and
those of the city itself.
All this goes to prove the fact of psychic influence upon physiological
life: psychic excitation, experienced with _pleasure_, by developing
healthy activities, aids the development of physical life.[28]
These principles must be taken under deep consideration when it comes
to a question of directing the _physiological growth_ of children.
Fenelon relates a fable about a female bear who, having brought into
the world an exceedingly ugly son, took the advice of a crow and licked
and smoothed her cub so constantly that he finally became attractive
and good-looking. This fable embodies the idea that _maternal love_ may
modify the _body of the child_, aiding its evolution toward a harmony
of form by means of the first psychic stimuli of caresses and counsel.
Nature has implanted in the mother not only her milk, the material
nourishment of her child, but also that absolutely altruistic love
which transforms the soul of a woman, and creates in it moral forces
hitherto unknown and unsuspected by the woman herself--just as the
sweet and nourishing corpuscles of the milk were unknown to the red
corpuscles of her blood. Accordingly, the nature of the human kind
protects the _species_ through the mother in two ways, which together
form the complete nutrition of man: aliment and love. After a child
is weaned, it obtains its aliment from its environment in more varied
forms; and it also obtains from its environment a great variety of
psychic stimuli, calculated not only to mould its psychic personality,
but also to bring its physiological personality to its full development.
I have had most eloquent experience of this in the "Children's
Houses" in the San Lorenzo quarter of Rome. This is the poorest
quarter in the city, and the children are the sons and daughters of
day labourers, who consequently are often out of work; illiteracy
is even yet incredibly frequent among the adults, so much so that
in a very high percentage of cases at least one of the parents is
unable to read. In these "Children's Houses" we receive little
children between the ages of three and seven, on a time schedule
that varies between summer, from nine to five, and winter, from
nine to four.
We have never served food in the school; the little ones, all of
whom live in their own homes, with their parents, have a half
hour's recess in which to go home to luncheon. Consequently we have
not _in any way influenced their diet_.
The pedagogic methods employed, however, are of such sort as to
constitute a gradual series of psychic stimuli perfectly adapted
to the needs of childhood; the environment stimulates each pupil
individually to his rightful psychic development according to his
subjective potentiality. The children are _free_ in all their
manifestations and are treated with much cordial affection.
I believe that this is the _first time_ that this extremely
interesting pedagogic experiment has ever been made: namely, to
_sow the seed_ in the consciousness of the child, leaving free
opportunity, in the most rigorous sense, for the spontaneous
expansion of its personality, in an environment that is _calm_, and
warm with a sentiment of affection and peace.
The results achieved were _surprising_: we were obliged to remodel
our ideas regarding child psychology, because many of the so-called
instincts of childhood did not develop at all, while in place of
them unforeseen sentiments and intellectual passions made their
appearance in the primordial consciousness of these children; true
_revelations_ of the sublime greatness of the human soul! The
intellectual activity of these little children was like a spring
of water gushing from beneath the rocks that had been erroneously
piled upon their budding souls; we saw them accomplishing the
incredible feat of despising _playthings_, through their insatiable
thirst for knowledge; carefully preserving the most fragile objects
of the lesson, the tenderest plants sprouting from the earth--these
children that are reputed to be vandals by instinct! In short, they
seemed to us to represent the childhood of a human race more highly
evolved than our own; and yet they are really the same humanity,
marvelously guided and stimulated through its own natural and free
development!
But what is still more marvelous is the astonishing fact that all
these children are so much improved in their general _nutrition_ as
to present a notably different appearance from their former state,
and from the condition in which their brothers still remain. Many
weakly ones have been organically strengthened; a great many who
were lymphatic have been cured; and in general the children have
gained flesh and become ruddy to such an extent that they look
like the children of wealthy parents living in the country. No one
seeing them would believe that these were the offspring of the
illiterate lower classes!
Well, let us glance over the notes taken upon these children at the
time when they first entered the school; for the great majority,
the same note was made: need of tonics. Yet not one of them took
medicine, not one of them had a change of diet; the renewed vigour
of these children was due solely to the _complete satisfaction_
_of their psychic life_. And yet they remain in school continually
from nine till five through eleven months out of the year! One
would say that this was an excessively long schedule; yet what
is still more surprising is that during all this period the
children are continually _busy_; and even more remarkable is the
report made by many of the mothers to the effect that after their
little ones have returned home they continue to busy themselves
up to the hour of going to bed; and lastly--and this seems almost
incredible--many of the little ones are back again at school by
half past eight in the morning, tranquil, smiling, as though
blissfully anticipating the enjoyment that awaits them during the
long day! We have seen small boys become profoundly observant of
their environment, finding a spontaneous delight in new sensations.
Their stature, which we measure month by month, shows how vigorous
the physiological growth is in every one of them, but particularly
in certain ones, whose blood-supply has become excellent.
Such results of our experiments have amazed us as an unexpected
_revelation_ of nature, or, to phrase it differently, as a
_scientific discovery_. Yet we might have foreseen some part of all
this had we stopped to think how our own physical health depends
far more upon happiness and a peaceful conscience than upon that
material substance, bread!
Let us learn to know _man_, sublime in his true reality! let us
learn to know him in the tenderest little child; we have shown
by experiment that he develops _through work, through liberty,
and through love_; hitherto, in place of these, we have stifled
the splendid possibilities of his nature with irrational toys,
with the slavery of discipline, with contempt for his spontaneous
manifestations. Man lives for the purpose of learning, loving and
producing, from his earliest years upward; it is from this that
even his bones get their growth and from this that his blood draws
its vitality!
Now, all such factors of physiological development are _suffocated_
by our antiquated pedagogic methods. We prevent, more or less
completely, the development of the separate personalities, in
order to keep all the pupils within the selfsame limits. The
perfectionment of each is impeded by the common level which it is
expected that all shall attain and make their limit, while the
pupils are forced to _receive_ from us, instead of producing of
their own accord; and they are obliged to sit motionless with their
minds in bondage to an iron programme, as their bodies are to the
iron benches.
We wish to look upon them as machines, to be driven and guided by
us, when in reality they are the most sensitive and the most superb
creation of nature.
We destroy divine forces by slavery. Rewards and punishments
furnish us with the needed scourge to enforce submission from these
marvelously active minds; we encourage them with rewards! to what
end? to winning the prize! Well, by doing so we make the child
lose sight of his real goal, which is knowledge, liberty and work,
in order to dazzle him with a prize which, considered morally,
is vanity, and considered materially is a few grains of metal.
We inflict punishments in order to conquer nature, which is in
rebellion, not against what is good and beautiful, not against the
purpose of life, but against us, because we are tyrants instead of
guides.
If only we did not also punish sickness, misfortune and poverty!
We are breakers-in of free human beings, not educators of men.
Our faith in rewards and punishments as _a necessary means_ to the
progress of the children and to the maintenance of discipline, is
a fallacy already exploded by experiment. It is not the material
and vain reward, bestowed upon a few individual children, that
constitutes the psychic stimulus which spurs on the multifold
expansions of human life to greater heights; rewards degrade the
grandeur of human consciousness into vanity and confine it within
the limits of egotism, which means perdition. The stimulus worthy
of man is the joy which he feels in the consciousness of his own
growth; and he grows only through the conquest of his own spirit
and the spread of universal brotherhood. It is not true that the
child is incapable of feeling a spiritual stimulus far greater
than the wretched prize that gives him an egotistical and illusory
superiority over his companions; it is rather that we ourselves,
because already degraded by egotism, judge these new forces of
nascent human life after our own low standards.
The small boys and girls in our "Children's Houses" are of their
own accord distrustful of rewards; they despise the little medals,
intended to be pinned upon the breast as marks of distinction, and
instead they actively search for objects of study through which,
without any guidance from the teacher, they may model and judge and
correct themselves, and thus work toward perfection.
As to punishments, they are depressing in effect, and they are
inflicted upon children who are already depressed!
Even in the case of those who are adult and strong, we know that it
is necessary to encourage those who have fallen, to aid the weak,
to comfort those who are discouraged. And if this method serves for
the strong, how much more necessary it is for lives in the course
of evolution!
This is a great reform which the world awaits at our hands: we must
shatter the iron chains with which we have kept the intelligence of
the new generations in bondage![29]
=Pathological Variations.=--Among the factors that may have a notable
influence upon the stature are the pathological causes. Aside from
those very rare occurrences that produce gigantism, it may be affirmed
that pathological variations result in general in an arrest of
development. In such a case it may follow that an individual of a given
age will show the various characteristics of an individual of a younger
age; that is, he will seem younger or more childish.
In such a case the stature has remained on a _lower_ level than that
which is normal for the given age; and this in general is the most
obvious characteristic, because it is the index of the whole inclusive
arrest of the physical personality. But together with the diminution of
stature, various other characteristics may exist that also suggest a
younger age; that is, the entire personality has been arrested in its
development.
It follows, in school for example, that such pathological cases may
_escape_ the master's attention; he sees among his scholars a type that
is apparently not abnormal, because it does not deviate from the common
type, in fact is _quite like_ other children; but when we inquire into
its age, then the anomaly becomes evident, because the actual age of
this small child is greater than his apparent age.
A principle of this sort announced in these terms is perhaps too
schematic; but it will serve to establish a clear general rule that
will guide us in our separate observations of a great variety of
individual cases.
This form of arrested development was for the first time explained by
Lasegue, who introduced into the literature of medicine or rather into
nosographism, the comparative term of _infantilism_.
Infantilism has been extensively studied in Italy by Professor Sante
de Sanctis, who has written notable treatises upon it. I have taken
from his work _Gli Infantilismi_, the following table of _fundamental_
characteristics necessary to constitute the _infantile_ _type_.
1. Stature and physical development in general below that required by
the age of the patient.
2. Retarded development or incomplete development of the sexual organs
and of their functions.
3. Incomplete development of intelligence and character.
In order to recognise infantilism, it is necessary to know the
dimensions and morphology of the body in their relation to the various
ages, and to bear in mind that in young children sexual development
either has not begun or is still incomplete.
_Dimensions and Morphology of the Body at the Various Ages._--What
we have already learned regarding stature will give us one test
in our diagnosis of infantilism: the increase of stature and the
transformations of _type of stature_ concur in establishing the
dimensions and the morphology of the body (See Stature, Types of
Stature, Diagrams).
A sufferer from infantilism will have, for example at the age of
eleven, a stature of 113 centimetres and a statural index of 56, while
the average figures give:
-----------------------------
Age |Stature | Index
----------+---------+--------
7 years | 111 | 56
8 years | 117 | 55
9 years | 122 | 55
10 years | 128 | 54
11 years | 132 | 53
-----------------------------
Consequently, in such a case the eleven-year-old patient would have the
appearance of a child of seven, not only in stature but also in the
relative proportions of his body. (And if we examined him psychically,
we should probably find his speech was not yet perfected, that he
showed a tendency toward childish games, a mental level corresponding
to the age of seven or thereabouts; in school the child would be placed
in the first or second elementary grade.)
Accordingly the anthropological verdict of infantilism must not be
based upon limits of measurement alone, but also upon the _proportions_
of the body. Every age has its own morphology.
Now, such changes are found not only in the reciprocal relations
between the bust and the limbs, but also between the various parts
of the bust, as we shall see when we come to an analytical study of
the morphology of the head, the thorax and the abdomen; the detailed
anthropological examination of the individual patient will furnish us
with further accompanying symptoms helpful in establishing a diagnosis.
Further on we shall give a summarised table of the morphology of the
body from year to year (laws of growth); and of the most notable and
fundamental psychological characteristics of the different years of
childhood; so that a teacher may easily derive from it at a glance
a comprehensive picture that will aid in a diagnosis of the _age_,
and hence of the arrest of development, in subjects suffering from
infantilism.
Before entering upon the important question of pathogenesis in its
relation to infantilism, I will reproduce a few biographic notes of
_infantile types_, taken from various authorities:
Giulio B. was brought to the clinic because of his continued love for
toys, notwithstanding his age. At seventeen and a half he retained
the manners, the games and the language of a child of between ten
and twelve. In appearance, he gave the impression of being between
thirteen and fourteen, and was as well proportioned as a lad of that
age. His stature was 1.45 meters (at thirteen the average stature is
1.40 m. and at fourteen it is 1.48 m.; while at seventeen it ought to
be 1.67 m.) and his weight was 39 kilograms (at fourteen the weight
is 40 k. and at seventeen it is 57 k.). His appearance was lively,
intelligent, but on the whole childish. His genital organs were like
those of a boy of twelve (Fig. 30). The patient understood all that was
said to him, he could read, write and sing, but could not apply himself
to any serious occupation; he did not read the papers, but would
amuse himself by looking at pictures in illustrated books; he could
play draughts, but was equally pleased when playing with children's
toys. During his stay at the clinic he was several times punished for
childish pranks: he filled his neighbour's chamber vessel with stones,
and amused himself by making little paper boats and sailing them in the
urine, etc. He was employed as a page at an all-night café; his age
permitted him to perform this work forbidden to children, while his
appearance rendered him fitted for the task. When questioned discreetly
regarding his sexual functions, or rather his sexual incapacity, he
understood at once, and expressed in a childish way his deep regret,
because he had heard it said that "that was why they wouldn't let him
serve in the army."
Vittorio Ch. Is twenty-two years old and looks about eight or ten.
Stature 1.15 metres (average stature for the age of seven being 1.11
m.; for eight, 1.17 m.). Has no beard, nor any signs of virility;
genital organs like those of a child. His intelligence is alert, but
does not surpass that of a boy of ten. He speaks correctly, can read,
write and sing; plays draughts, but does not disdain children's toys,
and prefers looking at pictures in illustrated books to reading the
daily papers. After the death of the patient, it was found, as a result
of the autopsy, that the epiphyses of the long bones had not yet united
with the diaphyses, and that the bones of the skull were still as soft
as those of a child (Fig. 31).
Here is another case, taken from Moige:[30]
It is the case of a young working girl, presenting all the appearance
of a child of twelve or fourteen; she had not yet attained puberty,
although she was thirty years of age. No external sign gave evidence
that she was undergoing the sexual transition that should give her
womanhood. Her breasts were reduced to the mere nipple, as in infancy.
Her voice was weak. This woman was hysterical and subject to frequent
attacks of convulsions. Her mental condition remained infantile. She
was gentle, docile, timid and apprehensive; she was destitute of
coquetry or sense of shame.
[Illustration: FIG. 30.--Boy, seventeen and one-half years old.]
[Illustration: FIG. 31.--Young man, twenty-two years old.]
[Illustration: FIG. 32.--Idiotic cretin, age 20 years, stature 1.095 m.]
[Illustration: FIG. 33.--An example of myxedematous infantilism.]
[Illustration: FIG. 34.--A group of cretins in the valley of Aosta
(Piedmont). The alteration of the thyroid gland is of endemic origin.]
Renato L.,[31] age twenty-nine; stature 1.30 m. (average stature at the
age of ten, 1.28 m.; at eleven, 1.32 m.) weight, 32 kilograms (average
weight, age of twelve, 31 k.). It appears from his history that he
developed normally up to the age of nine, after which period an arrest
of development occurred, both physical and psychic. An arrest of the
genital organs dates back also to early childhood. His intelligence
is that of a backward child; he has never been able to read or write,
but can count up to 1000. He has never been able to learn a trade, but
shows some talent for drawing.
His criminal instincts seem to be especially developed. He spends
whole hours, turning over the leaves of popular illustrated novels,
and whenever he comes across a picture representing a homicide or an
assassination, he utters loud exclamations of delight. He has only one
passion, tobacco, and only one object of adoration, Ravachol. Very
violent, extremely irritable; when he is angry, he would kill someone,
if, as he says, "he had the strength for it." Although, as a rule, he
docilely obeys the orders given him, it is because he is "afraid of
being scolded." His ideal is to be able some time to obtain refuge in
the Hospice de Bicêtre.
From De Sanctis's work, _Gli Infantilismi_, I obtain the following
data, that are very suggestive on the anthropological side, regarding a
case of infantilism observed by the professor in his asylum-school for
defective children, in Rome.
Vincenzo P., seven years of age. Father in good health and of good
character. Mother small, thin, weak, underfed; has had nine children,
of which five are living, all feeble. Vincenzo was born in due time,
birth regular; had five wet-nurses; cut his teeth at the normal
intervals; began to walk at the end of the second year and to speak
at the end of the first. According to his mother, all went well until
the fourth year. At this period, Vincenzo became very troublesome
and ceased to "grow taller." Later on he was sent to the communal
school, but the director of the school in the Via Ricasoli, seeing
how undersized and backward he was, sent him to the Asylum-School for
defective children.
In appearance the child is eurhythmic, excepting that the head appears
a little _too big_ in proportion to the rest of his body; but it is not
of the hydrocephalic type (an infantile characteristic). He is slightly
asymmetric, the postero-inferior portion of the right parietal bone
being more depressed than that of the left (infantile plagiocephaly).
---------------------------------------+------------------------------
Measurements | Age at which the
-------------------+-------------------+ measurements of
Of the child |Normal measurements| Vincenzo would
|at the age of seven| be normal
-------------------+-------------------+------------------------------
Stature, 0.870 m. | 1.10 m. |Three years, stature, 0.864 m.
Weight, 12.400 kg. | 20.16 kg. |Two years, weight, 12 kg.
Circumference of | 0.55 m. |Four years, circumference of
chest, 0.507 m. | | chest, 0.505 m.
Vital index, 59 | Vital index, 54 |Two years, vital index, 59.
-------------------+-------------------+------------------------------
The bust is _greatly developed_ in comparison with the lower limbs,
which are unquestionably short. (The sitting stature was not taken,
but this note, recorded from simple observation, reminds us of the
enormous difference between the indices of stature at the age of two or
three and at the age of seven: Index at two years=63; at three=62; at
seven=56.)
But although we lack the index of stature, we may make use of the vital
index, which is given by the proportion between the circumference of
the chest and the stature, and consequently gives us an index of the
morphology of the bust in its relation to the whole personality; thus
we find that the vital index corresponds in the present case to that of
a child of two, as is also true of the weight, so that we may deduce
that the index of stature was probably about 62-63.
He shows no impairment as to external sensations; on the other hand,
internal sensations, such as satiety, illness, etc., are blunted.
His power of attention seems sufficient, both at play and in school
and when questioned. Neither does his memory show anything abnormal.
Emotionally, he is below the normal level; he says that he is afraid
of thunder; occasionally he shows annoyance when disturbed; but it is
equally certain that he never becomes angry, never turns pale and
never blushes, as the result of any excitement. He is of an indifferent
disposition and is passive in manner; he is good natured, or rather, a
certain degree of apathy makes him appear so.
All things considered, his mental development may be described as
that of a three-year-old child; only that he differs from children of
that age in his lack of vivacity and in his complete development of
articulate speech (it should be noted, in regard to the diagnosis of
age made by so distinguished a psychologist as De Sanctis, that he
judged the child to have a psychic development corresponding to the age
of three years); while we, studying the general measurements of the
body, determined that they correspond to three different ages, namely,
two, three and four the average of which is precisely three; while the
stature, which is the index of development of the body as a whole,
corresponds almost exactly to that average of three years (0.870 m.,
0.864 m.).
_Pathogenesis of Infantilism._--At this point it might be asked: Why do
we grow? We hide the mechanism of growth under very vague expressions:
biological final causes, ontogenetic evolution, heredity. But, if we
stop to think, such expressions are not greatly different from those
which they have replaced: the divine purpose, creation.
In other words, a causal explanation is lacking. But positive science
refuses to lose itself in the search after final causes, in which case
it would become metaphysical philosophy. Nevertheless, it may pursue
its investigations into the genesis of phenomena, whenever the results
of experiments permit it to advance.
So it is in the case of growth; certain relatively recent discoveries
in physiology have made it possible to establish relations between
the development of the individual and the functions of certain little
glands of "internal secretion." Now, the discovery of these relations
is certainly not a causal explanation of the phenomenon of growth, but
only a profounder analysis of it.
Hitherto, we have considered the organism in regard to its chief
visceral functions: in speaking of macroscelia and of brachyscelia, we
considered the different _types_ in relation to the development of the
organs of vegetative life and the organs of external relations: the
central nervous system, the lungs, the heart, the digestive system. Our
next step is to enter upon the study of certain little organs, which
were still almost ignored by the anatomy and physiology of yesterday.
These organs are glands which, unlike other glands (the salivary
glands, the pancreas, the sudoriferous glands, etc.), are lacking in
an excretory duct, through which the juices prepared for an immediate
physiological purpose might be given forth; and in the absence of
such excretory tubes, their product must be distributed through the
lymphatic system, and hence imperceptibly conveyed throughout the whole
organism.
One of these glands, the one best known, is the _thyroid_; but there
are others, such, for example, as the _thymus_, situated beneath the
sternum, or breast-bone, and much reduced in size in the adult; the
_pineal gland_ or hypophysis cerebri, situated at the base of the
encephalon; the _suprarenal capsules_, little ear-shaped organs located
above the kidneys. Up to a short time ago, it was not known what the
functions of such glands were; some of them were regarded as atavistic
survivals, because they are more developed in the lower animals than
in man, and consequently were classed with the vermiform appendix
as relics of organs which had served their functions in a bygone
phylogenetic epoch and remain in man without any function, but on the
contrary represent a danger through the local diseases that they may
develop. The cerebral hypophysis was in ancient times regarded as the
_seat of the soul_.
These glands are very small; the largest is the thyroid, which weighs
between thirty and forty grams (1 to 1-3/5 oz.); the suprarenal glands
weigh four grams each (about 60 grains); the hypophysis hardly attains
the weight of one gram.
The importance of these glands began to be revealed when antiseptic
methods rendered surgery venturesome, and the attempt was made (in
1882) to remove the thyroid gland. After a few weeks the patient
operated on began to feel the effects of the absence of an organ
necessary to normal life: effects that may be summed up as, extreme
general debility; pains in the bones and in the head; an elastic
swelling of the entire skin; enfeebled heart action, and anemia; and
on the psychic side, loss of memory, taciturnity, melancholy. After
the lapse of some time the patient showed such further symptoms as the
shedding of the cuticle of the skin, whitening of the hair and _facies
cretinica_.
But when Sick undertook to operate upon the thyroid of a child of ten,
the deleterious effects of interrupting the above-mentioned function
of the gland manifested itself in an _arrest of_ _development_; at
the age of twenty-eight the patient operated on by Sick was a cretin
(idiotic dwarf) 1.27 metres tall (average stature at age of ten=1.28
m.). Since that time certain diseases have been recognised that call
to mind the condition of patients who have undergone an operation for
removal of the thyroid glands, and in which the subjects have suffered
from _hypothyroidea_, or insufficient development of the thyroid.
Such individuals were characterised by _nanism_, solid edema of the
skin, arrest of psychic development, and absence of development of
puberty; this malady has taken its place in medical treatises under the
name of myxedema; and, when serious, is accompanied by _nanism_ and
myxedematous idiocy. But in _mild_ _cases_ it may result in a simple
myxedematous infantilism.
The other glands of internal secretion are also associated with the
phenomena of growth. First in importance is the _thymus_ which is
found highly developed in the embryo and in the child at birth, and
thereafter diminishes in volume, until it almost disappears after the
attainment of puberty. In the psychological laboratories of Luciani, at
Rome, the first experiments were conducted upon dogs, for the purpose
of determining what alterations in growth would result as a consequence
of the removal of the thymus. The dogs thus operated on were weak;
furthermore they became atrophied, accompanied by roughness of the
skin and changes in pigmentation. After this, experiments were made
in the Pediatric Clinic at Padua, under the direction of Professor
Cervesato, in the application of thymic organotherapy (that is, the
use of animal thymus as medicine) with notable success in the case of
atrophic children (infantile atrophy occurs in early infancy; this form
is known popularly in Italy as the "monkey sickness." Nursing children
become extremely thin, cease to grow in length, the little face becomes
elongated and skeleton-like, and is frequently covered with a thick
down).
Stoppato also obtained analogous results in infantile atrophy and
anemia. Hence it is evident that the very rapid growth in the embryo is
associated with the functional action of the thymus. And this is also
true of the very rapid growth during the first years of a child's life.
The pituitary gland, or cerebral hypophysis, has also functions
associated with the general nervous tone and trophism (or nourishment)
of the tissues, and especially of the osseous system. There is a
disease known as acromegalia (Marie's disease) which is characterised
by an abnormal and inharmonic growth of the skeleton, especially in
the limbs and the jaw; the hands and feet become enormously enlarged,
while the jaw lengthens and thickens (an unhealthy formation on which
the common people of Italy have bestowed the name of "horse sickness,"
because of the appearance assumed by the face). Such patients complain
of general and progressive debility of their psychic activities. In
such cases, an autopsy shows an alteration of the pituitary gland,
often due to malignant tumors (sarcoma).
The suprarenal capsules also bear a relation to general trophism and
particularly to the pigmentation of the skin. It was already noted
by Cassan and Meckel that the negro races show a greater volumetric
development of the suprarenal capsules; when in 1885 Addison for the
first time discovered a form of disease associated with alterations
of the suprarenal capsules, characterised by an intensely brown
colouration of the skin (bronzed-skin disease), general debility of the
nervous and muscular systems, progressive anemia and mental torpor;
the malady ends in death. In the case of animals operated on for
physiological experiments, not one of them has been able to survive.
Some interesting observations have been made by Zander on the
connection between the development of the nervous system and the
suprarenal glands. He found that there was an insufficient development
of these glands in individuals having teratological (monstrous)
mis-shapements of the brain, as in the case of hemicephalus (absence of
one-half the brain), cyclops, etc.
There exists between all the ductless glands, or those of internal
secretion, an organic sympathy: in other words, if one of them is
injured the others react, frequently to the extent of assuming a
vicarious (compensating) functional action.
What their functional mechanism is, that is, whether the secretions act
as formative stimulants or enzymes, ferments of growth, or whether as
antitoxins to the toxins elaborated by various organs in the process
of regression, is a question still controverted and in any case cannot
enter within the limits of our field.
It is enough for us to know that the general growth of the organism and
its morphological harmony, depend not only as regards the skeleton,
but equally in relation to the cutaneous system and its pigmentation,
the development of the muscles, the heart, the blood, the brain, and
the trophic functions of the nervous system, upon some formative and
protective action of all these little glands of "internal secretion,"
with which are associated the _psychic activities_ and even the life
itself of each individual, as though within the embryonic crucible
there must have been certain substances that acted by stimulating the
genetic forces and directing the trophism of the tissues toward a
predetermined morphology.
To-day it is held that even the _mother's milk_ contains these
formative principles, or _enzymes_, suited to stimulate the tissues
of her own child in the course of their formation; consequently, it
produces results which no other milk in all nature can replace.
Alterations in these glands of "internal secretion" may therefore
produce an arrest of development--and, in mild cases, forms of
infantilism. But the gland which in this connection is of first
importance is the _thyroid_.
Now there is one form of arrest of the trophic rhythm of growth which
may be due to _hereditary causes_ effecting the formative glands
(myxedematous infantilism), or to exceptional causes occurring in the
individual himself in the course of formation, either at the moment
of conception, or at some later moment, as may happen even during the
period of infancy (dystrophic infantilism of various origin).
In all these cases, however, according to Hertoghe, the exceptional
causes, deleterious to growth, would first of all exercise their
influence upon the glands of internal secretion and especially upon the
thyroid.
In order to make clear, in connection with such complex pathological
problems, the cases which are important from the point of view of
pedagogy and the school, let us divide them into:
_Myxedematous infantilism_, due to congenital insufficiency of the
thyroid gland from hereditary causes, and
_Dystrophic infantilism_, associated with various causes deleterious
to individual development--and acting secondarily upon the glands
of internal secretion (syphilis, tuberculosis, alcoholism, malaria,
pellagra, etc.).
_Myxedematous infantilism_ is characterised by short stature, by
excessive development of the adipose system, and by arrest of mental
development (including speech). Such _infantiles_ very frequently have
a special morphology of the face, that suggests the mongol type, and
characteristic malformations of the hands (little fingers atrophied).
When treated with extracts of the thyroid glands of animals, they
improve notably; they become thinner, they gain in stature, their
mentality develops to the extent of permitting them to study and to
work. Certain mongoloids treated by De Sanctis in the Asylum-School at
Rome were improved to the point of being able to attend the high-school
and therefore were restored to their family and to society as useful
individuals--all of which are facts that are of singular importance to
us as educators! Medical care working hand in hand with pedagogy may
save from parasitism individual human beings who otherwise would be
lost. We ought to be convinced from such evidence of the necessity of
_special schools_ for deficients, wholly separated from the elementary
schools, and where _medical care_ combined with a specially adapted
pedagogic treatment may transform the school into a true "home of
health and education." The plan of a "school with a prolonged schedule
of hours," including two meals and a medical office, as was conceived
and organised by Prof. Sante de Sanctis in Rome, has been proved to
answer admirably to this social need; because without wholly removing
the children from their families, and therefore without exposing them
to the disadvantages of a boarding school, it provides them with all
the assistance necessary to their special needs.
_Dystrophic Infantilism._--Given a case of infantilism, discoverable by
the teacher through the general measurements of the body and psychic
examination, it is interesting to investigate the deleterious _causes_.
It may be the result of _poisoning_, as for example from _alcohol_.
Alcohol has such a direct influence upon the arrest of development that
in England jockeys are produced by making the lads drink a great deal
of alcohol. Children who drink alcohol _do not grow in_ _stature_, and
similarly the embryo grows in a less degree when the mother indulges
in alcohol during pregnancy; some Swiss women deliberately resort
to this means, in order that a smaller child may lessen the pain of
childbirth. But alcohol not only diminishes the stature, but destroys
the harmony of the different parts; that is, in the development
of the body it arrests both the volumetric and the morphological
growth. Furthermore, alcohol produces in children an arrest of mental
development. An acquaintance with this principle of hygiene should be
looked upon by the teacher less as a piece of special knowledge than
as a _social duty_. From the point of view of the educator, the fight
against alcoholism should have no assignable limits! It would be vain
for him to perfect his didactic methods in order to _educate a child
that drank_ _wine or other still worse alcoholic liquors_. It would
be better if the efforts which he meant to dedicate to such educative
work could be all turned to a _propaganda_ directed toward the parents
of such children, or toward the children themselves, to induce them to
abstain from so pernicious a habit!
We may also consider in the category of _poisonings_ certain chronic
maladies which act upon the organism with special toxic (poisonous)
effects. In the foremost rank of such maladies belongs
_Syphilis._--This disease is ranked among the principal causes of
_abortion_; in other words, the foetus which results from a syphilitic
conception lacks _vitality_, and often fails to complete the cycle
of intrauterine life. But even granting that the foetus survives
and attains its complete development, the child after birth _grows_
tardily, and very often remains an _infantile_. It is well known that
syphilis has been transmitted to new-born infants at the time of birth,
in consequence of which these infants may in turn transmit syphilis to
their wet-nurses. In such cases they are really _sick_ and need medical
treatment from the hour of their birth. Just as in the adult patient,
syphilis has several successive stages, an acute primary stage, with
plain manifestations of hard ulcers, erythema diffused over the skin
of the entire body, glandular infiltrations, etc., and then secondary
and tertiary manifestations that eventually become chronic and exhibit
almost imperceptible symptoms; so in the case of children, syphilis may
be transmitted in various degrees of virulence. In the acute stage the
result will be abortion or the child will be still-born, or else the
new-born child will plainly exhibit ulcerations and erythema, but at
other periods of the disease, the child may bear far less evident signs
of its affliction, as for instance a special form of corrosion in the
enamel of its teeth; the _cervical pleiades_ or enlargement of certain
little lymphatic glands like the beads of a rosary, distinguishable
by touch in the posterior region of the neck; certain cranial
malformations (prominent nodules on the parietal bones, Parrot's
nodes); and in the child's whole personality an under-development in
respect to its age. In cases like these the teacher's _observations_
may be of real social value, because the child has shown no symptoms of
such a nature as to cause the parents to have recourse to a physician,
and it is the child's _scholarship_ (using the word in the broad sense
of the _way in which the child reacts in the environment_ _of school_,
the profit he derives from study, etc.) that may reveal an abnormal
development to an intelligent teacher.
The first indication is a _stature below what is normal at a given_
_age_. Such observations ought to be obligatory upon teachers who are
in sympathy with the new ideas, for they alone can be the arbiters of
the rising generations. It is being said on all sides, to be sure, with
optimistic assurance that argues a deficiency of critical insight and
common sense, that an adequate _education of_ _the mothers_ ought to
enlighten all women in regard to the laws of growth in children and
the abnormalities that are remediable. But of what class of mothers
are we supposed to be speaking? Certainly not of the great mass of
working women and illiterates! certainly not of the women who have been
constrained to hard toil from childhood up, and later on condemned to
abortion because of such unjust labor, while their spirit is brutalized
and their memory loses even the last lingering notion of an alphabet!
It will always be easier and more practical, in every way, to enlighten
twenty-five thousand teachers regarding these principles than to
enlighten many millions of mothers; not to mention that if we wished to
enlighten these mothers in a practical way regarding the principles of
the hygiene of generation, we should still have to invoke the services
of that very class whose assigned task in society is precisely that of
educating the masses!
The teacher can and should learn at least how to _suspect_ the presence
of hereditary syphilis in his pupils, in order to be able to invoke the
aid of the physician, leaving to the latter the completion of the task,
namely, the eventual cure. It is well known that iodide of potassium
and its substitutes, especially if used at an early stage, can _cure_
syphilitic children and therefore save innocent boys and girls from
eventual definite arrest of development and from all the resultant
human and social misery.
Another cause that is deleterious to development is
_Tuberculosis._--Although it has now been demonstrated that
tuberculosis is not hereditary, as an active disease--that is, we
cannot inherit in our organism localised colonies of the tuberculosis
bacillus, because the bacilli cannot pass through the placenta into the
foetus during the period of gestation--nevertheless a _predisposition_
to infection from the bacillus can be inherited.
A predisposition which consists in a special form of weakened
resistance of the tissues, rendering them incapable of immunity, and
a skeletal formation which is distinguished by a narrowness of the
chest, and a consequent smallness of lungs, which, being unable to take
in sufficient air, constitute a _locus minoris resistentiæ_ (locality
of less resistance) to localisation of the bacilli. Now, since our
environment is highly infected by the bacilli of tuberculosis, we must
all necessarily meet with it, we must all have repeatedly received
into our mouths and air passages Koch's bacilli, alive and virulent;
and yet the strong organism remains immune, while the weak succumbs.
Consequently those who are predisposed by heredity are almost fated
to become tuberculous, and in this sense the malady presents the
appearance of being truly hereditary. But such organic weakness in a
child predisposed to tuberculosis is manifested not only by possible
attacks of various forms of the disease localised in the glands
(scrofula) or the bones, but also by a _delayed development of the
whole personality_.
Now, the environment of school and the educative methods still in
vogue in our schools, not only are not adapted to correct such a
predisposition, but what is more, the school itself _creates_ this
predisposition! In fact, the sitting posture--or rather, that of
stooping over the desk, to write--and the prolonged confinement in
a closed environment, impede the normal development of the thorax
and of all the physical powers in general. Many a work on pedagogic
anthropology has already shown that the _most_ _studious scholars_, the
_prize-winners_, etc., have a wretched chest measure, and a muscular
force so low as to threaten ruin to their constitutions.
Consequently, children who are predisposed to tuberculosis ought
unquestionably to be _removed_ from our schools and cared for and
educated in favourable environments. While we are still impotent in the
face of fatalities due to this deplorable disease, we are not ignorant
of the means needed to save a predisposed child and transform him into
a robust and resistant lad. Such knowledge, to be sure, was applied
to _mankind_ only as a second thought; for the first men to apply and
then to teach such means of defence were the owners of cattle and the
veterinaries. The owners of cattle discovered that if a calf was born
of a tuberculous cow, it could be saved and become an excellent head of
cattle, if only it was subjected to a very simple procedure; the calf
must be removed from its mother and given over to be nursed by another
cow in the open country; and it must remain in the open pastures for
some time after it its weaned.
By taking similar precautions in the case of children, it has been
shown that the son of a tuberculous woman, if entrusted to a wet-nurse
in the _open country_, and brought up on an abundance of nourishing
food until his sixth year in the freedom of the fields, can be made as
robust as any naturally sound child. From this we get the principle of
_schools in the open air_, or of _schools in the woods_, or _on the
sea-shore_, for the benefit of weak, anemic children, predisposed to
tuberculosis. Such a sojourn constitutes the "School-Sanatorium," the
lack of which is so grievously felt by the parents of feeble children,
and that might so easily be instituted in our mild and luxuriant
peninsula, so rich in hillsides and sea-coast!
_Malaria._--One of the chief causes of mortality and of biological
pauperism in many regions of Italy is _malaria_. This scourge rages
even to the very gates of Rome. The country folk of these abandoned
tracts pine away in misery and at the same time in illiteracy, while
their blood is impoverished by disease, and a notable percentage of the
children are _victims of arrested development_.
These unfortunates, forgotten by civilisation, are destined to
roam the fields, bearing with them, till the day of their death, a
deceptive appearance of youth, and an infantile incapacity for work,
an object-lesson of misery and barbarity! Among the means of fighting
malaria, the spread of civilisation and the school ought to find a
place. Even the quinine given freely by the government is distributed
with difficulty among these unhappy people, brutalised by hunger and
fever; and some message from civilisation ought to precede the remedy
for the material ill. A far-sighted institution is that of Sunday
classes founded by Signor Celli and his wife in the abandoned malarial
districts. In these classes, the teachers from elementary schools give
lessons every Sunday, spreading the principles of civic life, at the
same time that they distribute quinine to the children.
If we stop to think that wherever malaria is beaten back, it means
a direct conquest of fertile lands and of robust men, and hence of
wealth, we must realise at once the immense importance of this sort of
school and this sort of struggle, which may be compared to the ancient
wars of conquest, when new territories and strong men constituted the
prize of battles won, and the grandeur of the victorious nations.
_Pellagra._--Pellagra is still another scourge diffused over
many regions of Italy. It is well known that this disease, whose
pathological etiology is still obscure, has some connection with a
diet of mouldy grain. Pellagra runs a slow course, beginning almost
unnoticed in the first year, with a simple cutaneous eruption,
which the peasants sometimes attribute to the sun. The second year
disturbances of the stomach and intestines begin, aggravated by a
diet of spoiled corn; but it is usually not until the third year
that pellagra reveals itself through its symptoms of great nervous
derangements, with depression of muscular, psychic and sexual powers,
together with _melancholia_, amounting to a true and special form of
psychosis (insanity) leading to homicide, even of those nearest and
dearest (mothers murdering their children) and to suicide.
This established cycle of the disease is not invariable. Instead of
representing successive _stages_, these symptoms may often be regarded
merely as representing the _prevailing_ phenomena in various forms of
pellagra; in any case, it constitutes a malady that runs a slow course
during which the same patient is liable to many relapses. While the
malady is running its course, the patients may continue their usual
physiological and social life, and even _reproduce_ themselves. So that
it is not an infrequent case when we find mothers, _suffering from
pellagra_, nursing an offspring generated in sickness and condemned to
manifold forms of _arrested development, both_ _physical and mental_.
Against a disease so terrible that it strikes the individual and the
species, it is now a matter of common knowledge that there is an
exceedingly simple remedy: it consists in a strongly nitrogenous diet
(i.e. meat) and that, too, only temporarily. In fact, in the districts
where the pellagra rages, various charitable organisations have been
established, among others the economic _kitchens_ for mothers, which by
distributing big rations of meat effect a cure, within a few months,
not only of the sick mothers but of their children as well.
The real battle against pellagra must be won through _agrarian_
_reforms_: but in the meantime the local authorities could in no small
degree aid the unhappy population with their counsel, by enlightening
the peasants regarding the risks they run, as well as by informing
them of the various forms of organised aid actually established in
the neighbourhood and often unknown to the public or feared by them,
because of the ignorance and prejudice with which they are profoundly
imbued!
_Pauperism_, _Denutrition_, _Hypertrophy._--We may define all the
causes hitherto considered that are deleterious to growth, as _toxical_
_dystrophies_, since not only alcohol, but the several diseases
above discussed--syphilis, tuberculosis, malaria, pellagra--produce
forms of chronic intoxication. But besides all these various forms
of dystrophies, we may also cite cases of infantilism due purely to
defective nutrition, and family poverty. Physiological misery may
produce an arrest of growth in children.
But just as denutrition associated with pauperism (social misery,
economic poverty, lack of nourishment) may cause an organism in course
of development to arrest its processes of evolution through lack of
material, the same result is equally apt to be produced by any one
of a great variety of causes liable to produce organic denutrition,
physiological poverty.
For example, too frequent pregnancies of the child's mother, which have
resulted in impoverishing the maternal organism, causing deficiency of
milk, etc.
_Infant Illnesses._--In the same way, organic impoverishment is caused
by certain maladies of the digestive system which impede the normal
assimilation of nutritive matter: dysentery, for instance; and the
effects may be still more disastrous if symptoms of this kind are
accompanied by feverish conditions, as in typhus.
There are cases, however, in which the arrest of development is not to
be attributed to some wasting disease, or to the denutrition resulting
from it; but rather to some acute illness occurring in early childhood
(pneumonia, etc.), after which the child ceased to progress in
accordance with his former obviously normal development.
_Anangioplastic Infantilism._--Another form of infantilism is
associated with a malformation of the heart and blood-vessels, that is
to say, the heart and aorta together with the entire circulatory system
are of small dimensions; the calibre of the arteries is less than
normal. In such a case the restriction of the entire vascular system
and the scantiness of circulation of the blood constitute an impediment
to the normal growth of the organism. Although in such cases the
explanation of the cause of the phenomenon is purely mechanical,
nevertheless such abnormality of the heart and veins is to be classed
as a teratological (monstrous) malformation, determined by original
anomalies of the ductless glands, similar to what is found in cases of
cephalic and cerebral monstrosities.
In this form of infantilism the patient shows not only the usual
fundamental characteristics already noted, but also symptoms of
_anemia_ as obstinate to all methods of treatment as _chlorosis_ is;
in addition to which they often show congenital malformations of the
heart, in every way similar in their effects to valvular affections
such as may result from pathological causes (chief of which are mitral
and aortic stenosis, which consist of a stricture of the valves
connected with the left ventricle of the heart).
Accordingly, children who show forms of mitral infantilism are inferior
to their actual age not only in their whole psychosomatic appearance,
but they are noticeably weak, pale and suffering from shortness of
breath and disturbances of the circulation. In such cases, neither
pedagogy nor hygiene can counteract the arrest of development; but it
is well that the attention of teachers should be called to such cases,
in order that cruel errors may be prevented, which would unconsciously
do additional harm to individuals already burdened by nature with
physiological wretchedness.
In conclusion: The normal growth of the organism is _associated_ with
the functional action of certain glands known as glands "of internal
secretion," such as the thymus and thyroid, first of all, as well as
the suprarenal capsules and the cerebral hypophysis.
This group of _formative_ glands presides not only over the entire
growth of the body, but also over the intimate modeling of its
structure; so that a _lesion_ or _deficiency_ in any of them results
not only in nanism and an arrest of mental development, but in various
forms of general dystrophy.
That the organism is associated in the course of its transformations
with the functional action of specific glands is shown by the
_development of puberty_, which consists in a series of transformations
of the _entire organism_, but is associated with the establishment of
functional activity of glands that were hitherto immature: the genital
glands (ovaries, testicles). These glands also are functionally in
close sympathy with the entire group of formative glands: so much so
that, if the glands of internal secretion are injured, the genital
glands usually fail to attain normal development (infantilism). Now,
the transformations which take place in the organism at the period of
puberty might be produced at other periods if the functional action of
the generative glands should show itself at a different epoch. That
is, these transformations are not associated with the _age of the_
_organism_, but with the development of specific glands. There are
cases of the genital glands maturing at abnormal ages; or of local
maladies that have hastened the appearance of the phenomena of puberty
in children of tender years. A notable case is that described by Dr.
Sacchi,[32] of a nine-year old boy, who had grown normally up to the
age of five and a half, both in his physiological organism and in his
psychic personality. At the age of five and a half, the child's father
noticed a physical and moral alteration; the child's voice grew deeper,
his character more serious, and the skeletal and muscular systems grew
rapidly, while on certain portions of the body, as for example on the
face, a fine down appeared. At the age of seven the child had attained
a stature that was gigantic for his age; he was very diligent and
studious and did not care to play with his comrades. At nine, he had a
stature of 1.45 metres (the normal stature being 1.22), a weight of 44
kilograms (normal = 24); his muscles were highly developed, his powers
of traction and compression being equal to those of a man; his chin was
covered with a thick beard five centimetres long. When he was examined
by a physician, the latter discovered a tumor in the left testicle.
After an operation, the child lost his beard and regained his childish
voice; his character became more timid and sensitive; he began once
more to enjoy his comrades and take part in boyish games. His muscular
force underwent a notable diminution.
_Rickets._--It is important not to confound any of the various forms
of infantilism with _rickets_. Rickets is a well-defined malady whose
special point of attack is the osseous system in course of formation;
but it leaves the nervous system and the genital system unimpaired.
The sufferer from rickets may be a person of intelligence, capable of
attaining the highest distinctions in art or in politics; he is normal
in his genital powers, so that he is capable of normal reproduction,
without, in many cases, transmitting any taint of rickets to his
descendants.
Nevertheless this disease, like all constitutional maladies, occurs
only in individuals who are _weakly_.
Among the characteristics of rickets, the one which assumes first
importance is _inferiority of stature_ in comparison with the normal
man. In this connection I quote the following figures from Bonnifay:[33]
--------------------------------------------------
Age | Stature in centimetres
| Rachitic children | Normal children
-------------+-------------------+----------------
11 months | 66.5 | 69.4
2 years | 70.7 | 74.8
2-3 years | 75.8 | 83.0
3-4 years | 76.8 | 91.9
5-6 years | 91-93 | 101.25
6-7 years | 105.0 | 106.8
7-8 years | 110.6 | 115.3
8-9 years | 118.4 | 119.0
9-10 years | 121.6 | 124.4
--------------------------------------------------
But together with diminution of stature there exist in rickets various
_deformities_ of the skeleton, especially in the bones of the cranium,
in the vertebral column and in the frame of the thorax; although even
the pelvis and the limbs have been known to show the characteristic
deformities.
An objective knowledge of the first symptoms of rickets ought to be
regarded as indispensable on the part of mistresses in children's
asylums, and in any case to form an important chapter in pedagogic
anthropology. For it is well known that in the early stages of
_rickets_ the child may be so guided in its growth as to save it from
deformities of the skeleton, even though a definite limitation of the
stature may not be _prevented_.
That is to say, that through the intervention of hygiene and pedagogy
the rachitic child may be saved from becoming a _cripple_ or a
_hunchback_, and will simply remain an individual of _low stature_;
with certain signs and proportions of the skeleton indicative of the
attack through which he has passed. Even in very severe cases it is
at least possible to minimize the deformity of the thorax and the
curvature of the vertebral column.
The precursory signs of rickets in a child are: a characteristic
_muscular weakness_, frequently accompanied by excessive development of
adipose tissue, giving an illusory impression of abundant nutrition;
delay in the development of the teeth and in locomotion, which from the
very beginning may be accompanied by curvature of the long bones of the
legs. The bregmatic fontanelle of the cranium closes later than at the
normal period, and is larger than in normal cases, just as the entire
cerebral cranium is abnormally developed in volume, while the facial
portion remains small, especially in regard to the jaw bones.
One of the most salient characteristics, however, is the peculiar
enlargement of the _articular heads_ of the long bones, easily
recognizable in the size of the _wrists_; the enlargement is also found
in the extremities of the ribs, which at their points of union on each
side of the sternum form a succession of little lumps, like the beads
of a rosary. In conjunction with these characteristics, it is to be
noted, at all ages, as appears from the figures given by Bonnifay, that
there is a notable _diminution of stature_.
The _treatment_ of rickets is _medical_ and _pedagogical_ combined.
Children of this type should be _removed_ from the public school, where
the school routine might have a fatally aggravating effect upon the
pathological condition of such children. In fact, gymnastics based upon
marching and exercising in an erect position, together with a prolonged
sitting posture, are likely to produce weaknesses of the skeleton and
deformities, even where there are no symptoms of rickets!
The establishment of _infant_ asylums for rachitic children is one of
the most enlightened movements of the modern school. We Italians are
certainly not the last to found such institutions, and Padua possesses
one of the oldest and most perfect asylums of this sort of which Europe
can boast. Asylums for rachitic children ought to have a special
school equipment, so far as concerns the _benches_ and the apparatus
for _medical and orthopedic gymnastics_; furthermore they should be
provided with a pharmaceutical stock of remedies suited to building up
the osseous system and the organism in general; and a school refectory
should be provided, adapted to the condition of the children. The
methods of instruction should rigorously avoid any form of _fatigue_,
and instead provide the child with psychic stimuli designed to overcome
a sluggishness due to the mental prostration to which he is for the
most part subject. As regards their situation, these asylums for
rachitic children may be advantageously located upon the _sea-coast_.
_The Stature of Abnormals._--The name of abnormals is applied to the
entire series of individuals who are not normal: hence the categories
already considered (infantilism, gigantism, rachitis) are included by
implication. The group of abnormals, however, includes besides a long
series of other classes, neuropathics, epileptics, and degenerates.
Under the head of abnormals may also be included those who are
abnormal in character, such as criminals, etc. It is not irrational
to group together the different types of abnormals, for the purpose
of anthropological research, in contrast with those who are normal.
In America, for instance, such studies are conducted on a large
scale, precisely for the purpose of showing the _deviation_ of
abnormal dimensions of the body from normal dimensions, not only in
the definitive development of the body, but also during growth. The
abnormals depart from the mean measurements, now rising above and
again falling below, as though they were intermittently impelled by
the biological impulse of their organism, which at one time manifests
a hypergenesis and at another a hypogenesis. A clear illustration of
these facts is afforded by MacDonald's diagram (see page 168): the
solid line which rises regularly represents the growth in stature of
normal individuals; the dotted line which forms a zig-zag, now rising
rapidly above the normal line and then falling very much below it,
represents the growth in stature of the abnormals. Naturally such a
chart must be interpreted by comparison with the standards of mean
measurements gathered at successive ages from a large number of
different children. It shows that normal children are nearly uniform
among themselves, and in relation to the years of their growth: while
abnormal children differ greatly one from another and do not accord
with the mean stature of the age they represent.
Regarding the stature of _criminals_ there can be nothing special
to say: _criminals_ do not represent an anthropological entity.
They belong to a large extent, whenever the criminal act has a
psychophysiological basis, to various categories of _abnormals_. From
the victim of rickets to the infantile, to the submicrocephalic, to
the ultra-macroscele or ultra-brachyscele, all abnormal organisms may
contribute to the number of those predisposed to the social phenomenon
of criminality. And it is for this reason that we may say in general
that the stature of abnormals is sometimes above and sometimes below
the normal, but with a prevailing tendency to fall below.
_Moral and Pedagogic Considerations._--The objection may be raised
that a medico-pedagogic system of treatment, designed to prevent
a threatened arrest of development or to minimise its progressive
symptoms, demands on the part of society an excessive effort, out of
proportion to the end in view. To cure or ameliorate the condition of
the weak may even be regarded as a principle of social ethics that is
contrary to nature, whose laws lead inexorably to the selection of the
strong and to the elimination of all those who are unfitted for the
struggle for life. Sparta has furnished us with a practical example
that is very far from the principles which scientific pedagogy is
to-day seeking to formulate as a new necessity of social progress.
[Illustration: Mac Donald
_Stature of normal persons_
_Stature of abnormal persons_
FIG. 35.]
But we are too far removed from the triumphant civilisation of Greece,
to recur to the authority of her example: the principle sanctioned
to-day by modern civilisation, that of "respect for human life,"
forbids the violent _elimination_ of the weak: Mount Taygetus is no
longer a possible fate for innocent babes in a social environment the
civic spirit of which has abolished the death penalty for criminals.
Consequently, since the weak have a right to live, as many of them as
naturally survive are destined to become a burden, as parasites, upon
the social body of normal citizens; and they furnish a living picture
of physiological wretchedness, a spectacle of admonitory misery,
inasmuch as it represents an _effect_ of social causes constituting
the collective errors of human ethics. Ignorance of the hygiene of
generation, maladies due to the vices and the ignorance of men, such
as syphilis, other maladies such as tuberculosis, malaria and pellagra,
representing so many scourges raging unchecked among the people, are
the actual causes that are undermining the social structure, and
manifesting themselves visibly through their pernicious fruit: the
birth of weaklings. To forget the innocent results of such causes, as
we forget the causes themselves, would be to run the risk of plunging
precipitously into an abyss of perdition. It is precisely these
disastrous effects upon posterity that ought to warn us and shed light
upon the errors through which we are passing lightly and unconsciously.
Accordingly, to gather in all the weaklings is equivalent to erecting a
barrier against the social causes which are enfeebling posterity: since
it is impossible to conceive that if the existence of such a danger
were once demonstrated, society would rest until every effort had been
made to guard against the possibility of its recurrence.
In addition to such motives for human prophylaxis, a more immediate
interest should lead us to the pedagogic protection of weak children.
The establishment of special schools for defective children,
sanatarium-schools for tuberculous children, rural schools for
those afflicted with malaria and pellagra, infant asylums for
rachitic children, is a work of many-sided utility. They constitute
a fundamental and radical purification of the schools for normal
children: in fact, so long as intellectual and moral defectives and
children suffering from infantilism and rachitis intermingle with
healthy pupils, we cannot say that there really exist any _schools_
_for normal children_, in which pedagogy may be allowed a free progress
in the art of developing the best forces in the human race.
Still another useful side to the question is that of putting a stop to
the physiological ruin of individual weaklings. Very small would be
the cost of schools for defective children, asylums for the rachitic,
tonics, quinine, the iodide treatment, school refectories for little
children afflicted with hereditary taints and organic disease: very
small indeed, in comparison to the disastrous losses that society must
one day suffer at the hands of these future criminals and parasites
gathered into prisons, insane asylums and hospitals, in comparison
to the harm that may be done by one single victim of tuberculosis
by spreading the homicidal bacilli around him. It is a principal of
humanity as well as of economy to _utilise_ all human forces, even
when they are represented by beings who are apparently negligible.
To every man, no matter how physiologically wretched, society should
stretch a helping hand, to raise him. In North America the following
principle has the sanction of social custom: that the task of improving
physiological conditions and at the same time of instilling hope
and developing inferior mentalities to the highest possible limit
constitutes an inevitable human duty.
Accordingly it remains for the science of pedagogy to accomplish the
high task of human redemption, which must take its start from those
miracles that the twentieth century has already initiated in almost
every civilised country: straightening the crippled, giving health
to the sick, awakening the intelligence in the weak-minded--much as
hearing is restored to the deaf and speech to the mutes--such is
the work which modern progress demands of the teacher. Because such
straightening of mind and body naturally lies within the province
of those who have the opportunity to give succor to the human being
still in the course of development; while after a defect has reached
its complete development in an individual, no manner of help can ever
modify the harm that has resulted from lack of intelligent treatment.
The prevention of the irremediable constitutes a large part of the work
which is incumbent upon us as educators.
SUMMARY OF STATURE
We have been considering _stature_ as the linear index of the whole
complex development of the body, taking it in relation to two other
factors, the one internal or biological, and the other external or
social. These two factors, indeed, unite in forming the character of
the individual in his final development; and in each of them education
may exert its influence, both in connection with the hygiene of
generation and through reforms instituted in the school.
In the following table are summed up the different points of view from
which we have studied stature in its biological characteristics and in
its variations:
Varieties {Ethnic varieties {Stature in different races; extreme limits.
of stature { and limits of {Stature of the Italian people; and its
{ oscillation { geographical distribution.
{ {Limits of stature: medium, tall, low.
{Biological {Difference of stature in the sexes.
{ varieties {Stature at different ages (growth).
{Mechanical {Transitory or physiological.
{ {Permanent, often caused by
Variations {Variations { {deformities (Causes: the
in stature { due to { {attitudes required by the work.)
{ adaptation {
{ {Physiological {Nutrition.
{ {Physical {Heat.
{ { {Light.
{ { {Electricity.
{ {Psychic {Psychic stimuli.
{Myxedematous.
{Pathological {Infantilism {
{ variations { {Dystrophic {from alcohol.
{ { { {from syphilis.
{ { { {from tuberculosis.
{ { { {from malaria.
{ { { {from pellagra.
{ { {Hypotrophic {Denutrition.
{ { {Anangioplastic
{ {Rachitis
SUMMARY OF THE SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES ILLUSTRATED IN THE COURSE OF THE
EXPOSITION OF OUR SUBJECT
When an anthropological datum is of such fundamental importance as
the _stature_, its limits of oscillation must be established, and its
terminology must be founded upon such limits expressed in figures that
have been measured and established by scientists (medium, tall, low).
The stature is the most important datum in pedagogic anthropology,
because it represents the linear index of the development of the body,
and for us educators is also the _index_ of the child's normal growth.
_Biopathological Laws._--In cases of total arrest of development
of the personality (infantilism) the first characteristic symptom
usually consists in a diminution of stature in relation to age; the
morphological evolution, as well as the psychic, fails to progress in
proportion to the _age of the subject_; but it corresponds to the mean
bodily proportions belonging to the age which would be normal for the
actual stature of the subject.
=WEIGHT=
The _weight_ is a measure which should be taken in conjunction with
the stature; because, while the stature is a linear index of the
development of the body, the weight represents a _total measure_ _of
its mass_; and the two taken together give the most complete expression
of the bio-physiological development of the organism.
Furthermore the weight permits us to follow the _oscillations_
of development; it provides educators with an index, a level of
excellence, or the reverse, of their methods as educators, and of the
hygienic conditions of the school or of the pedagogic methods in use.
The fact is, that if a child is ill, or languid, etc., his stature
remains unchanged; it may _grow more slowly_, or be arrested in growth;
but it can never diminish. The weight, on the contrary, can be lost and
regained in a short time, in response to the most varied conditions of
_fatigue_, of _malnutrition_, of _illness_, of _mental_ _anxiety_. We
might even call it the _experimental datum_ of the excellence of the
child's development.
Another advantage which the measure of weight has over that of stature
is that it may serve as an _exponent of health_ from the very hour
of the child's birth; while _stature_ does not exist in the new-born
child, and begins to be formed (according to the definition given) only
after the first year of its life, that is, when the child has acquired
an erect position and the ability to walk steadily.
_Variations._--Weight is one of the measures that have been most
thoroughly studied, because it is not a fruit of the recently founded
science of pedagogic anthropology; but it enters into the _practice_ of
pediatricians (specialists in children's diseases) and of obstetricians
(specialists in childbirth), while even the general practitioner can
offer precious contributions from his experience.
According to Winckel, and practically all pediatricians agree with him,
"the weight of a child, if taken regularly, is the best thermometer of
its health; it easily expresses in terms of figures what the nursing
child cannot express in words."[34]
The new-born child weighs from three to four kilograms; but
oscillations in weight from 2,500 to 5,000 grams are considered normal.
Some obstetricians have noted weights in new-born children that
are enormous, true gigantism, which, however, while possible, are
altogether exceptional; nine and even eleven kilograms.
The oscillations in weight of the child at birth, within normal limits,
may have been determined by general biological factors, as for example
the sex (the female child weighing less than the male), and the race
(especially in regard to the stature of the parents): but the factors
which influence the weight of the new-born child in a decisive manner
are those regarding the _hygiene of generation_.
1. "The children which have the greater weight are those born of
mothers between the ages of twenty-five and thirty." (Mathews Duncan.)
Let us recall what we have said regarding stature; at the end of the
twenty-fifth year, that is, at the end of the period of growth, man is
admirably ripe for the function of reproduction; and we ought further
to recall the views cited regarding the mortality of children conceived
at this age which is so favourable to parenthood; and finally the note
in regard to celebrated men, almost always begotten at this age.
2. "First-born children have in general a weight inferior to that of
those born later (1,729 first-born children gave an average of 3,254
grams: while 1,727 born of the second or subsequent conceptions gave an
average of 3,412 gr.)" (Ingerslevs). Let us remember that celebrated
men are scarcely ever the _first-born_.
3. "Very short intervals between successive pregnancies interfere with
this _progression_ in weight; long intervals on the contrary do not
interfere with it" (Wernicke). In other words, too frequent pregnancy
is unfavourable to the result of the conception.
4. "Mothers who, at the birth of their first child weigh less than
fifty-five kilograms and are under twenty years of age, have children
of inferior weight, who are less predisposed to normal growth"
(Schafer).
Let us recall what we have said regarding the _form_ and the scanty
weight in the case of macrosceles; and also in regard to the age of
procreation in its relation to stature.
5. "Women who toil at wearisome work up to the final hour give birth
to children inferior in weight to those born of mothers who have given
themselves up to rest and quiet for some time before the expected
birth" (Pinard).
All these considerations which refer to _normal individuals_, represent
a series of hygienic laws regarding _maternity_, which may be summed
up as follows: excellence in procreation belongs to those mothers
who have already attained the age at which the individual organism
has completed its development, and before it has entered upon its
involutive period; the mother must herself have a normal weight; the
pregnancies must be separated by long intervals; and during the last
weeks of pregnancy it is necessary that the mother should have the
opportunity of complete rest.
The increase in weight of the new-born child during the first days of
its life, may constitute a valuable prognostic of the child's life.
That is to say, through its successive gains it reveals the vitality,
the state of health of this new human being.
Here also the pediatrists can furnish us with valuable experimental
data, which serve to formulate the "laws of growth." These are:
1. From the moment of a child's birth, throughout the first two days,
it suffers a loss in weight of about 200 grams, due to various causes,
such as the emission of substances accumulated in the intestines during
the intrauterine life (meconium), and the difficulties of adaptation to
a new environment and to nutrition. But by the end of the first week a
normal child should have regained its original weight; so that after
the seventh day the normal child weighs the same as at the moment of
birth.
On the contrary, children born prematurely, or those having at the time
of birth a weight below the average, or those that are affected with
latent syphilis, or are weak from any other cause whatever, regain
their original weight only by the end of the second week.
Accordingly, in one or two weeks the family may form a prognosis
regarding future life of the new-born child: a matter of fundamental
and evident importance.
Furthermore, an antecedent detail of this sort may be valuable in
the progressive history of subjects who, having attained the age for
attendance at school, come to be passed upon by the teachers.
To this end, in the more progressive countries, the _carnet_
_maternel_, or mother's note-book, has begun to come into fashion,
for the use of mothers belonging to the upper social classes (as, for
instance, in England): it consists of a book of suitable design, in
the form of an album, and more or less _de luxe_ in quality, in which
the most minute notes are to be registered regarding the lives of the
children from the moment of their birth onward. Various authors,
especially in France, now give models for the _maternal_ _registration_
of the child's physiological progress; true _biographic_ _volumes_
that would form a precious supplement to the _biographic_ _charts_
of the schools: and the efforts of the family would round out and
complete those of the school for the protection of the lives of the
new generations. Such assistance, however, is only an _ideal_, because
nothing short of a great and far distant social progress could place
_all_ mothers (the working women, and the illiterate of Italy) in a
position to compile their _carnet maternel_. Auvard advocates, for
registering the weight of the child during the first days of its life,
a table in which the successive days from the first to the forty-fifth
are marked along a horizontal line, while a vertical column gives a
series of weights, with 25-gram intervals, covering a range of 700
grams, the multiples of a hundred being left blank, to be determined by
the actual weight of the child and filled in by the mother or whoever
takes her place.
[Illustration: FIG. 36.]
In such a table, the graphic sign indicating the changes in weight
ought to fall rapidly and rise again to the point of departure by the
seventh day, _if the child is robust_.
Another law of growth which may serve as a prognostic document in the
child's physiological history is the following:
2. "Children nourished at their mother's breast double their weight at
the fifth month and triple it at the twelfth." In other words, before
the middle of its first year a healthy child, normally nourished, will
have doubled its weight.
On the contrary, "Artificial feeding retards this doubling of weight in
children, which is attained only by the end of the first year; so that
the weight is not tripled until some time in the course of the second
year."
And this gives us pretty safe principles on which to judge of the
personality in the course of formation, at an epoch when stature does
not yet exist.
Undoubtedly a great moral and social progress would be accomplished
through a wide dissemination of very simple and economical _carnets
maternels_; which should contain not only tables designed to facilitate
the keeping of the required records, but also a statement of the laws
of _infant hygiene_; or at least, simple and clear explanations of the
significance of such phenomena, in relation to the life and health of
the child; and also as to the causes which produce weakness in new-born
children; or in other words, advice regarding the fundamental laws of
the hygiene of generation. All that would be needed, in such case,
would be a progressive exposition by means of the _carnets_, through
lessons made as simple and as objective as possible, such as the
weighing of small babies, to make the much desired "education of the
mothers" both possible and practical.
But without this practical means; without this new sort of syllabarium
on hand, to serve as a constant and luminous guide for married women,
I do not believe that we shall have much success with the scattered
lectures, obscure and soon forgotten, that at present are being
multiplied in an attempt to reach the mothers of the lower classes.
In conclusion, I note this last contribution that comes to us from the
pediatrists:
3. "There are certain maladies that cause a daily and very notable loss
in weight"; they are the intestinal maladies; there may be an average
loss of from 180 to 200 grams a day; but even in cases of simple loss
of appetite (dyspepsia) the weight may decrease by about 35 grams a
day. But when a child suffering from acute febrile intestinal trouble
(cholera infantum), loses a tenth of his weight in twenty-four hours,
the illness is mortal.
Now from the point of view of the educator this fact ought to be of
serious interest, because we very frequently find among the recorded
details of sickly children, or those suffering from arrested or
retarded development, a mention of some _intestinal_ malady incurred in
early infancy.
Still one further observation: Meunier has noted a fact of extreme
importance: that while children are passing through the period of
incubation of an infectious disease, and before they show _any
symptoms_ likely to cause a suspicion of the latent illness, they
sustain a _daily loss in weight_, from the fourth or fifth day after
exposure to contagion until the appearance of decisive symptoms. In
children between one and four years old, the daily loss is about fifty
grams, and the total about 300; but such a loss may rise as high as 700
gr. The most numerous observations were taken in cases of _measles_.
Now, there is no need of explaining the prophylactic importance of
observations such as these! A child who for a period of twenty days
is in a state of incubation, is called upon to struggle, with all the
forces of immunity that his organism possesses, against a cause of
disease which has already invaded him; yet no external sign betrays
this state of physical conflict. Consequently, the child's organism
_continues_ to sustain the customary loss of energy due to the
activities of its daily life, and by doing so lessens its own powers
of immunity. To prescribe rest, if nothing more, for a child suspected
of passing through the period of incubation would in many cases mean
the saving of a life, and at the same time would protect his companions
from infection, which is communicable even during the period of
incubation.
In our biographic records of defective children, which include
the great majority of the weakly ones, we find in many cases a
_characteristic tendency to relapses_ in all kinds of infective
diseases, from which they regularly recovered. Such organisms, feeble
by predisposition, yet sufficiently strong to recover from a long
series of illnesses, were _exhausted in respect to those biological
forces_ on which the normal growth of the individual depends, by this
sort of internal struggle between the organic tissues and the invading
microbes. No scheme of special hygiene for children of this type can
help us, either in the home or at school; the _daily variations_ _in
weight_, on the contrary, might constitute a valuable guide for the
protection of such feeble organisms; at the first signs of a diminution
in weight, such children ought to be subjected to absolute repose.
The use of the weighing-machine, both at home and in school cannot be
too strongly recommended. In America the pedagogic custom has already
been established of recording the weight of the pupils regularly once
a month; but instead of once a month, the weight ought to be taken
_every day_. The children might be taught to take their own weight by
means of self-registering scales, and to compare it with that of the
preceding day, thus learning to keep watch of themselves: and this
would constitute both a physical exercise and an exercise in _practical
living_.
The weight may be considered by itself, as a measurement of the
body; and it may be considered in its relation to comparative mean
measurements given by the authorities; just as it may also be
considered, in the case of the individual, in its relation to the
stature.
_a._ The weight, taken by itself, is not a homogeneous or rigorously
scientific measurement. In the same manner as the stature, it
represents a sum of parts differing from one another, the difference in
this instance being that of specific gravity. As a matter of fact, it
makes a great difference whether a large proportion of the weight of an
individual is adipose tissue, or brain, or striped muscles. Each of the
various organs has its own special specific gravity, as appears from
the following table:
-------------------------
Specific Gravity
----------------+--------
Tubular bones | 1.93
Spongy bones | 1.24
Cartilage | 1.10
Muscles {from | 1.10
{to | 1.30
Tendons | 1.16
Epidermis {from | 1.10
{to | 1.19
Hair {from | 1.28
{to | 1.34
Liver | 1.07
Kidneys | 1.04
Brain | 1.039
Cerebrum | 1.036
Cerebellum | 1.032
Adipose tissue | 0.97
-------------------------
All these specific gravities are low; we weigh but little more than
water; and for that reason it is easy for us to swim. But because of
the difference in their composition, the _total weight of_ _the body_
gives us no idea of its constituent parts.
Take for example the question of increase in weight. We can compare
the mean figures given by the authorities with the ascertained weight
of some particular child of a given age, so as to keep an empirical
check upon the normality of its growth. But since we know that an
individual in the course of evolution undergoes profound alterations
in the volumetric proportions of the different organs in respect to
one another, we cannot obtain from the total weight any light upon
this extremely important alteration in proportions. Thus, for example,
Quétélet gives the following figures of increase in weight for the two
sexes:
------------------------------------------
Weight | Weight
--------------------+---------------------
Age | Males |Females| Age | Males |Females
0 | 3.20 | 2.91 | 15 | 46.41 | 41.30
1 | 10.0 | 9.30 | 16 | 53.39 | 44.44
2 | 12.0 | 11.40 | 17 | 57.40 | 49.08
3 | 13.21 | 12.45 | 18 | 61.26 | 53.10
4 | 15.07 | 14.18 | 19 | 63.32 | --
5 | 16.70 | 15.50 | 20 | 65.0 | 54.46
6 | 18.04 | 16.74 | -- | -- | --
7 | 20.16 | 18.45 | 25 | 68.29 | 55.08
8 | 22.26 | 19.82 | 30 | 68.90 | 55.14
9 | 24.09 | 22.44 | 40 | 68.81 | 56.65
10 | 26.12 | 24.24 | 50 | 67.45 | 58.45
11 | 27.85 | 26.25 | 60 | 65.50 | 56.73
12 | 31.0 | 30.54 | 70 | 63.03 | 53.72
13 | 35.32 | 34.65 | 80 | 61.22 | 51.52
14 | 40.50 | 38.10 | -- | -- | --
------------------------------------------
INCREASE IN WEIGHT OF BODY
ACCORDING TO SUTILS
------------------------------------
Age |Weight of body | Increase
| in grams |
----------+---------------+---------
At birth | 3000 | --
1 month | 3750 | 750
2 months | 4450 | 700
3 months | 5100 | 650
4 months | 5700 | 600
5 months | 6250 | 550
6 months | 6750 | 500
7 months | 7200 | 450
8 months | 7600 | 400
9 months | 8000 | 400
10 months | 8350 | 350
11 months | 8700 | 350
12 months | 9000 | 300
------------------------------------
But these figures give no idea of the laws of growth that govern each
separate organ, and that have been studied by Vierordt. According to
this authority, the total weight of the body increases nineteen-fold
from birth to complete development. Certain ductless glands, on the
contrary, _diminish_ in weight in the course of growth; the thymus, for
instance, is reduced to half what it weighed originally.
Furthermore, the various organs all differ in such varying degrees, as
compared with their respective weights at birth, that it facilitates
comparison to reduce the weight of each separate organ to a scale of 1.
On this basis we find that when complete development is attained, the
eyes weigh 1.7; the brain 3.7; the medulla oblongata (spinal marrow) 7;
the liver 13; the heart 15; the spleen 18; the intestines, stomach and
lungs 20; the skeleton 26; the system of striped muscles 48.
And these widely different augmentations are not uniform in their
progress, nor is the complete development of each organ attained at the
same epoch. As a matter of fact, the brain acquires one-half its final
weight at the end of the first year of age; the organs of vegetative
life attain half their weight at the beginning of the period preceding
puberty (eleventh year). To offset the lack of indications regarding
such increases in weight, we have a guide in the _morphology_ of
growth, which reveals how differently the various parts of the body
develop.
However empirical it may be from an analytical point of view, the datum
of weight is a valuable index, and represents, _taken by_ _itself_, a
synthetic anthropological measure of prime importance.
It obeys certain laws of growth which are themselves of great interest;
namely, there exist two periods of rapid growth: at birth and during
puberty; while at various periods in childhood, between the ages of
three and nine, there are alternations of greater and lesser growth
analogous to those already noted in relation to stature.
Accordingly, the weight confirms the fact that the organism does not
proceed uniformly in its evolution, but passes through _crises_ _of
development_ during which the forces of the organism are all devoted to
its rapid transformation; such periods represent epochs at which the
organism is more predisposed to maladies, more subject to mortality and
less capable of performing work (compare the observations already made
in relation to stature).
_Index of Weight._--Accordingly, weight and stature stand in a
certain mutual relationship, but the correspondence between them is
not perfect. In the study of individual physiological development it
is necessary to know the anthropological relation between weight and
stature; in other words, the ponderal index. Without this, we cannot
get a true idea of the weight of an individual. For instance, if two
persons have the same weight, 65 kilograms for example, and one of them
has a stature of 1.85 metres and the other of 1.55 m.; it is evident
that the first of these two will be very thin, because his _weight
is insufficient_, while the second, on the contrary, will have an
_excessive weight_.
A stout, robust child will weigh less, in an absolute sense, than an
adult man who is extremely thin and emaciated; but relatively to the
mass of his body, he will weigh more. Now this relative weight or
index of weight, the _ponderal index_, gives us precisely this idea
of relative _embonpoint_, of the more or less flourishing state of
nutrition that any given individual is enjoying. Hence it is a relation
of great physiological importance, especially when we are dealing with
children.
The calculation of the ponderal index ought to be analogous to that
of other indexes; what has to be found is its relation to the stature
reduced to a scale of 100. In this case, however, we find ourselves
facing a mathematical difficulty, because _volumetric_ measurements are
not comparable to linear measurements. Consequently it is necessary to
reduce the measurement of weight by extracting its cube root, and to
establish the following equation:
_St_:[*cube root](_W_) = 100:_X_
whence
_Pi_ = 100([*cube root](_W_))/_S_
The application of this formula necessitates a troublesomely
complicated calculation, which it would be impracticable to work out in
the case of a large number of subjects. But as it happens, tables of
calculations in relation to the ponderal index already exist, thanks
to the labours of Livi[35] and it remains only to consult them, as one
would a table of logarithms, by finding the figure corresponding to the
required stature, as indicated above in the horizontal line, and the
weight as indicated in the vertical column.
Some authors have thought that they were greatly simplifying the
relation between weight and stature by calculating the proportional
weight of a single centimetre of stature and assuming that they had
thus reduced the relation itself to a ratio based upon a single linear
measurement (one centimetre), analogous to the ratio established by the
reduction of the total stature to a scale of 100. But evidently such
a calculation is based upon two fundamental errors, namely: first, no
comparison is ever possible between a linear measure and a measure of
volume; and secondly, the relation which we are trying to determine is
that between synthetic measurements, _i.e._, measurements of the whole,
and not of parts.
[Illustration: FIG. 37.]
In the aforesaid method of computing (which is accepted by such weighty
authorities as Godin and Niceforo), the number expressing the weight
in grams is divided by the stature expressed in centimetres, and
the quotient gives the average weight of one centimetre of stature
expressed in grams. This method, which sounds plausible, may easily be
proved to be fallacious, by the following illustration, given by Livi
in his treatise already cited (Fig. 37). The two rectangles _A_ and _B_
represent longitudinal sections of two cylinders, which are supposed
to represent respectively (in _A_) the body of a child so fat that he
is as broad as he is long (the rectangle _A_ is very nearly square),
and (in _B_) that of a man of tall stature and so extremely thin that
he very slightly surpasses the child in the dimensions of width and
thickness (note the length and narrowness of rectangle _B_). Evidently
the ponderal index of _A_ is very high and that of _B_ is very low.
But if we calculate the _proportional weight_ of one centimetre of
stature, it will always be greater in the man than in the child, and
consequently we obtain a relation contrary to that of the ponderal
index.
Let us make still another counterproof by means of figures; let us take
an adult with a stature of 1.70 metres and a weight of 19 kilograms;
and a three-year-old child 0.90 m. tall and weighing 55 kg. (the normal
weight of a child of four). In the case of the adult one centimetre of
stature will weigh 65000/170 grams = 382 grams; while one centimetre of
the child's height will weigh 15000/90 = 166 grams. In other words,
one average centimetre of the child's stature weighs less than one
centimetre of the adult, as it naturally should, while the ponderal
index on the contrary is 23.6 in the case of the adult, and 27.4 in
that of the child.
The reciprocal relations between stature and weight vary from year
to year. In babyhood, the child is so plump that the fat forms the
familiar dimpled "chubbiness," and Bichat's adipose "fat-pads" give
the characteristic rotundity to the childish face; while the adult is
much more slender. A new-born syphilitic child which, with a normal
length of 50 centimetres, weighed only two kg.--and consequently would
be extremely thin--would have the same identical ponderal index as an
adult who, with a stature of 1.65 m., weighed 100 kg.
The _evolution_ of the ponderal index forms a very essential part
in the _transformations_ of growth; and it shows interesting
characteristics in relation to the different epochs in the life of the
individual.
In this connection, Livi gives the following figures, for males and
for females; from which it appears that at some periods of life we are
_stouter_, and at others more _slender_; and that men and women do not
have the same proportional relation between mass and stature.
---------------------------------------------------
Indices | Indices
-------+-------+---------+--------+-------+--------
Age in | Males | Females | Age in | Males | Females
years | | | years | |
-------+-------+---------+--------+-------+--------
0 | 29.7 | 29.6 | 15 | 23.1 | 23.4
1 | 30.9 | 30.5 | 16 | 23.4 | 23.6
2 | 28.7 | 28.9 | 17 | 23.1 | 23.7
3 | 27.5 | 27.3 | 18 | 23.2 | 24.1
4 | 26.5 | 26.6 | 19 | 23.4 | 24.1
5 | 25.8 | 25.6 | 20 | 23.5 | 24.1
6 | 25.1 | 24.8 | -- | -- | --
7 | 24.4 | 24.1 | 25 | 23.7 | 24.1
8 | 24.0 | 23.8 | 30 | 23.8 | 24.1
9 | 23.5 | 23.5 | 40 | 23.9 | 24.7
10 | 23.1 | 23.2 | 50 | 24.3 | 25.3
11 | 22.8 | 23.3 | 60 | 24.6 | 25.3
12 | 23.1 | 23.6 | 70 | 24.5 | 24.9
13 | 23.4 | 23.5 | 80 | 24.4 | 24.7
14 | 23.1 | 23.3 | -- | -- | --
---------------------------------------------------
It may be said in general, so far as regards the age, that the
following is the established law of individual evolution: during the
first year the ponderal index increases, after which it diminishes
up to the period immediately preceding puberty (eleventh year for
males, tenth year for females), the period at which boys and girls
are exceedingly slender. After this, throughout the entire period
of puberty, the ponderal index seems to remain remarkably constant,
oscillating around a fixed figure. At the close of this period
(seventeenth year for males, fourteenth for females), the ponderal
index resumes its upward course (corresponding to the period in which
the transverse dimensions of the skeleton increase, and in which the
individual, as the phrase goes, _fills out_), and it continues to rise
well into mature life (the individual _takes on flesh_); until in old
age, the ponderal index begins to fall again (the soft tissues shrink,
the cartilages ossify, the whole person is shrunken and wasted.)
[Illustration: FIG. 38.]
Women, during their younger years are on a par with men in respect to
the ponderal index, but in later life surpass them, because of woman's
greater tendency toward _embonpoint_, since she is naturally stouter
and plumper than man, who is correspondingly leaner and more _wiry_.
The following diagram indicates the progressive evolution and
involution of the ponderal index throughout the successive stages of
life:
The ponderal index has revealed certain physiological conditions
in pupils that are extremely interesting. Some authors had already
noted that the ponderal index was higher in _well-nourished_ children
(Binet, Niceforo, Montessori); but last year one of my own students,
Signorina Massa, in a noteworthy study of children, all taken from
the same social class and quite poor, and who did not attend the
school refectory or have the advantage of any other physiological
assistance, established the fact that the more _studious_ children,
the _prize winners_, have a lower _ponderal index_ and a _muscular_
_force_ inferior to that of the non-studious (negligent) pupils. That
the development of the ponderal index stands in some relation to the
muscular force, might already have been deduced from the fact that the
greatest increase of weight is due, in the evolution of the individual,
to the system of striped muscles. Studious children, accordingly,
are sufferers from _denutrition through_ _cerebral consumption_;
furthermore, they are weakened throughout their whole organism; in
fact, I discovered, in the course of researches made among the pupils
in the elementary schools of Rome, that the _studious_ children, those
who _received prizes_, had a _scantier_ chest measurement than the
non-studious. This goes to prove that school prizes are given at the
cost of a useless holocaust of the physiological forces of the younger
generations!
That the ponderal index has an eminently physiological significance, is
further shown by the following comparative figures between normal and
weak-minded children. The stature, which is biologically significant,
is lower in the weak-minded; but their ponderal index is greater when
they are well fed, as in the asylums in Paris.
Accordingly, the sole cause of the physical inferiority of studious
children is _study_, _cerebral fatigue_.
BIO-PHYSIOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN NORMAL AND
WEAK-MINDED CHILDREN
(SIMON AND MONTESSORI: BASED ON CHILDREN FROM 9 TO 11)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
| Weight in kilograms| Average stature | Ponderal index
|--------------------+--------------------+-------------------
Age |Weak-minded |Normal |Weak-minded |Normal |Weak-minded |Normal
----+------------+-------+------------+-------+------------+------
9 | 21.0 | 25.5 | 1.15 | 1.24 | 24 | 23.9
10 | 26.5 | 28.5 | 1.25 | 1.30 | 24 | 23.6
11 | 27.0 | 30.5 | 1.25 | 1.33 | 24 | 23.6
------------------------------------------------------------------
It should be noted that in the foregoing table the normal children
include both the studious and the non-studious.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] See further, as to these fundamental ideas: Laloy, _L'Évolution de
la Vie. Petite Encyclopédie_ _du XX Siècle_; CLAUDE BERNARD, _Leçons
sur les Phènomènes de la Vie_; LE DENTU, in _La Matière Vivante, et
Théorie nouvelle de la Vie_; Luciani, _Fisiologia Umana_, in the first
chapter: "Material Substratum of Vital Phenomena."
[5] Consult: HAECKEL, _Anthropogenie_; E. PERRIER, _Les Colonies
animales et la Formation_ _des Organismes_; RICHET, _L'Effort vers la
Vie, et la Théorie des Causes finales_.
[6] CORRENS: _Concerning the Laws of Heredity_.
[7] Translator's note.
[8] Translator's note.
[9] De Giovanni, _Op. cit._, p. 236. Cases referring to the first
morphologic combination.
[10] DE GIOVANNI, _Op. cit._
[11] DE GIOVANNI, _Op. cit._
[12] Boxich, _Contribution to the Morphological, Clinical and
Anthropological Study of_ _delinquents_.
[13] DENIKER, _Races et peuples de la terre_.
[14] TOPINARD, _Elementi di Antropologia_.
[15] QUÉTÉLET, _Proporzioni medie (mean Proportions)_.
[16] LIVI, _Antropometria Militare (Military Anthropometry)_.
[17] MONTESSORI, _Caratteri fisici delle giovani donne del Lazio._
[18] Translator's note.
[19] Fig. 25 and those following it, dealing with deformities resulting
from labour, are taken from Pieraccini's great work, _The Pathology of
Labour_.
[20] PIERACCINI, _Op. cit._
[21] ALFREDO NICEFORO, _Les classes pauvres_ (the poorer classes).
[22] Taken from Livi: _On the Development of the Body in relation to
the profession and the_ _social condition._ Rome, Voghera, 1897.
[23] MARRO, _Puberty_.
[24] Cited by PAGLIANI, _Human Development, according to age, sex, etc._
[25] RACIBORSKI, cited by MARRO, _Puberty_.
[26] _Idem._
[27] Rousseau, _Émile_, cited by MARRO.
[28] It should be noted that sexual precocity or vice retards the
development of puberty, while healthful psychic stimuli are favourable
to it. Hence it was a right instinct that led us to give the name of
sin and vice to what retards the normal development of life, and virtue
and honour to what is favourable to it.--Author's note.
[29] Compare _The method of Scientific Pedagogy applied to infantile
education_ _in the "Children's Houses,"_ MONTESSORI: Casa Editr. Lapi,
1909.
[30] MOIGE, _Nouvelle Iconographie de la Salpétrière_, 1894.
[31] APERT, _Op. cit._
[32] Cited by Marro.
[33] Cited by Figueira, _Semejotica Infantile_, p. 121.
[34] Cited by FIGUEIRA (Rio Janeiro) in his volume, _Elementi di
Semejotica infantile_, 1906. From this volume, which contains the
result of the most modern investigations in pediatry, I have taken a
number of data regarding the weight of children.
[35] LIVI: _Antropometria_.
CHAPTER II
CRANIOLOGY
Having finished the study of general biological questions and of the
body considered in its _entirety_, we may now pass on to analyse its
separate parts, treating in connection with each of such parts the
social and pedagogic questions which may pertain to it.
The _parts_ of the body which we shall take under consideration are:
the _head_, the _thorax_, the _pelvis_ and the _limbs_.
_The Head._--When we pass from the body as a whole to a more
particularised study of the separate parts, it is proper to begin with
the head because it is the most important part of the whole body. The
older anthropology, and biological and criminal anthropology as well
were very largely built up from a study of the head; a study so vast
and important that it has come to constitute a separate branch of
science: _craniology_.
The fact is that the characteristics manifested by the cranium are
chiefly in the nature of _mutations_ rather than _variations_,
and consequently the anthropological data relating to the cranium
correspond more directly to the characteristics of the species, or
in the case of man, to the characteristics of race. Hence they are
of special interest to the general study of anthropology. But when
these imitative characteristics, which are naturally constant and
have a purely biological origin, undergo _alterations_, they are to
be explained, not as variations, but as _pathological deviations_;
and for this reason criminal anthropology has drawn a very large part
of its means of diagnosis of _anomalies_ and of _degeneration_ from
malformations of the cranium.
Furthermore, the cranium together with the vertebral column represents
not only the characteristics of species, but also those of the _genus_;
in fact, it corresponds to the cerebro-spinal axis, which is the _least
variable_ part of the body throughout the whole series of vertebrates;
just as, on the contrary, the _limbs_ represent the _most variable_
part. Indeed, if we study separately the cranio-vertebral system and
the limbs, through the whole series of vertebrates, we shall discover
_gradual_ alterations in the former, and sudden wide alterations in
the latter. The cerebro-spinal axis (and hence the cranio-vertebral
system) shows from species to species certain progressive differences
that suggest the idea of a gradual sequence of modifications (from
the amphioxus to man) to which we could apply the principle, _Natura
non facit saltus_: while the limbs on the contrary, even though
they preserve certain obvious analogies to the fundamental anatomic
formation of the skeleton, undergo profound modifications--being
reduced in certain reptiles to mere rudimentary organs, developing into
the wing of the bird, the flying membrane of the bat, and the hand of
man.
Since it is not only a characteristic of species and race, but of
_genus_ as well, the cranium constitutes one of the most _constant_
anatomical features. For the same reason it is less subject to
_variations due to environment_, and from this point of view offers
slight interest to pedagogic anthropology. But since the cranium
contains the organ on which the psychic manifestations depend, we have
a deep interest in knowing its human characteristics, its _phases of
development_, and its normal limits.
HEAD AND CRANIUM
The term _Head_ is applied to the living man; the _Cranium_, from which
this branch of science takes its name, is the _skeleton of the_ _head_.
The cranium is composed of two parts, which may be virtually separated,
in the lateral projection, by a straight line passing through the
external orbital apophysis and extending to the auricular foramen,
thus separating the facial from the cerebral portion of the cranium.
Hence the _cranium_ is the skeleton of the head in its entirety, and is
divisible into the _cerebral cranium_ and the _facial cranium_.
_The Cranium._--The cranium is a complex union of a number of flat,
curved bones united together by means of certain very complicated
arborescent sutures, and forming a hollow osseous cavity of rounded
form. I will briefly indicate the bones which form its external
contour. On the anterior part is the _frontal_ bone, terminated by the
suture which unites it to the two parietal bones: the _coronal suture_;
while the two parietal bones are joined together by the _median_ or
_sagittal suture_, which forms a sort of _T_ with the other suture.
On the posterior side is the _occipital bone_, which is also joined
to the two parietal bones, by means of the occipital or _lambdoidal_
suture. Below the two parietal bones, in a lateral direction, are the
_two temporal bones_; and between the temporal and parietal bones
are situated the _great wings of the sphenoid_. The main body of the
sphenoid is at the base of the cranium. Besides these there is another,
internal bone, the _ethmoid_.
_The Face._--The skeleton of the face is composed of fourteen bones;
some of these are external and lend themselves to measurement; others
which are internal and hidden contribute to the completion of the
delicate scaffolding of this most important portion of the skeleton.
The principal bones of the face are: the two _zygomatic_ _bones_
(articulating with the temporal, frontal and maxillary bones); the
two nasal bones (articulating with the frontal and with the ascending
branch of the maxillary, and uniting above to form the bridge of the
nose; this is a bone of great importance in anthropology, because it
determines the naso-frontal angle and the formation of the nose); the
two upper maxillary bones, or upper jaw (articulating together in front
to form the subnasal region; laterally with the zygomatic bones; above
with the nasal bones; internally with each other, to form the palate,
and posteriorly with the palatine bones); the _mandible_ or lower jaw
(a single bone, and the only movable bone in the cranium), articulating
with the temporal bones by means of a condyle, and the separate parts
of which are distinguished as the _body of the mandible_ and the
_ascendant branches_, which are united to the cranium.
[Illustration: FIG. 39.--Note the line of division between the cerebral
and facial cranium; in addition to this the sutures are shown which
divide the frontal, parietal, occipital and temporal bones. PD. Coronal
Suture; DL. Sagittal Suture; AL. Lambdoidal Suture.]
The bones of lesser importance, which are interior and hidden are:
the two _lacrymal_ bones (situated at the inner angle of the orbitary
cavity), the _vomer_ or osseous septum of the nose; the two bones
in the nose which lie on each side of the vomer and are known as the
_turbinated bones_ (_concha nasalis_); and the two palate bones (which
form the backward continuation of the palatine vault constituted by the
maxillary bones).
_Human Cranium and Animal Cranium._--The dividing line between the
cerebral and facial cranium is of great importance in anthropology,
because the relative proportions between these two parts of the cranium
form a human characteristic, contrasting widely with the animal
characteristics; and they offer a simple criterion for determining the
higher or lower type of the human cranium. (Compare in this connection
Fig. 40, skulls of the higher mammals and of man.)
[Illustration: FIG. 40.]
The illustration represents a number of different animal skulls; and at
the top are two human skulls, the one of an Australian and the other
of a European. It will be seen that the proportions between the facial
and cerebral portions are very different; in the animals, even in the
higher orders such as the _primates_ (orang-utan, gorilla, etc.), the
_facial_ and _masticatory_ parts predominate over the cerebral.
One might even say that the skeleton gives us at a glance the
characteristic psychological difference; the animal _eats_, man
_thinks_; that is, the animal is destined only to vegetate, to feed
itself; man is an entirely different species; he has a very different
task before him; he is the _creative being_, who, through thought and
labour, is destined to subjugate and transform the world.
There are still other characteristic differences between the animal and
the human skull. The cerebral cranium of the ape is not only smaller
but it is furnished with strong bony ridges, to serve as points of
attachment for powerful muscles intended to protect the cranial cavity.
The human skull is completely devoid of such ridges; it is perfectly
smooth, with delicate contours; it might be described as "frail and
naked"; for the word nakedness precisely expresses the _absence_ of
those defences with which the cranium of the anthropoid ape is so
abundantly provided. Accordingly, the human cranium is _undefended_ by
soft tissues; and even the bony walls themselves are far from thick. If
we take a transverse section of the bones of the cranium, we find that
they are formed of two very thin layers of bone united by a porous,
osseous substance; the external layer is in direct contact with the
muscles of the scalp, and the internal layer with the brain. These
two layers differ widely in their degree of elasticity: the external
layer is so elastic that if it receives a bruising blow (provided this
is not so heavy as to surpass its limits of elasticity) it will yield
even to the point of touching the inner layer and then spring back to
its original position without leaving any perceptible trace of the
blow received (this is especially true in the case of infants),[36]
while the inner layer is so unelastic as to appear almost as brittle
as _glass_: so much so, for example, that the indirect shock of the
same contusion may cause it to splinter into fragments, which may
either penetrate the substance of the brain, or produce hemorrhages, or
inflammatory reactions in the meninges--and sometimes may constitute
the sole cause of epilepsy, and various forms of inflammation of the
brain (even resulting in idiocy), and sometimes of meningitis and death.
Contusions on the heads of children, and in general blows resulting
from falls or other causes, must be taken into serious consideration,
in the history of the individual, even though they have left no
profound traces _externally_.
This human characteristic of nakedness, of the _absence_ of powerful
bodily defences, is not limited to the head alone, but is diffused
over the entire morphological organism. Man, considered as an animal,
is weak; he is born naked and he remains naked, and destitute of those
natural defences which explain the endurance and the survival of other
species; neither the fur nor the plumage of mammals and of birds nor
the bony shields of reptiles and scales of fishes serve as defences for
this vertebrate, who has raised himself to the highest eminence in the
zoological scale; neither the muscular strength and powerful teeth of
the felines, nor the talons of the birds of prey have been his arms of
conquest.
Nevertheless, man who has conquered the earth and overcome all his
powerful biological enemies, owes his survival, equally with all other
living creatures, to his victory over other animals and over his
environment. Wherein lies the special strength of this little, feeble
being, who has become the lord of the earth? It lies in his brain.
The arms of this conqueror are wholly psychic. It is his intelligence
which has prevailed over the might of other animals and enabled him to
acquire the means of adapting himself to his environment, or else of
adapting his environment to himself. His intelligence, which sufficed
him as a weapon with which to achieve victory in the struggle for
existence, is also the means which still permits him to continue on the
road toward self-perfectionment.
The morphological importance attached by anthropologists to the
cerebral cranium depends precisely upon this: that it is the envelope
of the _brain_. If we examine the interior of the human cerebral
cranium, we find that it has adapted its bony contours so faithfully
to those of the soft tissues that it bears the imprint of the various
parts of the brain (cerebrum, cerebellum), the convolutions, and even
the blood-vessels of the meninges. Accordingly, a study of the cerebral
cranium amounts to an indirect study of the brain itself.
_Characteristics of the Human Cranium._--The characteristics of the
human cranium are all associated with the great development of the
volume of the brain. Let us assume that we have an elastic vessel,
representing in form an animal cranium, open at the base through an
orifice corresponding to the occipital foramen. If we inflate this
vessel, it will not only begin to enlarge at the expense Of its folds
(ridges), and to stretch and distend its walls (thinness and fragility
of the cranial bones); but furthermore it will undergo a change in
form, acquiring a more pronounced rotundity and _pushing upward_ in
its anterior part above the face. This part, rising erect above the
face, and determined by the volume of the brain, is the _forehead_.
Animals do not have an erect forehead; their orbits continue backward
in an almost horizontal line, giving them an extremely receding brow.
Corresponding to this preponderance of the cerebral portion, the facial
portion _retires_ below the brow, the mandibles do not extend beyond
the anterior axis of the brain, and are so far diminished in volume
that they assume, as compared with animals, a new function; in short,
the mouth is no longer merely the organ of mastication, but also the
organ of speech; its animal part has been spiritualised.
_The Evolution of the Forehead.--Inferior Skull Caps; the Skull_ _of
the Pithecanthropus; the Skull of the Neanderthal Man._ The forehead is
so distinctly a human characteristic that mankind has not needed the
help of anthropology in order to realise its importance--and as a sign
of superiority, nobility or sovereignty, has placed upon the forehead
the crown of laurel, or the crown of nobility or kingship.
Has the forehead always been a human characteristic, or have we
acquired it little by little? Such a problem is associated with the
evolution of the brain. There are in existence certain remains of
the skeletons of primitive men, which show them to have possessed a
cerebral cranium inferior in volume to that now attained by the human
species; and in these remains the forehead is also profoundly different
from that of to-day, in that it is much lower and slants backward,
while the supraorbital arches are very prominent. Such is the evidence
of the "cranial caps," discovered in the early geological strata.
In the tertiary strata of the island of Java, which in that remote
epoch of the earth's history must, together with Sumatra, have formed
part of the continent of Asia, which is considered as the "laboratory
of races," a skull was found by Dubois which raised the problem
whether it should be classed as that of an ape superior to those now
existing, or of a primitive man. Prior to this discovery, it had been
maintained that man did not make his appearance until the quaternary
period. This supposed primitive man was called by his discoverer the
Pithecanthropus, _pithecanthropus_ _erectus_.
Remains that are unquestionably human occur in the quaternary period,
in which however skeletons are very rare, as compared with relics
of human labour or social life, relics which are found scattered
everywhere throughout Asia and Europe as well (chipped flints). The
various remains of skeletons show us skulls much inferior to those of
modern man, but superior to that of the pithecanthropus. In treatises
of general anthropology reproductions are given of human crania known
as the Spy or Neanderthal type, belonging to the epoch when the
gigantic mammoth still roamed the earth. The forehead is very low and
receding and the orbital arches are enormously developed; while the
cerebral capacity calculated from the cranial dimensions is inferior to
that of modern man.
Consequently, as the brain increases in volume in the course of the
revolution of the race, the cranium not only shows a corresponding
volumetric increase, but at the same time _alters its form_, thus
producing the _forehead_ which little by little rises from a receding
to an erect position, and becomes high where it was formerly low, while
at the same time the prominent orbital arches disappear. Accordingly,
we may consider the forehead as the _skeletal_ _index_ of the cerebral
volume, and hence of the relative anthropological and intellectual
superiority.
In addition to its above-mentioned value, it also furnishes us with a
biological principle of much importance: the relation _between_ _the
volume and form_ of the cranium.
While the volume has a significance that is _relative_ to the mass of
the body, the significance of the form is _absolute_.
Let us examine these two skulls: normal human skulls of our own
epoch; one of the Celtic race (Fig. 46) and the other Sardinian (Fig.
43); that of the Celtic race is much larger and rounder; that of the
Sardinian is very much smaller and more elongated.
If we were considering only the _volume_, we might say that it was
simply a case of a _microcephalic_ and a _macrocephalic_: two terms
(microcephaly and macrocephaly) that fall within the province of
pathology. On the contrary, these two skulls are normal, but they
belonged to individuals characterized by differences of race; the one
(small skull) having a low stature; the other (large skull) having a
tall stature.
The volume of the head therefore bears a relation to that of the
body; the volume has a _relative_ significance. But the form in both
of them reveals a state of normality; the two skulls have a high and
erect forehead, and exhibit in their whole contour a fine and regular
development. Therefore the _form_ has an _absolute_ significance. It
even proves to us the _normality_ of the volume, a fact which could not
be determined by the volume alone.
Another mechanical correspondence between volume and form is disclosed
when we compare the skull of a new-born child with that of an adult.
The skull of the new-born child is much smaller in volume; but the
form shows the relatively enormous volumetric development of the brain;
in fact the skull is protuberant and the forehead bulges forward above
the face (_front bombé_), while corresponding to this index of cerebral
development is the enormous preponderance of the cerebral cranium over
the facial cranium, which is so small as to be almost reduced to a
simple rudiment.
Hence the form by itself alone reveals the infantile character of
the cerebral volume, which, in relation to the bulk of the body is
of far greater dimensions than in the adult. In fact, if a child
simply increased in volume and its growth was not the sum total of a
morphological evolution, the adult man would become a monster; his
macrocephaly would be so exaggerated that his neck could not sustain
the weight of the head (If the relations between the proportions in
infancy were maintained through life the adult man would have a head
with a perimeter of 130 centimetres, = 4 ft. 3 in.).
Aside from its mechanical relations to the volume, the _form_ has
characteristics dependent upon biological factors, such as the _sex_
and the _race_. The female cranium in fact has a straighter forehead
than the male and the orbital arches are absolutely wanting, while the
entire surface of the cranium is smoother and more rounded.
Similarly, the different races exhibit _forms_ determined by biological
factors and not by mechanical causes--for instance, the degree of
dolichocephaly (elongated cranium) and of brachycephaly (short cranium).
Hence the form is life's manifestation not only of the characteristics
proper to the species, but also of the mechanical adaptations demanded
by the material composing the body.
It may be said that the _volume_ and the _form_ of the cranium are
dependent upon two different biological potentialities: the volume is
mainly determined by the cerebral mass; the form, on the contrary, is
mainly determined by the bony structure--no matter how completely form
and volume coincide in their reciprocal mechanical relations.
That is, the attainment of a given volume of head depends upon the
development of the brain; the bone follows this development passively,
is the index of it, the skeletal representation of it, but never the
determining factor.
At one time it was thought, on the contrary, that a precocious
ossification of the cranial cavity would arrest the development of
the brain; _microcephaly_ was believed to be caused by a precocious
closing of the sutures of the cranial bones; and there was a certain
period when the surgical treatment of microcephaly consisted in the
removal of a portion of the cranial bone, in order to allow the brain
to develop freely.
[Illustration: FIG. 41. FIG. 42. Dividing line in human skull, as
compared with that of gorilla.]
[Illustration: FIG. 43.--Rounded ellipsoidal cranium.]
[Illustration: FIG. 44.--Brachycephalic cranium (vertical norm)]
[Illustration: FIG. 45.--Remains of spy cranium.]
[Illustration: FIG. 46.--Brachycephalic cranium.]
[Illustration: FIG. 47.--Egyptian cranium, 21st dynasty, ovoid type.]
[Illustration: FIG. 48.--Dolichocephalic cranium, from lateral norm.]
But the failure of such attempts afforded additional proof of the fact
that the volumetric development of the cranium depends upon the brain
alone.
If a precocious or abnormal suture occurs in the cranial bones, there
does not follow an arrest of development, but simply a _malformation_;
which is precisely in proportion to the potentiality of the brain,
which grows less where the suture has been formed, and in compensation
grows more than normally where the conditions of the bones permit
of cerebral expansion; and a deformity results. Microcephaly on the
contrary shows inferiority of form (smallness, receding forehead,
etc.), but not _malformation_.
_Anomaly of form_, therefore, results only from anomaly of skeletal
development, and is frequently found in conjunction with a _normal
development of the brain_.
Consequently _malformations_ of the cranium do not have the grave
significance of biological inferiority or of degeneration that they
were at one time believed to have; but frequently they must be
considered in connection with pathological conditions resulting for the
most part in delayed development in the embryo or in early infancy,
producing a thickening of the bone, or a partial suturation of the
points, or parts, or of the entire suture (punctiform synostosis,
partial or total); sometimes the sutures remain unaltered, and the
deformation must be attributed to various disturbances connected with
the nutrition of the skeleton in the course of intrauterine evolution
(hereditary syphilis, denutrition of the mother during pregnancy,
etc.). In short, a cranium that is abnormal in form is an indication of
pathological occurrences or of physiological errors that have resulted
in altering the normal growth of the individual.
There are many anomalies in the form of the cranium, but here we will
cite only the two principal ones, because they are the most frequent
and most likely to be encountered in individuals whose growth has been
retarded (from lack of nutrition) and consequently constitute signs of
physiological inferiority often associated with social caste. These two
forms are: scaphocephaly and plagiocephaly.
The scaphocephalic cranium (Figs. 51, 52), is characterised by being
very narrow and flattened laterally; while the forehead and the occiput
project in front and behind, the two parietal bones meet above almost
in an angle, so that, if it were turned upside down, the vault of the
cranium would have the appearance of the hull of a ship.
The _plagiocephalic_ cranium is a cranium which is unsymmetrical in
respect to its longitudinal axis; that is, it is not equally developed
on the right and on the left.
As a matter of fact, our bilateral symmetry is an ideal standard
rather than an absolutely attainable reality; we are all of us a
little larger on one side and a little smaller on the other, but to
so slight a degree as to escape superficial observation, so that
in general we have _apparently_ a bilateral symmetry--that is, we
appear to be symmetrical according to the testimony of our senses;
but a more delicate examination proves that this is not true.
Plagiocephaly therefore represents an exaggerated case of a normal
fact. Plagiocephaly may be simple or compound; it is simple when the
asymmetry is partial; namely, when it is confined to the anterior or
posterior portion; it is compound when it is total; and in such case
we find a complete diagonal correspondence: for instance, if the right
nodule in the frontal region is more prominent, the left nodule is more
prominent in the left occipital region, or _vice versa_. In general
it may be said that the various forms of _plagiocephaly_ are produced
by asymmetry of the _nodules_ or of the _flattened_ surfaces of the
cranium. Even in the case of _microcephaly_ and of _macrocephaly_,
which are substantially anomalies of _volume_, we find corresponding
characteristic abnormalities of form. The microcephalic cranium is of
inferior type, suggesting that of the ape--in other words, it is a
cranium which has mechanically adapted itself to a brain of inferior
volume: the macrocephalic cranium, especially if the abnormality is
due to _rickets_ or to _hydrocephaly_, calls to mind the infantile
type of cranium; it has the characteristic bulging forehead, while
mechanical adaptation frequently renders it very round (pathological
brachycephaly). We will take up this question again when we come to
speak in particular of _malformations_ and to describe the technical
methods of cranioscopy. What more particularly concerns us now is a
consideration of the _normal_ form of the cranium and its morphological
evolution.
[Illustration: FIG. 49.--Cranium of new-born child (lateral norm).]
[Illustration: FIG. 50.--Cranium of new-born child (vertical norm).]
[Illustration: FIG. 51. FIG. 52. Scaphocephalic cranium.]
[Illustration: FIG. 53.--Cranium of new-born child seen from above,
showing polyhedric contour due to nodules of ossification; fontanelle
of the bregma; and suture dividing the two frontal bones.]
[Illustration: FIG. 54.--Ellipsoides (classified by Sergi).]
=The Morphological Evolution of the Cranium through the= =Different
Periods of Life.= _Embryogeny. Order of Appearance of_ _the Points of
Ossification and of Synostosis of the Sutures._--In its successive
transitions through the different periods of life, the cranium not
only acquires successively greater volume, but it assumes forms
corresponding to the different grades of morphological evolution. We
may group its transformation under five different periods: 1. from
conception until birth (embryonic evolution); 2. from birth until the
end of the third year (infantile evolution); 3. from three years old
until twenty (youthful evolution); 4. from twenty to forty (adult age);
5. from forty to the end of life (involution).
_First Period._--In the earliest stages of intrauterine life the
cranium consists of a membranous skin, enclosing the primitive cells
of nerve tissue constituting the brain; it has a cartilaginous basal
part, destined later to form the _base_ of the skull (basioccipital and
basisphenoid bones). But all the rest (the vault or cap of the cranium)
remains in a membranous state, so that at this period the head of the
embryo has not yet acquired a definite form.
[Illustration: FIG. 55.--Cranium of new-born child. Showing nodules and
fontanelles.]
In the second month of intrauterine life the phenomena of ossification
have already begun to take place; that is, a fine network has formed,
spreading over almost the entire surface, which proceeds to fill up
its interstices with calcareous salts. This process, however, is more
rapid and more intense at certain points (points of ossification), from
which it cannot properly be said that the ossification _radiates_, but
rather that at these points the general process is intensified and
concentrated. There are five principal points of ossification: two
frontal, two parietal and one occipital, which appear clearly defined
and projecting like nodules, imparting to the cranium, when seen from
above, a pentagonal form, which is the normal form of the infant
cranium.
_Second Period._--At birth the cranium has not yet completed the
process of ossification, nor are the normal number of bones that will
eventually compose the adult cranium, as yet definitely determined.
Therefore the cranium of the new-born child has three distinct
characteristics:
1. It is not yet uniformly rounded, but polyhedral because of the
noticeable prominence of the five primitive nodules or centres of
ossification (2 frontal, 2 parietal, 1 occipital, Figs. 53, 55).
2. Since the process of ossification of the bones is not yet completed,
certain membranous portions or _cranial fontanelles_ still remain,
which are especially wide at the points where several bones meet. The
principal fontanelle is that of the bregma (at the juncture of the two
frontal with the two parietal bones, quadrangular). Next comes that of
the lambda, which is much smaller (juncture of the two parietal bones
with the occipital, triangular), and lastly the fontanelles of the
asterion and the pterion, on opposite sides of the temporal bones, the
former being situated behind and the latter in front.
3. Since the process of ossification is incomplete, the fusion of
bony portions into entire bones, such as they are destined to be
when complete development is reached, has not yet been accomplished;
that is to say, certain bones of the cranium are still divided into
several portions. For example, the frontal bone in the new-born
child is composed of two bones, separated by a longitudinal suture
that is destined to disappear, and the occipital bone is composed
of four parts, namely, the base, the squama and the two condyles
(basioccipital, exoccipital and superoccipital bones).
During the first period of three years, while the brain is increasing
notably and rapidly in volume, the cranium undergoes various and
interesting transformations. The pentagonal form of the cranium
tends steadily to become rounder, because the primitive nodules
are diminishing, or even disappear, although in this regard many
individual varieties result; and the processes of ossification reach
their completion. This is the most important period of growth, during
which the individual development of the perfect cranial form may be
attained, provided the rhythm of growth between the brain and its
envelope remains harmonious; or again, certain deformations may be
definitely established, owing to the intervention of some pathological
condition or a disturbance of nutrition, altering either the internal
volume or the normal process of ossification of the bony covering.
The first closing of the fontanelles takes place, in our race, in
those of the asterion (posterior to the temporal bones), and next
in those of the pterion; and it sometimes happens, as an anomaly of
growth that leaves no external trace in the living man, that a little
bone is formed, duplicating the shape of the fontanelle itself; such
little bones, very common in abnormal crania, are called _Wormian_
_bones_. They may occur in connection with any of the fontanelles, but
especially with that of the bregma.
[Illustration: FIG. 56.--Cranium of adult with abnormal medio-frontal
suture.]
The fontanelle of the lambda generally closes during the first year;
and the last of all the fontanelles to close is the largest, which is
situated toward the front of the head, at the _bregma_, and is well
known, even by the common people, and can easily be felt upon a child's
head; it generally closes toward the end of the second year; and its
characteristics may furnish valuable indications of abnormality or
insufficiency of the child's development. For example, if it diminishes
and disappears ahead of time, this may constitute the first symptom of
_microcephaly_, or at all events, of submicrocephaly (_i.e._, a case of
microcephaly that is not very pronounced). On the contrary, when this
fontanelle remains dilated and delays its normal closing, this is a
sign of organic weakness and debilitating disease (cachexia, rickets,
myxedema). Furthermore, the fontanelle in question may alter its
characteristic appearance in certain forms of sickness. In the case of
hydrocephaly it becomes distended, while in enteritis, on the contrary,
in which the organism parts with a large proportion of liquid, it
becomes depressed.
The _sutures_ also undergo notable changes during this period of life.
The first to become effaced is the metopic or medio-frontal suture,
which is destined to close and form a single bone; by the end of the
first year it is obliterated throughout the middle third of its length,
and thereafter the process of suturation spreads upward and downward
until it is completed at the end of the second year (Welcker, Haeckel,
Humphry). Sometimes, however, this suture is not obliterated until very
late, and there are anomalous cases where it has remained throughout
life, giving the forehead a characteristic form (pronounced frontal
nodules and a slight palpable furrow along the medial line of the
forehead).
During this same time a fusion has also taken place between the
occipital squama and the two lateral or condyloid portions; but the
resultant whole still remains separated from the _corpus_ or _base_ of
the occipital bone, which will not become welded into one solid piece
with the rest before the age of seven years.
At the age of three, the ossification of the cranial vault has been
completed. In place of being depressed and protuberant, as it was
at birth, the cranium has grown upward and forward in the frontal
region, assuming an almost definitive form; the volume of the cranium
has at the same time undergone an exceedingly rapid growth, attaining
proportions very near to those of an adult.
From the age of three onward the head grows slowly, and its
transformations are much slighter and fewer. The cranial capacity
which at birth is 415 cubic centimetres, becomes at the age of three,
1,200, at the age of fifteen, 1,393, and in the adult, 1,400 cu. cm.
respectively. Accordingly we might say that at the age of three a
sort of repose has been established in the growth both of the the
brain and of the cranium; this is the age at which an awakening begins
in the child of that intelligence which is to put him in touch with
the external world, and it is also the age at which he may begin his
education in school.
_Third Period._--There follows a slow and parallel growth of both
brain and cranium. The ossification of the cranium itself reaches
completion. At the age of seven the occipital is definitely solidified
into a single bone and between the years of fifteen and twenty the
body of the sphenoid also becomes welded to the occiput. This process
of synostosis begins from the interior of the cranium, and only
subsequently manifests itself externally. Consequently, the basilar
suture closes at the time when the last large molars, the so-called
"wisdom teeth," appear. After this period, the base of the cranium can
no longer undergo any sort of growth, and in the case of uneducated
persons the complete development of the cranium is definitely
accomplished.
_Fourth Period._--But in the case of cultured persons, those who form
the class of brain-workers, the brain continues to grow, although
extremely slowly, up to the age of thirty-five or even forty, thanks to
the sutures which still remain completely intact and which still make
an expansion of the bony envelope possible.
After this comes the beginning of the
_Fifth Period._--The period of involution, during which the synostosis
(closing) of all the cranial sutures will successively occur, until in
advanced old age the cranium becomes composed of a single bone, just as
in the embryo it was formed of a single membrane.
The synostoses which occurred in the early periods had an evolutive
significance and were associated with the growth of the body and
the intelligence. These later synostoses, on the contrary, have an
involutive significance and are associated with the physiological
decay of the organism and at the same time with that of the psychic
activities.
The first point at which synostosis takes place is in the region of
the obelion, that is, near the middle of the suture which, unites the
two parietal bones; shortly afterward, the fronto-parietal sutures
begin to unite along the pterion. At the age of forty-five, the obeliac
synostosis has progressed as far as the lambda, and that of the
fronto-parietal suture to the bregma; and at fifty the ossification is
very nearly accomplished, at least on the right-hand side (according to
Broca's series of crania). At seventy the squama of the temporal bone
unites with the parietal, and at eighty the entire cranium has become a
single bone.
These processes are subject to no small number of individual
variations; there have been cases of persons who, although very old,
still preserved many of their cranial sutures intact and their psychic
activities remained correspondingly alert (men of genius). Conversely,
the closing of the sutures sometimes begins as early as the
thirty-fifth year. A diagnosis of age, as determined by the skeleton,
is consequently only approximate.
During the periods of growth the cranium may exhibit transitory
anomalies; it is very common to encounter in the heads of children of
the lower social classes, who are consequently subject to denutrition,
_malformations_ which represent various degrees and forms of
_plagiocephaly_, and which subsequently disappear completely, as the
development of the cranium advances. Anomalies of form must therefore
be judged differently in the case of the child than in that of the
adult.
It may even happen that the five primitive nodules persist for a
long time and even remain as a definitive form of the adult cranium
constituting, according to Sergi, a distinct variety, the _pentagonal_
cranium. But this is quite rare. From the frequency with which this
form is to be observed in schools attended by children of the poorer
classes, it is better to regard it as due to a delay in morphological
evolution, which will probably disappear later on.
NORMAL FORMS OF THE CRANIUM
We are indebted to Sergi for an exact knowledge of the _normal_
_forms_ of the cranium. Such forms are racial characteristics and are
_invariable_, as Sergi has succeeded in proving by a comparison of
the most ancient forms of the cranium with recent forms. Accordingly
this authority takes the cranial formation as the basis for his
classification of races. We have no direct interest, so far as concerns
the special scope of our own science, in the value of this theory
of classification--a theory, by the way, already divined, although
very imperfectly and under a different form, by French and German
anthropologists. Sergi's studies of cranial forms interest us solely
as a diagnostic test of _normality_ as compared with _abnormality_.
For it is due to these researches that certain forms that used to be
considered pathological, have come to be recognised as normal.
The _normal forms_ of the cranium may be grouped, according to Sergi,
under nine primary varieties, each of which includes _sub-varieties_.
These nine varieties are named as follows:
I. Ellipsoid; II. Ovoid; III. Pentagonoid; IV. Rhomboid; V. Beloid;
VI. Cuboid; VII. Sphenoid; VIII. Spheroid; IX. Platycephalic.
[Illustration: FIG. 57.--_Ellipsoides depressus_ cranium.]
I. _Ellipsoid_ (Fig. 58).--This form is recognised by inspecting
the cranium according to the vertical norm (see in the chapter on
_Technique_ the method of cranioscopy).
The cranial contour recalls an ellipse in which no trace of the nodules
remains, and in which the occiput is not in the least flattened; while
the anterior half of the cranium closely corresponds to the posterior
half.
The sub-varieties are differentiated by their greater breadth and
length, by the form and protrusion of the occiput, and also by the
height of the cranium measured vertically.
[Illustration: FIG. 58.--Ellipsoid cranium.]
[Illustration: FIG. 59.--Ovoid cranium.]
Accordingly, the sub-varieties have a binominal nomenclature
indicating, in addition to the fundamental characteristic (variety)
the qualitative characteristic of the sub-variety (_e.g., ellipsoids_
_depressus_; compare Fig. 57, showing a cranium seen laterally).
II. _Ovoid._--This form of cranium, seen from above, is that of an
ovoid, with the broader portion corresponding to the parietal bones,
at the point where the characteristic embryonal nodules are situated.
The protrusions of the parietal bones are apparent (swellings) but not
angular (nodules). The occiput protrudes and is broad (Fig. 59).
[Illustration: FIG. 60.--Pentagonoid cranium.]
[Illustration: FIG. 61.--Rhomboid cranium.]
III. _Pentagonoid._--In this form, persistent traces of the five
primitive embryonal nodules are still plainly visible, giving the
contour of the cranium, when seen vertically, the appearance of a
pentagon. The protuberances, however, are quite smooth and not pointed,
as in the embryonal cranium.
[Illustration: FIG. 62.--Beloid cranium.]
IV. _Rhomboid._--This form is similar to the pentagonoid, excepting
that the parietal breadth is much more notable in proportion to the
forehead, which is much narrowed and has lost its nodules.
[Illustration: FIG. 63.--Ovoids (classified by Sergi).]
[Illustration: FIG. 64.--Pentagonoides acutus (Sergi's collection).]
[Illustration: FIG. 65.--Beloides lybicus (classified by Sergi).]
[Illustration: FIG. 66.--Platycephalus orbicularis (classified by
Sergi).]
[Illustration: FIG. 67.--Platycephalus ovoidalis (classified by Sergi).]
[Illustration: FIG. 68.--Spheroidal cranium, vertical norm (Sergi's
collection).]
V. _Beloid._--The beloid, or arrow-head cranium is like the ovoid with
the occiput more flattened, so that the widest portion is further back
than in the ovoid; toward the front it becomes narrower, constituting
altogether an admirably shaped type of head.
[Illustration: FIG. 69.--Cuboid cranium.]
VI. _Cuboid._--This form is most clearly perceived when the cranium
is seen either sidewise or from the rear. Not only the face, but the
lateral and occipital walls as well are flattened; so also is the
forehead, which in general is quite vertical.
VII. _Sphenoid_ (cuneiform).--The broadening between the two parietal
bones is usually far back and very evident, while the cranium narrows
toward the front. The occiput is flattened.
[Illustration: FIG. 70.--Sphenoid cranium.]
VIII. _Spheroid._--Seen vertically, it presents the appearance of
a very broad ellipse; all the curves tend to become spherical. The
forehead, however, is not notably vertical.
IX. _Platycephalic._--The fundamental characteristic of this type
of cranium is that it is flattened on top, or rather, since such
flattening cannot be absolute, the arch of its vault is a segment of
a circle of very large diameter (Sergi), with the result that this
cranium has the appearance of being very low vertically and very broad
laterally. When seen vertically it may present a wide variety of
contours, ellipsoid, ovoid, pentagonoid, etc., but its distinguishing
characteristic remains that of the flattened vault.
[Illustration: FIG. 71.--Spheroid cranium.]
=Sub-varieties.=--_Sphenoids_ _trapezoids_, or _trapezoid cranium_.
Observed from the vertical norm, this form appears as a variety of
the _sphenoid_; and when seen laterally it is characterised by the
lines of its contour forming a _trapezium_. Starting from the vertex
of the cranium one line slants toward the forehead and another toward
the occiput, which is very massive. In the figure given below, the
quadrangle drawn in solid lines serves to indicate the correct position
of the cranium, while the trapezium formed of dotted lines gives us its
characteristic form.
[Illustration: FIG. 72.--Trapezoid cranium.]
Among the forms described by Sergi, are several which were formerly
held to be abnormal, such, for instance, as the _platycephalic_
_cranium_ and the _pentagonoid_. Similarly, when the surfaces of the
cranium showed a tendency toward flatness, or when there were cranial
protuberances, even though these were destined to disappear, they were
regarded as malformations. Before this high authority offered us his
guidance, there were certain forms, frequently encountered, that it
was difficult to define, for example, the trapezoid cranium, which
often presents a notable vertico-occipital flattening, with the vertex
notably higher than the forehead.
There are also certain forms of cranium having the frontal region more
restricted than the parietal region, or slanting down from a much
elevated vertex, which have been proved to be _normal forms_; while
still another error previously made was that of trying to judge the
_forehead_ on the criterion of a single model, deviations from which
were much too readily relegated to the category of abnormalities. The
most regular and beautiful forms, and the ones that are commonest in
our racial stocks are the ellipsoid, ovoid and sphenoid. In my work on
the women of Latium, precisely one of the points that I noted was the
frequent occurrence of certain sub-varieties of the _ellipsoid_ and the
_sphenoid_.
In order to recognise the _forms of the cranium_, a certain training
is necessary which each one must acquire for himself. Observations of
the cranium will make it easier to judge of the form in relation to the
_head_, at least, when the latter is not too much hidden by the hair,
as often happens in the case of young children.
A knowledge of the _normal_ forms of the cranium will also guide us
in our judgment of many abnormal forms, which very often present the
appearance of _exaggerations_ of normal types.
Thus, for example, the _acrocephalic_ cranium (much raised in the
parieto-lambdoideal region and sloping forward toward the brow, while
the occipito-lambdoideal region is flattened) recalls the _trapezoid_;
and the clinocephalic cranium (in which the coronal suture forms a
slight girdle-like indenture and divides the contour of the cranium,
when observed along the vertical norm, in two curves, a lesser anterior
and a greater posterior curve, resembling a figure of 8) recalls
certain varieties of ovoid cranium described by Sergi. This brings us
to a principle that is very interesting to establish, namely, that
frequently _anomalies_ represent _exaggerations_ of the racial or
family type.
THE CEPHALIC INDEX
Retzius was the first to take the _cranium_ under consideration
as a basis for a classification of the human races; and he
attempted to determine a concept of its _form_ by means of a
numerical formula expressing the relation between the length and
width of the cranium (cephalic index). Thus he distinguished the
races into _brachycephalics_, or those having a short head; and
_dolichocephalics_, or those having a long head. Following Retzius,
who may be regarded as the founder of craniology, Broca adopted,
completed and expanded this method, deriving from the cranium, or
rather from the particular character given by the cephalic index, a
_key_, as it were, suited to unlocking the intricate mysteries of
hybridism among the human races. Consequently the cephalic index was
not confined, as regards its importance, within the same limits as all
the other indexes, but was raised by the French school, warmly seconded
by Italian anthropologists, to the dignity of a fundamental determinant
of the _ethnic type_, as definitely as, for example, the vertebral
column serves as basis for a classification including all species of
vertebrates.
The Germans refused to accept the cephalic index as determining
the classification of races; but while seeking to prove themselves
independent of it, they continued to regard the _form of the cranium_
as a basis of classification (Rütimeyer, von Höller, and to-day
Virchow), but without ever having identified, as Sergi has now done,
existing _forms_ as normal types of race.
The _cephalic index_ is obtained by the well-known formula expressing
the relation between the _maximum transverse diameter_ of the skull
(see "Technique") and the _maximum longitudinal diameter_ reduced to
100, and is expressed as follows: Ci = 100×d/D (the cephalic index is
equal to a hundred times the lesser diameter divided by the greater; in
the present case the lesser diameter is the transverse).
This _proportion between linear measurements_ cannot properly sum
up the _form_ of the cranium. We can, for example, conceive of a
microcephalic cranium having a normal _cephalic index_, since the
relation between the two maximum diameters necessary for deducing the
index, does not tell us, for example, either the dimension of the
cranium or the form of the forehead.
If, for instance, we should imagine a photograph of a cranium enlarged
a hundred diameters, the reciprocal relations between the length and
the width would still remain unchanged.
In order to demonstrate that the cephalic index does not determine the
form of the cranium, Sergi makes use of a number of different geometric
figures, such as a triangle, an ellipse, a trapezoid inscribed within
equal rectangles, and which consequently have an equal base and equal
altitude, that is, the same proportion between length and width.
It follows that skulls corresponding more or less closely in shape,
trapezoidal, trigonocephalic, ellipsoidal, plagiocephalic, and hence
both normal and abnormal, can be expressed by a cephalic index having
the same identical figures.
But, although the cephalic index is far from being _descriptive_ in
regard to the form of the cranium, it constitutes an anthropological
datum that has two advantages: 1. It depends upon measurements and
is therefore accessible to those who, not being anthropologists,
lack the trained eye that can distinguish with careful accuracy the
true _forms_ of the cranium in their manifold variety. Furthermore,
since the measurement of maximum diameters is sure and easy and may
be obtained with exactness, regardless of the thickness of the hair,
it may be applied in anthropological research to all subjects. 2. The
cephalic index, even if it does not give us the form, does give us a
fact which has a bearing upon the form, namely, whether the cranium is
long or short; in other words, it substantially represents the most
real and evident difference between the different types of cranium.
And since the cranium has a visibly spheroid form, that is, with
smooth and rounding surfaces, and constantly adheres to this generic
delineation, the fact of being longer or shorter introduces a definite
differentiation into the general and accepted form, and gives a very
simple and concise indication of it, that conveys the idea more clearly
than a description would.
Granting the _practicality_ of this line of research, the cephalic
index may also be accepted as an index of form, so long as there is no
intention of going deeply into minute differentiations for systematic
purposes. Professor Sergi himself, author of the system that forms
the basis of the study of cranial forms, urged me to exclude from a
practical course in pedagogic anthropology the classification of forms,
limiting the concept of form to that included in the cephalic index.
The cephalic index has the additional advantage of having been
extensively studied and consequently of having an abundance of mean
averages for comparison that are of great practical use. Furthermore,
the idea it gives regarding the cranium by means of one simple figure
serves to convey certain fundamental principles with great clearness.
In dealing with figures that determine an anthropological datum of
such high importance, it is necessary to define its limits and its
nomenclature.
Various authors have introduced their own personal classification
of the cephalic index, and no small confusion in nomenclature has
resulted; so much so that a need was felt of establishing a uniformity
of numerical limits and of the relative terminology, in other words, of
simplifying the scientific language.
Accordingly, a congress was held at Frankfort in 1885, at which the
following nomenclature was established by international agreement:
CEPHALIC INDEX.--_Nomenclature established at Frankfort_
Dolichocephalia = 75 and below
Mesaticephalia = from 75.1 to 79.9
Brachycephalia = from 80 to 85
Hyperbrachycephalia = 85.1 and above.
Previous to this, the most widely varied classifications were in use,
and the leading authorities had all introduced into the literature of
the subject their own personal classifications. Here are some of the
more important:
BROCA:
Dolichocephalics = 75 and below
Subdolichocephalics = from 75 to 80
Subbrachycephalics = from 80 to 83.3
Brachycephalics = 83.3 and above.
RANKE:
Dolichocephalics = 74.9
Mesaticephalics = from 75 to 79.9
Brachycephalics = 80 and above.
KOLLMAN:
Dolichocephalics = 73.9 and below
Mesaticephalics = from 74 to 79.9
Brachycephalics = from 80 to 86.9
Hyperbrachycephalics = 87 and above.
RETZIUS and
DAVIS:
Dolichocephalia = 79 and below
Brachycephalia = 80 and above.
TOPINARD: { 64 and below = Ultradolichocephalics.
{ 65 \
{ 66 }
{ 67 } True dolichocephalics.
{ 68 }
Dolichocephalics { 69 /
{ 70 \
{ 71 }
{ 72 } Subdolichocephalics.
{ 73 }
{ 74 }
{ 75 \
{ 76 / True mestaicephalics
Mesaticephalics { 77 (_Mean average._)
{ 78 \
{ 79 / Submesaticephalics
{ 80 }
{ 81 }
{ 82 } Subbrachycephalics.
{ 83 }
{ 84 /
Brachycephalics { 85 \
{ 86 } True brachycephalics.
{ 87 }
{ 88 }
{ 89 /
{ 90 and above = Ultrabrachycephalics.
It remains to determine the extreme _limits of oscillation_ of the
index, both in relation to the normal mean and in relation to the
fluctuations of this important ethnic datum in a given population.
Topinard, as we have seen, gives as his mean figures for the extreme
normal limits among the human races 64 and 90.
Deniker gives, as his mean averages for the human races, the following
figures: For dolichocephaly, 69.4 (natives of the Caroline Islands;
Australia); For brachycephaly, 88.7 (the Ayssori of the Transcaucasus;
Asia).[37] But we know that a mean is obtained from figures either
greater or smaller than the mean itself, so that the limits of
_individual variation_ must exceed that of the given figures.
Accordingly the oscillation of the normal cephalic indices may be given
as ranging from 70 to 90.
In regard to abnormalities (extreme human limits of the cephalic index)
the authorities give 58 for dolichocephaly (scaphocephaly) and 100
for brachycephaly (in which case the cranium is round and known as
_trochocephalic_; it is met with among the insane).
Between oscillations of such extremely wide range in the normal
cephalic index, the number chosen as a medial figure to serve the
purpose of dividing the dolichocephalics from the brachycephalics is
that of 80, which is included within the division of brachycephaly.
In spite of the nomenclature established at Frankfort, there is a
distinct scholastic advantage, because of the greater simplicity of
memorising and fixing the idea, in reverting to the nomenclature of
Retzius, who classes as brachycephalics all crania from 80 upward, and
as dolichocephalics all those below 80. It is certainly strange to
class all crania from 80 to 90 without distinction as brachycephalics,
and then to alter the name and call a cranium with an index of 79.9
a dolichocephalic. It has been found that there is always a slight
difference between the index taken from measurements of the cranium
and that obtained from measurements of the _head_. According to Broca,
it is necessary to subtract _two units_ from the cephalic index taken
from a living person, in order to obtain that of the cranium; thus, for
example, if the cephalic index (taken from life) is 80, the cranial
index (taken from the skeleton) would be 78. Such differences are due
to the disposition of the soft tissues. Consequently, even according
to the simple subdivision of Retzius, a person who was brachycephalic
during life, would become dolichocephalic after he was dead.
But this is what always happens in biology, whenever we try to
establish _definite_ limits. Life undergoes an insensible transition
through successive limits and forms, and this fact constitutes the
grave difficulties and the apparent confusion of biological systems.
In determining degrees of difference, it is necessary to have recourse
constantly to _special methods_, which teach us to recognise general
properties and to use them as a basis in dividing living creatures into
separate groups (see in the section on _Method_, "Mean measurements and
formation of series in relation to individual variations").
Hence, for mnemonic purposes, we need remember only the single number,
80.
But if we wish to adopt the nomenclature of Frankfort, it is necessary
to keep in mind two figures denoting limits, 75 (inclusive) for
dolichocephaly, and 80 (inclusive) for brachycephaly.
75 mesaticephalics 80 85
dolichocephalics brachycephalics ultra
These constitute, as it were, two centres, beyond which, on this side
and on that, we may picture to ourselves the _individual variations_
drawn up in martial line. In this case, the space between 75 and 80,
in other words, the limits of mesaticephaly, may be interpreted as due
to oscillations between dolicho- and brachycephaly according to the
laws of variability, which is analogous to what takes place in the case
of oscillations in the opposite direction (70-75 dolichocephaly; 80-85
brachycephaly). From this point of view, these two numbers, 75 and 80,
constitute _median centres_ of two different types.
But according to Broca and his school--and this view is accepted by
many anthropologists--mesaticephaly should be regarded as constituting
a _fusion_ of the two other types, the brachy- and dolichocephalic,
whence it follows that mesaticephalics would be _hybrids_. Other
authorities, on the contrary, exaggerating the conception of the
fixity of the cephalic index in a given race, admit the existence of
mesaticephalic races.
[Illustration: FIG. 73. Map of the Cephalic Index in Italy.]
But it has been observed that the greater number of mesaticephalics
are to be found in regions where dolichocephaly prevails; in
certain districts of Africa, as for example, in Somaliland, not a
single brachycephalic exists, yet none the less the mesaticephalics
are numerous. Accordingly, mesaticephaly may be classed with
_dolichocephaly_ and regarded as one of its variations, while it seems
to be independent of brachycephaly. Therefore the nomenclature of
Retzius may for many good reasons be chosen and adopted in our schools.
In conclusion, we shall regard the brachycephalics and dolichocephalics
as the two fundamental types; and shall adopt the figure 80, included
among the brachycephalics, as the limit of separation. The different
grades of dolicho- or brachycephaly are to be determined by _mean
averages_, and the oscillations due to individual variations, by
_series_.
Hence it is important to determine the _mean average_ and the
oscillation of the cephalic index for the different races; and this is
of interest to us as educators, in order to establish the limits of
_normality_.
The practical method of studying the cephalic index is according to
geographical distribution.
Here are a few general data of the cephalic index relative to its
distribution:
The most dolichocephalic of all peoples are found in Melanesia,
Australia, India and Africa. In the Fiji Islands the mean cephalic
index is 67; in the Caroline Archipelago it is 69; in various regions
of India, 71; that of the Hottentots, 74; of the Bantus, 73. Belonging
to the dolichocephalics or mesaticephalics are the populations of
the extreme south of Europe (Mediterranean race) and at the extreme
north (English, Scotch). On the contrary, the races of western Europe
and of central Asia are brachycephalic (Celts, Mongols). The most
brachycephalic of all these peoples are met with in the Transcaucasus;
their mean average is 88.7. There also exists a notable brachycephalic
type in France (Savoyards, 86.9; inhabitants of the upper Loire,
87.4); also in Dalmatia, 80, while the Lapps of Scandinavia are also
ultrabrachycephalic, 87.4.
On very general lines, it may be said that the dolichocephalics are
the Eurafrican races (including the Mediterranean race, with which
the first civilisations are associated: Egyptian, Greek and Roman)
who migrated from the Mediterranean basin into Europe; and the
brachycephalics are the Eurasian races, who on the contrary migrated
from continental Asia across western Europe (the Aryans).
As far as regards Italy, its population is by no means evenly
constituted. The median index given by Livi for Italy, deduced from
observation of more than 29,000 subjects is 80; in regard to regional
distribution, the results are shown in the following table:
Piedmont 85.9
Emilia 85.2
Venctia 85.0
Lombardy 84.4
Umbria 84.1
Marches 84.0
Liguria 82.3
Tuscany 82.3
Campania 82.1
Abruzzo and Molise 81.9
Latium 81.0
Basilicata 80.8
Apulia 79.8
Sicily 79.6
Calabria 78.4
Sardinia 77.5
Let us remember that if the cephalic index were measured directly from
the cranium, the result would be one or two units less, hence the mean
average of the cranial index would be about 78.
The accompanying map represents still more clearly the geographical
distribution. The results show that in Piedmont, in Emilia, and in
Northern Italy in general the inhabitants are more brachycephalic;
while in the south and more especially in the island possessions we
find the more dolichocephalic part of the population. The highest
degree of dolichocephaly is found in Sardinia.
But if, instead of the cartographic summary herewith reproduced, we
could examine the exhaustive one with which Livi has illustrated his
great work on Anthropometry, we should discover that the distribution
does not follow the great _regional lines_; but that as a matter of
fact certain _human groups_ exist, isolated like little islands, which
have a cephalic index in marked contrast to that of the remaining
population of the same region.
Thus, for example, at Lucca, in the midst of a brachycephalic
population, there is a pronouncedly dolichocephalic group; and in the
midst of the dolichocephalic population of Abruzzo and the neighbouring
provinces, there exists at Chieti a strongly brachycephalic group.
Besides these and similar groups contrasting with the regional type,
there exist a multiplicity of differences, from one successive boundary
line to another, so that the _limits_ _of the cephalic index_ may be
determined with great minuteness in the various regions.
Livi's large charts lend themselves with great clearness to this sort
of analytical study, which would be found to be very profitable to
teachers.
It is also quite instructive to compare the different charts
representing various anthropological data of ethnical importance;
such, for example, as that of the distribution of stature and that
of the distribution of pigmentation. These data are regarded by
anthropologists as attributes of race. Well, in these three charts it
is evident at the first glance that there is a notable resemblance
in distribution, so much so than an eye untrained to observation
would be likely to confuse them. The cephalic index, the stature, the
colour of the skin are consequently of almost uniform distribution.
Corresponding to the most pronounced brachycephaly, we have the
tallest stature and the fairest complexion; corresponding to the most
pronounced dolichocephaly, we find instead the lowest stature and the
most brunette types. Such an accumulative coincidence, in certain
communities, of characteristics, in contrast to those that are found
combined in certain other communities, reveal the existence in Italy
of _two different races_. One of these races seems to have descended
from over the Alps; the other, to have landed on the shores of the
Mediterranean. The first belong to the Eurasians; the second to the
Eurafricans.
In my work upon the population of Latium, the mean cephalic index
obtained by me is 78. The distribution according to the localities
studied affords the mean averages noted in the following table,
in which I have also recorded the maximums and minimums, and the
percentage of brachycephalic and dolichocephalic individuals who
contributed to the given means:
CEPHALIC INDEX AMONG THE PEOPLE OF LATIUM
(ACCORDING TO MONTESSORI)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
|Mean | | | Dolicho- |Brachy-
Provinces |cephalic |Minimum |Maximum |cephalics, |cephalics,
|index | | |per cent. |per cent.
----------------+---------+--------+--------+-----------+-----------
Rome | 78 | 73 | 89 | 63 | 37
_Castelli Romani_ | 76 | 70 | 79 | 100 | --
Tivoli | 80 | 76 | 87 | 59 | 41
Velletri | 79.5 | 75 | 86 | 50 | 50
Frosinone | 80.7 | 75 | 87 | 43 | 57
Civitavecchia | 78.5 | 78 | 80 | 65 | 35
Bracciano | 77 | 75 | 80 | 65 | 35
_Orte_ | 83.6 | 75 | 90 | 11 | 89
Acquapendente | 79.4 | 76 | 81 | 60 | 40
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The results show a preponderance of brachycephalics or of
dolichocephalics in the places where the mean cephalic index is
respectively highest for brachycephaly (Orte) or for dolichocephaly
(Castelli Romani). Furthermore, the extreme maximum and minimum
figures are found to be included in these groups (90 at Orte and 70 at
Castelli).
It should be noted that at Castelli Romani the mean average is
mesaticephalic (76), notwithstanding the absence of brachycephalics;
this average is based on figures showing an extremely pronounced
dolichocephaly (ranging to 70!). The groups at Castelli and at Orte
also showed characteristics in respect to stature (see page 111); at
Orte the mean stature is 1.61 m., with a maximum of 1.70 m. (very tall
statures for women), and at Castelli the mean stature is 1.47 m., with
a minimum of 1.42 m. (low statures).
Similarly, in regard to pigmentation, I found at Orte a prevalence of
blonds, and at Castelli of brunettes. Hence the conclusion may be drawn
that at Castelli and at Orte there exist groups of human beings who are
of almost pure race, in the midst of a population in which racial types
have become attenuated or hidden; but in centres like these we still
find persistent testimony as to the ethnic factors that combined to
form the people of Latium: the one, a blond, tall, brachycephalic race;
the other, dark, small, and dolichocephalic.
_The Cephalic Index at Different Ages of Life._--Another quality that
renders the cephalic index of great importance is that it remains
constant in the course of growth, since the two maximum diameters, the
antero-posterior and the transverse, increase at very nearly the same
rate, excepting during the earliest years, at which time the length of
the cranium increases slightly more than the width. According to some
authorities it is in the second year, according to others it is in the
fourth or seventh, that the cephalic index becomes constant (Binet,
Deniker, Pearson, Fawcette, Ammon, Johannson, and Westermarck).
The following table is one that I have drawn up on the basis of
Quétélet's figures:
CEPHALIC INDEX
---------------------------------------------------
Age | Males |Females| Age | Males |Females
---------+-------+-------+---------+-------+-------
At birth | 83 | 83 | 11 years| 80 | 79
1 year | 80 | 80 | 12 years| 80 | 79
2 years | 80 | 80 | 13 years| 80 | 79
3 years | 80 | 80 | 14 years| 80 | 79
4 years | 79 | 79 | 15 years| 80 | 79
5 years | 79 | 79 | 16 years| 80 | 79
6 years | 79 | 79 | 17 years| 80 | 79
7 years | 79 | 79 | 18 years| 80 | 79
8 years | 79 | 79 | 19 years| 80 | 79
9 years | 80 | 79 | 20 years| 80 | 79
10 years | 80 | 79 | --- | -- | --
---------------------------------------------------
Since it has been observed that the cranium in the course of its growth
may assume forms, amounting even to apparent malformations (due chiefly
to "bumps," either symmetrical or asymmetrical), which disappear during
the evolution of the individual, the _cephalic index_, for _the very
reason_ that it does not represent a faithful description of the form,
gives us precious aid in judging the cranium of the child, because it
_accurately determines the proportions_ _between length and breadth_
which are destined to persist even in the adult, and hence serve to
give, even in infancy, a sure indication of the ethnic type to which
the child belongs.
[Illustration: Per cent.
Negro Children
Children born in Syria
Children born in Russia
Children born in Germany
FIG. 74.]
We owe to Dr. Ales Hrdlicka the extremely important graphic chart,
which I will proceed to summarise, of the cephalic indices of children
of various races: the central dotted line corresponds to the index 80:
consequently the brachycephalics are indicated on the right, and the
dolichocephalics on the left (Fig. 74).
In the case of Italy, the graphic line extends between the two extreme
figures of 70 and 90, which are precisely the extreme limits that we
have already noted for individual adults, in the case of the women
of Latium: moreover, the curve is perceptibly symmetrical, although
the brachycephalics are in the majority; a fact already established
by Livi's mean averages. One might say that this curve was a graphic
representation of Livi's two-colour method in his map of the cephalic
index: one-half of Italy is brachycephalic and the other half is
dolichocephalic; but since brachycephaly prevails in the northern
half, a wider extent of territory is occupied by brachycephalics.
In America, where emigration brings every variety of humanity,
the curve is even more symmetrical, and rests on a broader basis,
representing widely separated extremes. Ireland also shows a very
perceptible symmetry, the population being a mixture of Celts
(brachycephalics) and of Scotch (northern blond dolichocephalics).
In Germany there is a prevalence of brachycephalics; we are here
approaching the eastern regions from which the Eurasian race came
through emigration. Here the Slavs and Celts (brachycephalics who
immigrated into Europe at various epochs) are intermingled with a
notable percentage of dolichocephalics (Teutons).
[Illustration: Per cent.
Children born in Ireland
White Children born in America
Children born in Italy
FIG. 74.]
But in Russia, a region still further east, and similarly in Syria, we
find an almost pure race: the curves lie wholly within the field of
brachycephaly.
On the contrary, the dark-skinned children given in the last chart, and
belonging to African races and tribes of American Indians, are all of
them _dolichocephalic_.
According to Binet and other writers, the _cephalic index_ and the
_cranial volume_ are the two anthropological data on which the
criterion of _normality_ of children's heads must be based.
When we observe a child's head which is apparently malformed, we
cannot call it _abnormal_; it is not abnormal unless it has a volume
notably too small (submicrocephaly, microcephaly) or too large
(rickets, hydrocephaly); and a cephalic index exceeding the normal
limits, in other words, _exaggerated_ (scaphocephaly, trochocephaly,
pathological brachycephaly occurring in hydrocephalics).
THE VOLUME OF THE CRANIUM
The volume of the cranium owes its importance, as we have already seen,
to the fact that the cranium represents the _envelope_ of the brain,
and is consequently normally determined, as regards its dimensions, by
the cerebral volume. Accordingly, in normal cases, when we speak of
the cranial volume, we are speaking by implication of the _cerebral
volume_; and all anthropological questions regarding the volumetric
development of the cranium in reality have reference to the brain.
In abnormal cases, on the contrary, it may happen that the bony
covering is not a skeletal index of the brain; in fact, pathological
cases may occur analogous to those we have already observed in
discussing the etiology of cranial malformations, in which the flat
bones of the cranial vault undergo a notable thickening, so that as
a result the greater volume of the cranium is due to the increased
quantity of bony substance, and not of brain tissue, and is very heavy,
so that it readily droops over upon the shoulder: _pachycephalic_
cranium.
Another cause for lack of correspondence between the cerebral and the
cranial volume may be the abnormal production of cerebro-spinal fluid
within the brain: _hydrocephalic_ cranium.
=The Development of the Brain.=--In the earliest period of embryonal
life, the brain consists of a single vesicle, the continuation of
which forms the spinal marrow: later on, this vesicle divides into
three superimposed vesicles which represent respectively the embryonal
beginnings of the anterior, middle and posterior brain; continuing
their development, the anterior and posterior brains each divide
in turn into two other vesicles, so that there result in all five
primitive vesicles of the brain, superimposed one upon another (see
Fig. 75); the anterior vesicle which is destined to grow enormously,
dividing into two parts, right and left, with a longitudinal division,
will constitute the cerebral hemispheres; the second vesicle
will constitute the optic thalami; the third vesicle, the corpora
quadrigemina; the fourth vesicle, the cerebellum, and the fifth
vesicle, the medulla oblongata.
When complete development is attained, the cerebral hemispheres
completely cover the other parts of the brain, besides which they
themselves are covered over with a multiplicity of folds constituting
the _convolutions_. If we take a cross-section of the hemispheres, we
find that they consist of an outer layer of _gray_ matter formed of
nerve cells, and of a central mass of _white_ matter, formed of fibres.
[Illustration: FIG. 75. Brain of a Human Embryo after the Fourth Week.]
The study of the convolutions is quite important from the
anthropological standpoint, because their number is not identical in
the different branches of the human race, and also because they differ
both in number and in arrangement from the convolutions in the brain of
the anthropoid apes. But however interesting they may be, considered
as differentiating characteristics, we cannot linger over a study of
this kind, which has a purely theoretic importance, and for the present
cannot be applied in any practical and direct way to our problems of
pedagogic anthropology. It will be sufficient to note rapidly that at
the present time the study of the _convolutions_ has received a new
impulse through the labours of certain distinguished investigators,
among whom we must once more include Dr. Sergio Sergi. Instead of
studying the surface convolutions, Dr. Sergi studies the internal folds
which are disclosed by separating the lips of the cerebral fissures;
and from these he draws deductions which to a large extent correct
those made by previous scientists, in regard to the eventual ancestry
of the different species, the marks of biological superiority or
inferiority, the differences in the brain due to sex, etc.
The surface fissures which divide the cerebral hemispheres into
convolutions are shown in the two accompanying figures (Figs. 76 and
77), the first of which shows the outer side of the hemispheres, and
the second the inner side.
Of chief importance to us is the arrangement of convolutions and
furrows on the outer surface of the hemispheres.
The points to be noted are the following: the two great fissures,
Rolando's, running longitudinally, and Silvius's running transversely,
which, together with the perpendicular fissure, divide the hemisphere
into four lobes: the _frontal_ lobe and the _parietal_ lobe, situated
respectively in front and behind Rolando's fissure; the _temporal_
lobe, situated below Silvius's fissure, and lastly, the _occipital_
lobe at the posterior apex of the hemisphere.
[Illustration: FIG. 76.--Cerebral hemisphere; external face.]
In the third frontal convolution are situated Broca's centres, which
are believed to be the seat of articulate speech; while along Rolando's
fissure, in the ascendant convolutions, is the locality designated by
physiologists as the motor centres.
The occipital lobe is the location of the zone of sight; and the
temporal lobe, that of hearing.
It is important for us to observe the volume of the brain, and
therefore that of the head, in relation to the rest of the body; it
is enormous in the embryo; and even at birth and during childhood
the head is quite voluminous as compared with the body, as appears
from the diagram in Fig. 16, in which a new-born child and an adult
man are reduced to the same scale, each retaining his relative bodily
proportions. In Fig. 22 a new-born child is shown in two positions:
from the front and from behind; the head is very large and the cranial
nodules are plainly visible. Figs. 80 and 81 represent the same child
at the age of six months and a year and a half; in the first picture
the head is still very large as compared with the body, and the
forehead protrudes (infantile forehead); in the second, the proportion
between head and body has already altered.
A knowledge of the laws governing the growth of the brain is of
particular importance in relation to pedagogic anthropology.
[Illustration: FIG. 77.--Cerebral hemisphere, internal face.]
Within the last few years anthropologists have established certain
principles that are well worthy of notice:
1. The child's head is normal when its _volume_ and _cephalic index_
come within the limits of normality (even if the shape appears
abnormal: Simon, Binet, etc.).
2. When the volume of the head is too small it frequently indicates
psychic deficiency; when it is too large, even up to the age of twenty
years, it indicates a predisposition to precocious mortality (see
below).
Very frequently when the size of the head is larger than normal and is
not due to pathological causes (rickets, hydrocephaly, etc.), it is
associated with an excessive development of the brain, and also with
an intellectual precocity. A high percentage of this type die before
reaching the age of twenty years; and this fact confirms the popular
belief that children who are too intelligent or too good cannot live
long.
This indication alone ought to be sufficient to prove the pedagogic
importance of the cerebral volume.
The researches made by various authors in regard to the growth of the
brain are not rigorously in accord as to the _limits of volume_: but
they do agree as to the _rhythm of growth_.
Welcker gives the following figures:
WEIGHT OF THE BRAIN IN GRAMS
(According to WELCKER)
------------------------------
Age | Males | Females
------------+-------+---------
At birth | 400 | 360
Two months | 540 | 510
One year | 900 | 850
Three years | 1,080 | 1,010
Ten years | 1,360 | 1,250
Accordingly, the weight of the brain is doubled before the end of the
first year; according to Massini it is very nearly doubled at the end
of the first six months:
MASSINI'S FIGURES AS TO THE WEIGHT OF THE BRAIN
--------------------------------------------------
Age |Total weight| Increase
---------------------------+------------+---------
At birth | 352 | 68 }
First month | 420 |211 } 279
From first to third month | 631 |
From third to sixth month | 675 | 44 }
From sixth month to 1 year | 694 | 19 } 63
[Illustration: FIG. 78.--Spheroidal cranium lateral norm (Sergi's
collection).]
[Illustration: FIG. 79.--Spheroids typicus (from Sergi's collection).]
[Illustration: FIG. 80.--A child six months old.]
[Illustration: FIG. 81.--The same child a year and a half old.]
It follows from these figures that by the end of the sixth month the
weight of the brain is already very nearly doubled; but the maximum
growth takes place between the ages of one month and three, after which
it shows a notable diminution of rate.
But while the weight of the whole body is increased threefold by
the end of the first year, that of the brain is very far from being
tripled, since the rate of growth is still further diminished during
the second six months; in fact even according to Welcker the weight at
the end of the first year has little more than doubled.
Accordingly the rhythm of cerebral growth is not identical with that of
the increase in weight of the body taken as a whole.
According to Massini, the relation between the cerebral weight and the
weight of the body, at the various successive ages, is as follows:
RELATION BETWEEN WEIGHT OF BRAIN AND TOTAL WEIGHT
(According to MASSINI)
-----------------------------------------------------------
Age | Brain | Body | Age | Brain | Body
--------------------+-------+------+---------+-------+-----
At birth | 1 | 8 | 2 years | 1 | 15
First month | 1 | 9 | 3 years | 1 | 14
From first to third | | | | |
month | 1 | 9 | | |
to sixth month | 1 | 10 | | |
to one year | 1 | 12 |25 years | 1 | 40
-----------------------------------------------------------
In other words, the body grows more rapidly than the brain, and
consequently, than the head: a fact which results in the different
proportions already noted between head and body.
The rhythm of brain growth considered by itself has been set forth in
a most noteworthy and accurate fashion by Boyd, based on the study
of about two thousand cases; from the figures given by Boyd, I have
calculated the amount of increase from period to period, as well as
from year to year, the whole result being set forth in the following
table:
RHYTHM OF GROWTH OF BRAIN
(_Males_: According to BOYD)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Weight|Difference|Difference| |Proportion
Age | in | for each | for each | Relative|to maximum
|grams | period | year | epoch | reduced
| | | | | to 100
-----------------------+------+----------+----------+---------+----------
At birth | 331| -- | -- | -- | 24.2
From birth to 3 months | 493| +162 | -- | -- | 36.0
From 3 to 6 months | 603| +110 | -- | -- | 44.1
From 6 months to 1 year| 777| +174 | +446 |1st year | 56.8
From 1 to 2 years | 942| +165 | +165 |2d year | 69.0
From 2 to 4 years | 1,097| +155 | +77 | 2d- 4th| 80.4
From 4 to 7 years | 1,140| +43 | +14 | 4th- 7th| 83.4
From 7 to 14 years | 1,302| +162 | +23 | 7th-14th| 95.3
From 14 to 20 years | 1,374| +72 | +12 |14th-20th| 100.5
From 20 to 30 years | 1,357| -- | -- | -- | 99.3
From 30 to 40 years | 1,366| +9 | +0.9 |30th-40th| 99.3
From 40 to 50 years | 1,352| -14 | -1.4 |40th-50th| 98.9
From 50 to 60 years | 1,343| -9 | -0.9 |50th-60th| 98.3
From 60 to 70 years | 1,315| -28 | -2.8 |60th-70th| 96.9
From 70 to 80 years | 1,289| -26 | -2.6 |70th-80th| 95.3
From 80 to 90 years | 1,284| -5 | -0.5 |80th-90th| 94.2
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the above table, the first column of figures gives the _mean_
_average weight_ of the brain, obtained by direct observation of
individual subjects; while from all the others the rhythm of cerebral
growth and involution throughout the successive periods of life may be
computed.
We see that the maximum growth takes place in the first years of life,
the intensity is greater in the first year than in the second, and
greater in the first three months than in those that follow. Already
at the end of the first year the brain has surpassed one-half of the
maximum weight which the individual is destined to attain in adult life
(last column: proportions computed on scale of 100). A notable rate of
increase continues up to the age of four, after which it moderates,
but receives a new impulse at about the fourteenth year (period of
puberty); hence it appears that at this important epoch of life the
_brain_ not only shares the general rapid growth of the body, but that
by the end of the fourteenth year the brain has _already practically
completed its development_; in fact, assuming that 100 represents its
complete development, the weight of the brain is already 95.3; and at
thirty it will be only 99.3.
By studying the above table we can obtain a clear analysis of these
phenomena.
For women, Boyd gives the following figures:
THE GROWTH OF THE BRAIN IN WOMEN
(Figures Given by BOYD)
--------------------------------------------------
| |Proportion to the
Age | Weight | maximum reduced
| | to 100
-----------------------+--------+-----------------
At birth | 283 | 22.8
Three months | 452 | 36.5
From 3 to 6 months | 560 | 45.2
From 6 months to 1 year| 728 | 58.8
From 1 to 2 years | 844 | 68.1
From 2 to 4 years | 991 | 80.8
From 4 to 7 years | 1,136 | 91.7
From 7 to 14 years | 1,155 | 93.3
From 14 to 20 years | 1,244 | 100.4
From 20 to 30 years | 1,238 | 100.0
From 30 to 40 years | 1,218 | 98.3
From 40 to 50 years | 1,213 | 97.9
From 50 to 60 years | 1,221 | 98.2
From 60 to 70 years | 1,207 | 97.4
From 70 to 80 years | 1,167 | 94.2
From 80 to 90 years | 1,125 | 90.8
--------------------------------------------------
The rhythm of growth of the female brain is analogous to that of the
male, except for the more precocious attainment of the maximum weight,
which corresponds to the more precocious evolution of the female
organism.
It should be noted that in the tables above cited the maximum is
actually given as occurring at the age of twenty; and that after this
period the weight diminishes again, subsequently increasing up to an
age that varies according to the sex. But this maximum at the age of
twenty must be considered as one of the false results of mean averages;
and it must be explained on the ground that after the twentieth year
the death rate has eliminated a series of individuals whose heads were
abnormally large, and that a majority of the survivors were those whose
heads had developed within normal limits.
This fact is further confirmed by Wagner's figures, cited by Broca:
MEAN WEIGHT OF THE BRAIN
(According TO WAGNER)
--------------------------------------
Age | Men | Women
--------------------+--------+--------
Under 10 years | 985 | 1,033
From 11 to 20 years | 1,465 | 1,285
From 21 to 30 years | 1,341 | 1,249
From 31 to 40 years | 1,410 | 1,262
From 41 to 50 years | 1,391 | 1,261
From 51 to 60 years | 1,341 | 1,236
Above 60 years | 1,326 | 1,203
Here again we have a false maximum at twenty, which nature subsequently
corrects through mortality.
From such knowledge we obtain certain important rules of hygiene.
The normal brain which exceeds the common limits of volume is not, in
an absolute sense, _incompatible_ with life. We need only to call to
mind certain men of genius who had the brains of a giant.
Accordingly a brain which exceeds the limits _demands of the_
_individual who possesses it_ that he shall live according to certain
special rules of hygiene. Children and young people who are _too
intelligent_, _too good_, in other words, children of the elite
class demand a special treatment, just as much as any other class
of beings that pass beyond the bounds of average normality. Parents
and teachers ought to be enlightened in regard to these scientific
principles; the growth of individuals who are exceptional in regard
to their intelligence and their emotions, should be supervised as
though it were something precious and fragile. Such individuals are
destined to be more subject than others to _infective_ _maladies_,
which frequently prove fatal, developing symptoms of meningitis and
cerebral affections. Consequently a hygienic life, _psychic repose_,
an avoidance of emotional excitement, moderate physical exercise in
farm or garden, a prolonged stay in the open country, might be the
salvation of children of this type, who often are over-praised and
over-stimulated by friends and relatives, and consequently subjected to
continual excitement and _surménage_ to a degree destructive to their
health.
=Extreme Individual Variations of the Volume of the Brain.=--In regard
to individual variations, the authorities give various figures, from
which the following have been selected as most noteworthy for their
accuracy of research:
NORMAL EXTREMES OF INDIVIDUAL VARIATIONS IN THE VOLUME
OF THE BRAIN
-----------------------------------------------------------
| Age: from 20 to 60 years| From 60 to 90
Authors |-------------------------+-----------------------
| Maximum | Minimum | Maximum | Minimum
---------+------------+------------+------------+----------
Calori | 1,542 | 1,024 | 1,485 | 1,080
Bischoff | 1,678 | 1,069 | 1,665 | 1,080
| | | |
| _Without distinction of age_:
Broca | Maximum | Minimum
| 1,830 | 1,049
-----------------------------------------------------------
These figures refer to individuals belonging to European races.
_Comparison with the Brains of Apes._--The brain of the great
anthropoid apes (Chimpanzee, Orang-utan, Gorilla), whose total weight
of body is comparable to that of man, weighs on an average 360 grams,
and the greatest weight which it can attain is 420 gr.
_Specific Gravity of the Human Brain._--In normal individuals, the
average specific gravity is 1.03; in insane persons it is slightly
higher: 1.04.
_The Relation between the Weight of the Brain and the Cranial_
_Capacity: Figures given by Lebon_:
Weight of the brain Cranial capacity in
in grams cubic centimetres
1,450 1,650
1,350 1,550
1,250 1,450
1,150 1,350
_Figures given by Manouvrier_:
Weight of the brain Cranial capacity in
in grams cubic centimetres
1,700 1,949
1,450 1,663
1,250 1,432
1,000 1,147
=Increase in the Volume of the Brain.=--Studies regarding the growth of
the head, although not yet complete, have gone sufficiently far to give
us some useful ideas. In regard to the volume in a general sense, the
_cranium in its growth obeys the cerebral_ _rhythm_.
We shall speak in the section on _Technique_ of the methods of
measuring the head: at present it will suffice to point out that the
measurements may be made directly upon the cranium, and the _cranial
capacity_ calculated directly from the head: and that the _maximum
linear measurements_ are sufficient to indicate the volume--such
measurements being the three maximum diameters, _longitudinal_,
_transverse_, and _vertical_, and the _maximum circumference_. Even
the forehead, as an index of the general volume of the brain, is of
interest in researches relating to the volumetric growth of the head.
Regarding the growth of the several cranial dimensions, the most
accurate and complete knowledge is furnished by Binet's researches
among the school-children of Paris (1902).
This author has made special investigations into the _rhythm_ of growth
of the cranium and of the face, with special reference to the period
of _puberty_. The following are the mean averages obtained by him,
relative to the three diameters corresponding to the three maximum
dimensions of the head:
MEAN AVERAGES OF CEPHALIC MEASUREMENTS TAKEN UPON
CHILDREN OF DIFFERENT AGES
(BINET: _From the schools of Paris_)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Kinder- |Lower primary schools |Upper pri- |Normal
| gartens | |mary schools|schools
|-----------+-----------------------+------------+-------
Measurement | 4 | 5 | 8 | 10 | 12 | 14 | 14 | 16 | 18
|years|years|years|years|years|years|years| years| years
---------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------+------
Antero-post. diameter|169.5|173.9|174.7|177.1|181.5|181.5|185.3|188.3 | 190.4
Transverse diameter |140.6|141.7|145 |145.7|147.9|150.1|155.5|152.3 | 156.7
Vertical diameter |118.8|121.6|122 |122.8|127.6|129.7|128.1|131.4 | 130.8
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is evident that these figures contain inaccuracies, especially in
regard to the vertical diameter (where the subsequent two-year period
gives a smaller measurement than the preceding) due to the fact that
the averages were obtained from an insufficient number of subjects or
from subjects differing too widely in intelligence (from schools of
different grades). For this reason Binet summarises the differences
in growth, that is, the increase in relation to the diameters, under
broad groups (six year groups, from four to ten years, and from ten
to sixteen), in order to determine whether puberty exerts a sensible
influence upon the cranial growth. The result is contained in the
following table:
INCREASE OF THE THREE MAXIMUM DIAMETERS OF THE HEAD IN
MILLIMETRES FROM FOUR TO EIGHTEEN YEARS OF AGE
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Age in years: from -- to -- | 4-6; 6-8; 8-10 | 10-12; 12-14; 14-16 | 16-18
----------------------------+----------------+---------------------+-------
Antero-posterior diameter | 5.6; 0.8; 2.4 | 4.4; 1.8; 5 | 2.1
| \-----------/ | \------------/ |
| \/ | \/ |
| 8.8 | 11.2 |
Transverse diameter | 1.1; 3.3; 0.7 | 2.2; 3.9; 0.5 | 4.4
| \-----------/ | \------------/ |
| \/ | \/ |
| 5.1 | 6.6 |
Vertical diameter | 2.8; 0.4; 0.8 | 4.8; 2.3; 2.5 | 0.6
| \-----------/ | \------------/ |
| \/ | \/ |
| 4.0 | 9.6 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
From which it appears that there exists, in regard to the head, a
puberal acceleration of growth.
These conclusions of Binet are indirectly confirmed by the researches
of Vitale Vitali regarding the development of the forehead in
school-children; since it is well known that the forehead represents
the index of the general growth of the cerebral cranium.
Vitale Vitali based his observations upon school-children and students
between the ages of ten and twenty. He not only measured the width of
the forehead (_frontal diameter_; see _Technique_), but also measured
its height, obtaining the percentage of its relation to the width
(frontal index).
These are his figures:
FRONTAL INDEX AND DIAMETER ACCORDING TO AGE
(VITALE VITALI: RESEARCHES AMONG SCHOLARS AND STUDENTS
FROM 10 TO 20 YEARS OLD)
------------------------------------------
Age | Frontal | Frontal | Amount of
| index | diameter | increase
---------+----------+----------+----------
11 years | 73.05 | 107.5 | --
12 years | 74.11 | 112.0 | 4.5
13 years | 74.14 | 112.5 | 0.5
14 years | 74.80 | 114.4 | 1.9
15 years | 75.67 | 116.8 | 2.4
16 years | 77.24 | 120.1 | 3.3
17 years | 77.02 | 120.6 | 0.5
18 years | 77.36 | 121.5 | 0.9
19 years | 77.60 | 122.8 | 1.3
20 years | 77.15 | 122.1 | 0.7
------------------------------------------
Accordingly, between the years of fourteen and sixteen there is a
puberal acceleration of growth, accompanied by an elevation of the
forehead (high frontal index).
Vitali gives, as extreme limits of the frontal index, 68 and 83.
But in order to give a better illustration of the author's figures, his
own words may be quoted: "It appears from our observations that the
forehead begins to develop in notable proportions during the fourteenth
year, and that the development of the frontal region as compared with
the parietal region continues to augment up to the sixteenth year;
after this it still increases, but only by a few millimetres, until
the end of the sixteenth year. The cephalic development is completed
between the sixteenth and eighteenth years. This observed fact is of
great importance in relation to the development of the intellect."
The most complete figures at the present time on the growth of the
brain, are those of Quétélet, which follow its development from birth
until the fortieth year. They are summarised in the following table:
INCREASE IN THE CIRCUMFERENCE OF THE BRAIN AND IN ITS
THREE MAXIMUM DIAMETERS
(ACCORDING TO QUÉTÉLET)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| | Maximum diameters
Age |Circumference |------------------------------------------------
|in millimetres | Antero-post. | Transverse | Vertical
---------+---------------+---------------+---------------+----------------
| Men | Women | Men | Women | Men | Women | Men | Women
At birth | 335 | 335 | 120 | 120 | 100 | 100 | 80 | 80
1 year | 440 | 439 | 158 | 157 | 127 | 126 | 105 | 105
2 years | 471 | 469 | 168 | 167 | 135 | 134 | 113 | 113
3 years | 486 | 483 | 171 | 170 | 137 | 136 | 117 | 115
4 years | 496 | 493 | 174 | 173 | 138 | 137 | 119 | 116
5 years | 503 | 500 | 176 | 175 | 139 | 138 | 120 | 117
6 years | 508 | 505 | 178 | 177 | 140 | 139 | 121 | 117
7 years | 513 | 509 | 179 | 178 | 142 | 140 | 122 | 118
8 years | 519 | 512 | 180 | 179 | 143 | 141 | 123 | 118
9 years | 523 | 515 | 181 | 180 | 144 | 141 | 124 | 119
10 years | 527 | 517 | 182 | 180 | 145 | 142 | 125 | 119
11 years | 531 | 518 | 183 | 181 | 146 | 142 | 126 | 120
12 years | 535 | 519 | 184 | 181 | 147 | 143 | 127 | 121
13 years | 539 | 520 | 185 | 182 | 147 | 143 | 128 | 122
14 years | 543 | 521 | 186 | 182 | 148 | 144 | 129 | 123
15 years | 547 | 523 | 186 | 183 | 149 | 144 | 130 | 124
16 years | 551 | 525 | 187 | 183 | 150 | 145 | 130 | 125
17 years | 555 | 528 | 188 | 184 | 151 | 145 | 130 | 125
18 years | 561 | 531 | 189 | 184 | 152 | 146 | 131 | 126
19 years | 563 | 533 | 190 | 185 | 153 | 146 | 131 | 126
20 years | 564 | 535 | 191 | 185 | 153 | 147 | 131 | 126
25 years | 564 | 537 | 191 | 186 | 153 | 147 | 131 | 127
30 years | 564 | 538 | 191 | 186 | 153 | 147 | 131 | 127
40 years | 564 | 538 | 191 | 186 | 153 | 147 | 131 | 127
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
It appears from the foregoing table that after the twenty-fifth year
the growth of the cranium practically ceases in all directions. In
regard to the rhythm of growth, the problem is rendered clearer by the
following table, which gives the annual increase:
ANNUAL INCREASE IN THE MAXIMUM CRANIAL MEASUREMENTS
IN MALES
(FROM FIGURES GIVEN BY QUÉTÉLET)
---------------------------------------------------------
Age| Circumference | Antero-post. | Transverse | Vertical
| | diameter | diameter | diameter
---+---------------+--------------+------------+---------
1 | 105 | 38 | 27 | 25
2 | 31 | 10 | 8 | 8
3 | 15 | 3 | 2 | 4
4 | 10 | 3 | 1 | 2
5 | 7 | 2 | 2 | 1
6 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1
7 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1
8 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1
9 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1
10 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1
11 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1
12 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1
13 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1
14 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1
15 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1
16 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1
17 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1
18 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1
19 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1
20 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1
---------------------------------------------------------
It appears from the above table that the total growth of the cranium
takes place to a notable extent during the early years of life; as
regards the diameters, the longitudinal diameter grows faster during
the first few months than the transverse; but after the first year,
the two maximum diameters which determine the cephalic index increase
in very nearly the same proportion (constancy of the cephalic index
throughout life). The vertical diameter on the contrary undergoes a
relatively much greater increase than the two others, since, although
much shorter than the transverse, it nevertheless overtakes and
surpasses it in its absolute annual increase.
This corresponds to the fact that the first two diameters are indexes
of growth relative to the base of the cranium, while the vertical
diameter is the index of expansion of the cranial vault, which more
directly follows the growth of the brain and elevates the forehead as
it pushes upward.
Quétélet's figures, however, fail to show in the rhythm of growth that
puberal acceleration which has been observed to take place in the
growth of the brain. This contradicts the researches of Vitali and also
those of Binet.
Similar studies have been made a number of times during the last few
years, especially in America, but with English tables of measurement,
and with little uniformity in the results obtained by the different
investigators.
Among the most recent and most complete figures should be cited those
of Bonnifay[38] in which however the measurement of the vertical
diameter is lacking, or in other words the third element needed, in
conjunction with the dimensions of length and breadth, to give the
volumetric factors.
CRANIAL MEASUREMENTS AT DIFFERENT AGES
(According to BONNIFAY)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Absolute figures | Amount of Increase
|--------------------------+--------------------------
Age from -- to -- |Circum-| Antero- | Trans- |Circum-| Antero- | Trans-
|ference|posterior| verse |ference|posterior| verse
| | diameter|diameter| | diameter|diameter
--------------------+-------+---------+--------+-------+---------+--------
Birth to 15 days | 343.9 | 116.3 | 93.4 | -- | -- | --
15 days to 2 months| 368.7 | 126.3 | 99.1 | 24.8 | 10.0 | 5.7
3 months to 4 months| 388.8 | 132.7 | 106.0 | 20.1 | 6.4 | 6.9
6 months to 1 year | 429.8 | 145.4 | 118.2 | 41.0 | 12.7 | 12.2
1 year to 2 years| 459.7 | 154.3 | 129.3 | 29.9 | 8.9 | 11.1
2 years to 3 years| 473.5 | 161.9 | 133.3 | 13.8 | 7.6 | 4.0
3 years to 4 years| 487.4 | 166.2 | 136.3 | 13.9 | 4.3 | 3.0
4 years to 5 years| 495.7 | 169.9 | 138.3 | 8.3 | 3.7 | 2.0
5 years to 6 years| 497.8 | 171.9 | 140.4 | 2.1 | 2.0 | 2.1
6 years to 7 years| 504.4 | 172.8 | 141.1 | 6.6 | 0.9 | 0.7
7 years to 8 years| 511.6 | 175.2 | 143.7 | 7.2 | 2.4 | 2.6
8 years to 9 years| 514.1 | 176.1 | 144.3 | 2.5 | 0.9 | 0.6
9 years to 10 years| 514.7 | 176.4 | 144.2 | 0.6 | 0.3 | 0.9
10 years to 11 years| 519.8 | 177.1 | 146.6 | 5.1 | 0.7 | 2.3
11 years to 12 years| 521.1 | 177.5 | 145.7 | 1.3 | 0.4 | 0.1
12 years to 13 years| 529.7 | 180.1 | 147.8 | 8.6 | 2.6 | 1.2
13 years to 14 years| 533.1 | 178.1 | 148.5 | 3.4 | -- | 0.7
14 years to 17 years| 548.8 | 182.4 | 152.2 | 15.7 | 2.3 | 3.7
22 years to 27 years| 549.1 | 186.6 | 153.2 | 0.3 | 4.2 | 1.0
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Among the linear measurements of the cranium, the one which serves to
give the most exact index of volume is the _maximum_ _circumference_.
This index, nevertheless, is not a perfect one, in the same sense that
the _stature_, for instance, is a perfect index in respect to the body,
because in the case of the cranium another element enters in: the
form. The cranial circumference of an extremely brachycephalic cranium
(almost circular) may contain a larger surface (and consequently
include a larger volume), than a maximum circumference of the same
identical measure, which belongs to an extremely dolichocephalic
cranium (approaching the shape of an elongated ellipse). This may be
easily understood if we imagine a loop of thread laid out in the form
of a circle: if we pull it from two opposite sides, the enclosed area
diminishes until it finally disappears as the two halves of the thread
close together, while the length of the thread itself remains unaltered.
Nevertheless, the maximum circumference still remains the linear index
best adapted to represent the _volume_; indeed, the authorities take
its proportional relation to the stature as representing the reciprocal
degree of development between head and body at the different successive
ages.
Here are the figures which Daffner gives in this connection:
DEVELOPMENT OF THE STATURE AND OF THE CEPHALIC PERIMETER
FROM BIRTH TO THE AGE OF ELEVEN YEARS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Males Females
--------+---------------------------------------------------------------
Number | |Stature| Cranial | Number | |Stature| Cranial
of | Age | in |perimeter,| of | Age | in |perimeter
subjects| | cms. | cms. |subjects| | cms. | cms.
--------+--------+-------+----------+--------+--------+-------+---------
65 |At birth| 51.17 | 34.58 | 65 |At birth| 50.27 | 34.23
11 | 1.55 | 74.18 | 46.74 | 10 | 1.39 | 77.20 | 46.45
30 | 2.43 | 85.32 | 48.03 | 30 | 2.45 | 83.48 | 47.23
53 | 3.34 | 91.88 | 49.20 | 49 | 3.43 | 89.97 | 47.73
112 | 4.43 | 96.64 | 49.55 | 81 | 4.50 | 96.07 | 48.37
244 | 5.42 |103.21 | 50.21 | 208 | 5.40 |100.61 | 48.76
234 | 6.41 |106.49 | 50.73 | 179 | 6.37 |104.92 | 49.87
30 | 7.30 |114.47 | 51.66 | 25 | 7.36 |117.36 | 50.38
28 | 8.38 |112.10 | 51.97 | 24 | 8.41 |121.58 | 50.72
27 | 9.40 |128.41 | 52.38 | 30 | 9.40 |126.76 | 51.10
21 | 10.34 |129.12 | 52.24 | 28 | 10.40 |130.00 | 51.08
20 | 11.42 |135.84 | 52.50 | 31 | 11.46 |137.04 | 51.42
------------------------------------------------------------------------
DEVELOPMENT OF THE STATURE AND OF THE CEPHALIC PERIMETER
BETWEEN THE YEARS OF 13 AND 22
------------------------------------------------------------
Number of subjects | Age | Stature in | Cephalic perimeter
| | centimetres| in centimetres
-------------------+-------+------------+-------------------
13 | 13.39 | 147.92 | 52.83
24 | 14.50 | 149.21 | 53.53
20 | 15.38 | 163.55 | 54.34
41 | 16.43 | 162.53 | 53.34
35 | 17.36 | 167.93 | 55.89
26 | 18.35 | 171.65 | 54.91
15 | 19.40 | 172.97 | 55.48
6 | 20.05 | 173.97 | 56.50
342 | 21.02 | 168.08 | 55.37
171 | 22.22 | 168.08 | 55.62
------------------------------------------------------------
One very important research made by Daffner is in reference to the
maximums and minimums that are normal for each successive age. This
is extremely useful for the purpose of diagnosing the _morphological
normality in relation to the age_. He naturally bases his figures
upon subjects studied by him personally, who altogether form an
aggregate number of 2,230, and are not always sufficiently numerous
when distributed according to their ages. Nevertheless, in the great
majority of groups, especially those including the younger children,
the number of subjects is sufficient and even superabundant.
At all events, Daffner's researches may serve as a valuable guide in
the researches that lay the foundation for diagnosis; and every future
investigator will find it an easier task, under such guidance, to make
his own contribution to it and to correct those inaccuracies which
(for certain epochs) are to be attributed to an insufficient number of
subjects.
Daffner distinguishes, for each year, a _maximum_ and a _minimum_ both
for the stature and for the cephalic perimeter; but since the person
having the maximum stature does not always have the maximum cephalic
perimeter, and _vice versa_, the author indicates, in connection with
the maximum and minimum figures, the other of the two measurements
which, as a matter of fact, corresponds to them in each given case.
INDIVIDUAL VARIATIONS
MAXIMUMS AND MINIMUMS OF STATURE AND OF CRANIAL
CIRCUMFERENCE
----------------------------------------------------------------------
| Measurements |Maximum (M.) |Measurements occurring
| S.--Stature |and |in combination with
Age | Cc.--Cranial |minimum (m.) in |the M. or m.
| circumference |millimetres |measurements
-----------+-----------------+----------------+-----------------------
| Males from birth to the age of eleven years
|
At birth |Cranial circumf. {M. = 372 |(S. = 625).
________ | {m. = 326 |(S. = 500).
|Stature {M. = 550 |(Cc. = 369, 365, 354).
| {m. = 480 |(Cc. = 343, 341, 337).
-----------+----------------------------------+-----------------------
1 year |Cranial circumf. {M. = 491 |
______ | {m. = 456 |
|Stature {M. = 805 |(Cc. = 491).
| {m. = 680 |(Cc. = 456).
-----------+----------------------------------+-----------------------
2 years |Cranial circumf. {M. = 506 |(S. = 855).
_______ | {m. = 462 |(S. = 800).
|Stature {M. = 920 |(Cc. = 496).
| {m. = 785 |(Cc. = 467).
-----------+----------------------------------+-----------------------
3 years |Cranial circumf. {M. = 521 |
_______ | {m. = 462 |(S. = 915).
|Stature {M. = 995 |(Cc. = 521, 501).
| {m. = 795 |(Cc. = 472).
-----------+----------------------------------+-----------------------
4 years |Cranial circumf. {M. = 530 |(S. = 1035).
------- | {m. = 465 |(S. = 900).
|Stature {M. = 1090 |(Cc. = 510).
| {m. = 835 |(Cc. = 499, 481).
-----------+-------------------------------------+------------------------
5 years |Cranial circumf. {M. = 527 |(S. = 1070).
------- | {m. = 481 |(S. = 930).
|Stature {M. = 1173 |(Cc. = 519).
| {m. = 920 |(Cc. = 495).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
6 years |Cranial circumf. {M. = 532 |(S. = 1090).
----- | {m. = 481 |(S. = 1045).
|Stature {M. = 1163 |(Cc. = 517).
| {m. = 950 |(Cc. = 495).
-----------+-------------------------------------+------------------------
7 years |Cranial circumf. {M. = 541 |(S. = 1232).
_____ | {m. = 502 |(S. = 1156, 1223).
|Stature {M. = 1276 |(Cc. = 527).
| {m. = 1092 |(Cc. = 514).
-----------+-------------------------------------+------------------------
8 years |Cranial circumf. {M. = 542 |(S. = 1207, 1292).
_____ | {m. = 496 |(S. = 1158).
|Stature {M. = 1375 |(Cc. = 537).
| {m. = 1099 |(Cc. = 497).
-----------+-------------------------------------+------------------------
9 years |Cranial circumf. {M. = 548 |(S. = 1333).
_____ | {m. = 507 |(S. = 1250).
|Stature {M. = 1383 |(Cc. = 546).
| {m. = 1185 |(Cc. = 522).
-----------+-------------------------------------+------------------------
10 years |Cranial circumf. {M. = 553 |(S. = 1303).
______ | {m. = 497 |(S. = 1270).
|Stature {M. = 1372 |(Cc. = 538).
| {m. = 1218 |(Cc. = 534).
-----------+-------------------------------------+------------------------
11 years |Cranial circumf. {M. = 543 |(S. = 1350).
_____ | {m. = 505 |(S. = 1307).
|Stature {M. = 1466 |(Cc. = 542).
| {m. = 1300 |(Cc. = 513).
Note. ----- indicates that the number of subjects is abundant.
_____ indicates that the number of subjects is sufficient.
..... indicates that the number of subjects is scarce.
FEMALES FROM BIRTH TO THE AGE OF ELEVEN YEARS
----------------------------------------------------------------------
| Measurements |Maximum (M.) |Measurements | Observations
| S.--Stature |and |occurring in |
Age | Cc.--Cranial |minimum (m.)in|combination with |
| circumference |millimetres |the M. or m. |
| | |measurements |
--------+----------------+--------------+-----------------+------------------
At birth.|Cranial circumf.{M. = 372 |(S. = 500). |(The most frequent
_________| {m. = 324 |(S. = 480). |S. was 500 mm.
|Stature {M. = 565 |(Cc. = 355). |combined with CC.
| {m. = 475 |(Cc. = 333, 325).| = 357, 337.)
---------+----------------+--------------+-----------------+------------------
1 year |Cranial circumf.{M. = 486 |(S. = ) |
...... | {m. = 450 |(S. = 750, 740). |
|Stature {M. = 810 |(Cc. = 486). |
| {m. = 705 |(Cc. = 455). |
---------+----------------+--------------+-----------------+------------------
2 years |Cranial circumf.{M. = 495 |(S. = 850). |
______ | {m. = 448 |(S. = 810). |
|Stature {M. = 910 |(Cc. = 491). |
| {m. = 720 |(Cc. = 464). |
---------+----------------+--------------+-----------------+------------------
3 years |Cranial circumf.{M. = 501 |(S. = 865). |
_______ | {m. = 457 |(S. = 870). |
|Stature {M. = 1015 |(Cc. = 473). |
| {m. = 810 |(Cc. = 476). |
---------+----------------+--------------+-----------------+------------------
4 years |Cranial circumf.{M. = 510 |(S. = 1050). |
_______ | {m. = 455 |(S. = 920, 870). |
|Stature {M. = 1060 |(Cc. = 507). |
| {m. = 860 |(Cc. = 461). |
---------+----------------+--------------+-----------------+------------------
5 years |Cranial circumf.{M. = 515 |(S. = 1035). |
------- | {m. = 462 |(S. = 905). |
|Stature {M. = 1140 |(Cc. = 492). |
| {m. = 875 |(Cc. = 481). |
---------+----------------+--------------+-----------------+------------------
6 years |Cranial circumf.{M. = 522 |(S. = 1020). |(The maximum S.
| {m. = 460 |(S. = 965). | was found in a
|Stature {M. = 1221 |(Cc. = 516). | child of 6 years
| {m. = 920 |(Cc. = 489). | and 11 months;
| | | the next highest
| | | stature was 1177
| | | mm., Cc. 512;
| | | another little
| | | girl of 6 years
| | | and 11 months had
| | | S. = 1099; Cc. =
| | | 507).
---------+----------------+--------------+-----------------+------------------
7 years. |Cranial circumf.{M. = 524 |(S. = 1215). |
________ | {m. = 479 |(S. = 1185). |
|Stature {M. = 1270 |(Cc. = 513). |
| {m. = 1058 |(Cc. = 499). |
---------+----------------+--------------+-----------------+------------------
8 years..|Cranial circumf.{M. = 542 |(S. = ). |
_____ | {m. = 484 |(S. = ). |
|Stature {M. = 1328 |(Cc. = 542). |
| {m. = 1082 |(Cc. = 484). |
---------+----------------+--------------+-----------------+------------------
9 years..|Cranial circumf.{M. = 526 |(S. = 1272). |
_____ | {m. = 493 |(S. = 1306). |
|Stature {M. = 1325 |(Cc. = 520). |
| {m. = 1173 |(Cc. = 499). |
---------+----------------+--------------+-----------------+------------------
10 years.|Cranial circumf.{M. = 533 |(S. = 1291). |
_____ | {m. = 476 |(S. = 1204). |
|Stature {M. = 1403 |(Cc. = 530). |
| {m. = 1153 |(Cc. = 506). |
---------+----------------+--------------+-----------------+------------------
11 years.|Cranial circumf.{M. = 537 |(S. = 1420). |
_____ | {m. = 478 |(S. = 1284). |(The next higher
|Stature {M. = 1464 |(Cc. = 512). | S. was 1495, with
| {m. = 1255 |(Cc. = 497). | a Cc. of 529).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EXTREMES BETWEEN THE AGES OF 13 AND 22 YEARS
(The figures here given are less exact, because of the great scarcity
of subjects)
--------------------------------------------------------------
| Measurements |Maximum (M). |Measurements that
|S. = Stature |and |occur in conjunction
Age. |Cr. = Cranial |minimum (m.) |with M. and m.
|circumference |in millimetres| measurements
---------+----------------+--------------+--------------------
13 years |Cranial circumf.{M. = 554 | (S. = ).
..... | {m. = 492 | (S. = ).
|Stature {M. = 1715 | (Cc. = 554).
| {m. = 1345 | (Cc. = 492).
---------+----------------+--------------+--------------------
14 years |Cranial circumf.{M. = 564 | (S. = 1560).
_____ | {m. = 515 | (S. = 1555).
|Stature {M. = 1630 | (Cc. = 537).
| {M. = 1405 | (Cc. = 526).
---------+----------------+--------------+--------------------
15 years |Cranial circumf.{M. = 567 | (S. = 1575).
_____ | {m. = 526 | (S. = 1570).
|Stature {M. = 1795 | (Cc. = 566).
| {m. = 1450 | (Cc. = 534).
---------+----------------+--------------+--------------------
16 years |Cranial circumf.{M. = 566 | (S. = 1675).
| {m. = 519 | (S. = 1460).
|Stature {M. = 1807 | (Cc. = 561).
| {m. = 1330 | (Cc. = 532).
---------+----------------+--------------+--------------------
17 years |Cranial circumf.{M. = 582 | (S. = 1757).
| {m. = 507 | (S. = 1610).
|Stature {M. = 1759 | (Cc. = 560).
| {m. = 1561 | (Cc. = 555).
---------+----------------+--------------+--------------------
18 years |Cranial circumf.{M. = 565 | (S. = 1785).
| {m. = 522 | (S. = 1702).
|Stature {M. = 1930 | (Cc. = 557).
| {m. = 1604 | (Cc. = 536).
---------+----------------+--------------+--------------------
19 years |Cranial circumf.{M. = 578 | (S. = 1707).
| {m. = 541 | (S. = 1693).
|Stature {M. = 1823 | (Cc. = 545).
| {m. = 1637 | (Cc. = 549).
---------+----------------+--------------+--------------------
20 years |Cranial circumf.{M. = 594 | (S. = 1671).
| {m. = 551 | (S. = 1780).
|Stature {M. = 1832 | (Cc. = 560).
| {m. = 1629 | (Cc. = 552).
---------+----------------+--------------+--------------------
21 years |Cranial circumf.{M. = 590 | (S. = 1700).
| {m. = 512 | (S. = 1590).
|Stature {M. = 1790 | (Cc. = 581).
| {m. = 1570 | (Cc. = 571).
---------+----------------+--------------+--------------------
22 years |Cranial circumf.{M. = 595 | (S. = 1730).
| {m. = 510 | (S. = 1650).
|Stature {M. = 1790 | (Cc. = 576).
| {m. = 1570 | (Cc. = 548).
--------------------------------------------------------------
_Nomenclature Relating to Cranial Volume. Anomalies._--(In regard to
the method of directly measuring or calculating the cranial capacity,
and of taking and estimating the measurements of the skull, see the
section on _Technique_.)
_Limits._--The cranial capacity, according to Deniker, has normally
such a wide range of oscillation that the minimum is fully doubled
by the maximum, the limits being respectively 1,100 and 2,200 cubic
centimetres--these figures, however, including men of genius.
Furthermore, the mean average capacity oscillates between limits that
change according to race--not only because the cerebral volume may
of itself constitute an ethnic characteristic (superior and inferior
races) with which the _form of the forehead_ is usually associated,
but also because the cranial volume bears a certain relation to the
_stature_, which is another factor that varies with the race.
Deniker gives the following mean averages of oscillations:
Europeans from 1,500 to 1,600 cu. cm.
Negroes from 1,400 to 1,500 cu. cm.
Australians, Bushmen from 1,250 to 1,350 cu. cm.
The average difference of cranial capacity is 150 cubic centimetres
less in woman than in man.
The following nomenclature for oscillations in cranial capacity was
established by Topinard, based upon the figures and methods of Broca:
Macrocephalic crania from 1,950 cu. cm. upward
Large crania from 1,950 to 1,650 cu. cm.
Medium or ordinary crania from 1,650 to 1,450 cu. cm.
Small crania from 1,450 to 1,150 cu. cm.
Microcephalic crania from 1,150 cu. cm. downward
To-day, however, the terms _macrocephalic_ and _microcephalic_ have
come to be reserved for _pathological_ cases. Virchow has introduced
the term _nanocephalic_ to designate normal crania of very small
dimensions; while Sergi has adopted a binomial nomenclature, calling
them _eumetopic_ microcephalics, which signifies _possessed of a fine
forehead_: since, as we have seen, it is precisely the shape of the
forehead which determines normality. And in place of _macrocephalic_,
we have for very large normal crania the new term _megalocephalic_.
Pathological terminology includes the following nomenclature:
macrocephaly, sub-macrocephaly, submicrocephaly, microcephaly.
Microcephaly may fall as low as 800 cubic centimetres; macrocephaly
may rise as high as 3,000 cubic centimetres, and at these extremes the
volume alone is sufficient to denote the anomaly. But in many cases the
volume may fall within the limits of normality; in such cases it is the
_pathological form_ and an examination of the patient which lead to the
use of the term submicrocephalic in preference to that of nanocephalic,
etc.
The volume, taken by itself, if it is not at one of the extreme limits,
is not sufficient to justify a verdict of abnormality.
The terms macro- and microcephalic are, in any case, quite generic,
and simply indicate a morphological anomaly, which may include many
widely different cases, such, for example, as rickets, hydrocephaly,
pachycephaly, etc., all of which have in common the morphological
characteristic of _macrocephaly_.
In rickets, for instance, macrocephaly may occur in conjunction with
a normal or even supernormal intelligence (Leopardi). Microcephaly,
on the contrary, could never occur combined with normal intelligence,
since it is a sign indicative of _atrophy of the_ _cerebro-spinal_
axis and diminution or, as Brugia phrases it, dehumanization of the
individuality.
[Illustration: FIG. 82.--Growth of Cranial Circumference.]
In all the widely varied series of pathological and degenerate
individuals who are included under the generic names of "deficients"
and "criminals," there is a notable percentage of crania that are
abnormal both in volume and in form; the percentage of crania with
normal dimensions is less than that of the crania which exceed or fall
below such dimensions, and among these there is a preponderance of
_submicrocephalic_ crania: a morphological characteristic associated
with a partial arrest of cerebral development, due to _internal_
_causes_ and manifested from the earliest period of infant life.
The accompanying chart (Fig. 82) demonstrates precisely this fact.
It represents the growth of the cranium in normal and in abnormal
children. The abnormal are at one time superior and at another inferior
to the normal children; but their general average shows a definite
inferiority to the normal. Lombroso established the fact that among
adult criminals there is an _inferiority_ of cranial development,
frequently accompanied by a stature that is normal, or even in excess
of normality.
Quite recently, Binet has called attention to a form of
_submicrocephaly_ acquired through external causes, which is of great
interest from the pedagogic point of view. Blind children and those
who are deaf-mutes have, up to the seventh or eighth year, a cranium
of normal dimensions, but by the fourteenth or fifteenth year the
volume is notably below the normal, and this stigma of inferiority
remains permanently in the adults. This fact, which is of very general
occurrence, is attributed by Binet to a deficiency of sensations, and
consequently a deficiency of certain specific cerebral exercises.
This whole question has a fundamental interest for us as educators,
because it affords an indirect proof that _cerebral exercise_
_develops_ the brain, or in other words, that education has a physical
and morphological influence as well as a psychic one.
This question, coupled with that of the influence of _alimentation_
upon the development of the head, leads to the conclusion that a
two-fold nutriment is necessary for the normal development of man:
_material_ nutriment and nutriment of the _spirit_.
It follows that education must be considered from two different
points of view: that of the progress of civilisation, and that of the
perfectionment of the species.
In regard to variations of cranial volume, just as in the case of
variations of stature, there are a number of different factors which
may be summed up in such a way as to afford us certain determining
characteristics of _social caste_. Delicate questions these, which we
may sum up in a single question equally delicate, that lends itself to
a vast amount of discussion; namely, what is the relation between the
_volume_ of the brain and the development of the intellect?
_Individual Variations of Cerebral (and Cranial) Volume. Relation_
_between the Development of the Cerebral Volume and the Development_
_of the Intelligence._--The series of arguments in reference to
the _cerebral volume_ ought to be considered independently of the
biological and biopathological factors which we have up to this point
been considering; namely, race, sex, age, degeneration and disease.
That is to say, in normal individuals, other conditions being equal,
volumetric differences of the brain may be met with, analogous to those
other infinite individual variations, in which nature expresses her
creative power, even while preserving unchanged the general morphology
of the species.
It is due to this fact that the innumerable individuals of a race,
while all bearing a certain resemblance to one another, are never any
two of them identically alike.
Variations of this sort, which might be called biological
individualisations, are in any case subject to the most diverse
influences of environment, which concur in producing individual
varieties.
This is in accordance with general laws which are applicable to
any biological question whatever, but that in our case assume a
special interest. There are certain men who have larger or smaller
brains; and there are men of greater or of less intelligence. Is
there a quantitative relation between these two manifestations, the
morphological and the psychic?
Everyone knows that this is one of those complicated, much discussed
questions that spread outside of the purely scientific circles and
become one of the stock themes of debate among classes incompetent to
judge; consequently it has been colored by popular prejudice, rather
than by the light of science. It is well that persons of education
should acquire accurate ideas upon the subject.
If the volume of the brain should be in proportion to the intellectual
development, argues the general public, what sort of a head must
Dante Alighieri have had? He would have had to be the most monstrous
macrocephalic ever seen upon earth. And on the basis of this
superficial observation, they wish to deny any quantitative relation
whatever between brain and intelligence. And yet it is this same
general public that keeps insisting: Woman has less intelligence than
man, _because_ she has a smaller brain.
A single glance up and down the _zoological scale_ suffices to show
that throughout the whole animal series a greater development of
brain is accompanied by a correspondingly greater development of
psychic activity; and that there is a _conspicuous_ difference between
the human brain and that of the higher animals (anthropoid apes),
corresponding to the difference between the level of man's psychic
development and that of the higher mammals; and this justifies the
assertion that, _as a general rule_, there is a quantitative relation
between the brain and the intellect.
This suggests the thought that the perfect development of this delicate
_instrument_, the brain, demands a variety of harmonious material
conditions, among others the _volume_, in order to render possible the
conditions of psychic perfection.
From this premise, we may pass on to a more particularised study of
the _material conditions_ essential to the superior type of brain. The
volume is the quantitative index; but the _quality_ may be considered
from various points of view, which may be grouped as follows:
I. _The General Morphology of the Brain_ in reference to:
(_a_) The harmonious, relative volumetric proportions between the lobes
of the brain (namely, the proportion between the frontal, parietal,
temporal and occipital lobes). It was formerly believed that a superior
brain ought to show a prevalence of the frontal lobes, since a lofty
forehead is a sign of intellect; but it was afterward established that
there is no direct relation between the development of the forehead and
the development of the frontal lobes; a higher forehead results from a
greater volume of the entire cranial contents; the superior brain, on
the contrary, is that in which no one lobe prevails over another, but
all of them preserve a reciprocal and perfect harmony of dimensions.
(_b_) The form, number and disposition of the cerebral convolutions,
and of the folds of the internal passage (Sergio Sergi).
(_c_) The form, number and disposition of the cells in the cortical
strata of the brain, and the proportion between the gray matter and
the white, that is to say, between the cells and fibres; in short, the
histological structure of the brain.
II. The _Chemistry_ of the brain:
(_a_) The chemical composition of the substances constituting the
brain, which may be more or less complicated. (Recent studies of the
chemical evolution of living organisms have demonstrated that the
atomic composition is far more complex in the higher organisms.)
(_b_) The intimate interchange of matter in the cerebral tissues, in
connection with their nutrition.
(_c_) The chemical stimuli coming from the so-called glands of internal
secretion (thyroid, etc.).
All these conditions concur in determining the _quality_ of the
cerebral tissues. In its ontogenetic evolution, for example, the brain
does not merely increase in volume, and its development is not limited
to attaining a definite morphology; but its intimate structure and
its chemical composition as well must pass through various stages of
transition before attaining their final state. We know, for example,
that the myelination of the nerve fibres takes place upward from
the spinal marrow toward the brain, and that the pyramidal tracts
(voluntary motor tracts) are the last to myelinate, and hence the last
to perform their functions in the child.
The consistence of the cerebral mass and its specific gravity also
differ in childhood from that of the adult state. The evolution of the
brain is therefore a very complex process; and this process may not be
fully completed (for instance, it may be completed in volume, but not
in form or chemical composition, etc.).
Consequently, just as in the case of volume, there may be various
qualitative conditions, such as would produce organic inferiority.
But supposing that qualitatively the evolution has been accomplished
normally, where there is greater cerebral volume, is there a
correspondingly greater intellect?
At this point it is necessary to take into consideration another series
of questions regarding the brain considered as a _material_ _organ_,
and having reference to the relation between the volume of the _brain_
and that of the _stature_.
The brain must govern the nerves in all the _active parts_ of the body,
especially the striped muscles, which perform all voluntary movement.
Consequently the cerebral volume must be in proportion, not only to the
intellectuality, but also to the _physical_ _activity_.
Evidently, a greater mass of body demands a greater nervous system to
give it motive power.
The biological law is of a general nature: if the brain of a rat weighs
40 centigrams, that of an ox weighs 734 grams, and that of an elephant
4,896 grams.
_"The absolute volume of the brain increases with the total volume_ _of
the body."_
But this correspondence is not proportional. There are two facts that
alter the proportions. One of these is that the mass of the body
increases faster than the brain, throughout the biological series of
species, so that the smaller the body the greater the proportional
quantity of brain. Just the opposite from what was found to hold true
for the absolute weight.
It may be affirmed as a biological law that "_the relative volume_ _of
the brain increases as the size of the body diminishes_." For instance,
the tiny brain of a rat is a 43d part of the total volume of its body;
the brain of an ox, on the contrary, is a 750th part. Consequently we
may say that the little rat has relatively a far larger brain than the
huge ox.
And the same thing holds true among men; those of small build have a
proportionately larger brain than those of large build.
A second fact which alters the absolute proportion between the volume
of brain and the volume of body has reference to the "_functional
capacity_" of the active parts. The muscles which are capable of the
best activity and the greatest agility are the ones more abundantly
stimulated through their nerves than those which are capable only
of slow and sluggish action. The same may be said of the organs of
sensation; the more highly the sensibility is developed, the larger
are the corresponding nerves, and consequently the greater is the
corresponding quantity of cerebral cells. Accordingly the animal which
is nimblest in its movements, and most capable of sensations has in
proportion to this greater _functional activity_ a greater cerebral
volume. In this same way we may explain the enormous difference in
relative brain volume between the extremely active, sensitive and
intelligent little beast which we call the rat, and the sluggish and
stupid animal which we call the ox. Consequently this _functional
activity_ has a correspondingly greater volume of brain, without a
correspondingly greater volume of the various highly sensitized organs.
In such a case it may be stated as a general law that "_the relative
volume_ _of the brain is in direct proportion to the intelligence (or,
more broadly,_ _to the functional activity), while the absolute volume
is in direct relation_ _to the total mass of the body_."
Man has a cerebral volume of 1,500 cubic centimetres, a volume equal to
a fortieth part of the whole body. Consequently he has a brain twice
the actual size of that of the ox, while considered in its relation to
bodily bulk, he has more brain than the smallest rat (man = 1/40; rat =
1/43). A volume so far exceeding the proportions found in animals, is
beyond doubt directly related to _human_ _intelligence_.
_Relation between Cerebral and Intellectual Development in Man._--This
ends our examination of the generic question of the relation between
cerebral volume and intellect.
Granting these biological principles, and wishing to apply them to
normal man, let us go back to our first question: "Do persons of
greater intelligence have a greater cerebral volume, and consequently a
larger head?"
There is an extensive literature upon this question, the tendency of
which is to decide it affirmatively.
Parchappe has made a comparative study between writers of recognized
ability and simple manual workers, and has found that the former have a
development of the head notably in excess of the latter.
Broca took measurements, in various hospitals, of the heads of
physicians and male nurses, and found a greater development of head in
the case of the physicians.
Lebon made a study of cranial measurements in men of letters,
tradesmen, the nobility and domestic servants, and found the maximum
development among the men of letters and the minimum among the
servants. The tradesmen, who at all events are performing a work of
social utility, stand next to the men of letters; while the aristocrats
show some advantage over the domestics. Bajenoff took his measurements
from famous persons on the one hand and from convicted assassins on the
other, and found a greater head development among the former.
Enrico Ferri has made similar researches among soldiers who have had
a high-school education and those who are uneducated, and has found a
more developed cranium among the educated soldiers.
I also have made my own modest contribution to this important question,
by seeking to determine the difference in cranial volume between the
school-children who stand respectively at the head and foot of their
class, and have found among children of the age of ten a mean cranial
circumference of 527 millimetres for the more intelligent and of only
518 millimetres for the less intelligent.
Similar results were obtained by Binet in his researches among the
elementary schools of Paris. He found among children of the age of
twelve that the brightest had a mean cranial circumference of 540
millimetres and those at the foot of their class a mean of only 530
millimetres. The following table gives a parallel between these various
cranial measurements:
CRANIAL MEASUREMENTS (in Millimetres)[39]
Binet Children in the elementary schools of Paris, from 11 to 13
years of age
Montessori Children in the elementary schools of Rome, from 9 to 11
years of age
------------+----------------------------+----------------------------
| Binet's figures | Montessori's figures
+-----------+--------+-------+-----------+--------+-------
Measurements|Pupils |Pupils |Differ-|Pupils |Pupils |Differ-
|chosen |chosen | ence |chosen |chosen | ence
|for intel- |as | |for intel- |as |
| ligence |backward| | ligence |backward|
------------+-----------+--------+-------+-----------+--------+-------
Maximum cir-| | | | | |
cumference | | | | | |
of cranium.| 540 | 530 | +10 | 527 | 518 | +9
Length of | | | | | |
cranium | 181 | 177 | +4 | 180 | 177 | +3
Breadth of | | | | | |
cranium | 150.4 | 146.2 | +4.2 | 143 | 140 | +3
Height of | | | | | |
cranium | 123.3 | 124 | -0.7 | 130 | 127 | +3
Minimum | | | | | |
frontal | | | | | |
diameter. | 104 | 102 | +2 | 99 | 98 | +1
Height of | | | | | |
forehead | 46 | 45.5 | +0.5 | 57 | 56 | +1
------------+-----------+--------+-------+-----------+--------+-------
By calculating the cranial capacities according to Broca'a method, I
obtained:
{ in the best pupils chosen 1557 cu. cm.
Cranial capacity { the worst pupils chosen 1488 cu. cm.
From all these manifold researches above cited, we can reach no other
conclusion than that individuals of greater intelligence have a larger
quantity of brain; or else that individuals with a greater quantity of
brain are more intelligent.
There is a subtle distortion of this principle, which many sociological
anthropologists have taken as their starting-point, especially in
Germany, in their attempt to establish a biological basis for the
Schopenhauerian theories of Friedrich Nietzsche.
According to these, the persons who have acquired high social positions
are biologically superior (possessing a greater cerebral mass), and the
same may be said of conquering races as compared with the conquered.
Differences in caste are to be explained in the same way, and on this
ground nature sanctions the social inferiority of woman.
This is a question of the greatest importance, which merits a vast
amount of discussion.
_What Sort of Man is the Most Intelligent?_--Straightway, a first
serious objection suggests itself: What sort of persons are the most
intelligent? Are they really those who have attained the higher
academic degrees and the most eminent social positions? Consequently,
is the Prime Minister more intelligent than the Assistant Secretary of
State, and the latter more intelligent than the Head of a Department,
and he again than the door-keeper?
Are literary productions and the acquisition of laurels reliable tests
of intelligence? Is this man a doctor because he is more intelligent,
and that man a hospital attendant because he is less intelligent?
It is evident that there exist in the social world certain privileges
of caste, which may raise to the pinnacle of literary glory or to a
clamorous notoriety certain persons who owe their rise to favoritism
and trickery; or at least, so-called "literary fame" must be dependent
upon the possibility of getting writings published, which another man
perhaps would have had no way of bringing before the public so as to
make them known and appreciated; just as, on the other hand, there
are men of genius who are destined to feel their inborn intelligence
suffocating under the cruel tyranny of existing economic conditions,
which punish pauperism with obscurity and hold protection and favours
at a distance.
A thousand various conditions of our social environment hinder powerful
innate activities from finding expression and attaining elevated social
positions. Now, when we start to measure these different categories of
persons, shall we measure the more or the less fortunate individuals,
those more or those less favoured by economic conditions of birth and
environment, or shall we measure those persons who are actually the
more and the less intelligent?
And even in school can we be sure that the child whom we judge the most
intelligent is actually so? Studies in experimental psychology made in
quite recent times of men whose works justify their being placed in
the ranks of geniuses, have shown that these men of genius were never,
in their school-days, either at the head of their class, or winners of
any competitions. Consequently, we have not yet learned the means of
_judging intelligence_.
If we stop to think of the way in which the intelligence of pupils was
judged up to only a few years ago, according to pedagogic methods that
were a remnant of the pietistic schools, this will help us to form
some idea. The more intelligent ones were those best able to recite
dogmatic truths from memory. And even to-day we have not advanced very
far above that level.
As a general rule that pupil is considered the most intelligent
who best succeeds in echoing his teacher and in modeling his own
personality as closely as possible upon that of his preceptor.
This fact is so well known that it has come to be utilised as one
of the clever tricks for obtaining higher marks even in university
examinations, and for winning competitions; it is known that the prize
is reserved for the student who can repeat most faithfully and proclaim
most eloquently the master's own ideas.
Here is precisely one of the most fundamental problems offered by
scientific pedagogy: how to diagnose the human intelligence, and
distinguish the person who is intelligent from the person who is not. A
difficult task, or rather a difficult problem.
_The Influence of Economic Conditions upon the Development of_ _the
Brain._--Certain factors, due to environment, exert an influence upon
the development of the cerebral volume; this fact opens up another
whole series of interesting questions.
Among the factors due to environment, the leading place is held by
_nutrition_, dependent upon economic conditions.
Niceforo contends that among the various social classes, those who can
obtain the best nourishment have the greatest development of brain, and
consequently of head. He offers in evidence the figures summarised in
the following table:
CIRCUMFERENCE OF THE HEADS OF
-------------------+---------+---------------+---------
| | Sons of small |
Boys of the age of | Rich | tradesmen and | Poor
| | clerks |
-------------------+---------+---------------+---------
11 years | 534.9 | 529.7 | 524.8
12 years | 537.1 | 530.3 | 524.9
13 years | 537.8 | 532.4 | 528.6
14 years | 545.4 | 533.3 | 528.4
-------------------+---------+---------------+---------
In short, there is a gradation of cranial volume corresponding to the
economic status in society. This is a condition easy to understand:
we simply find repeated in this particular the same thing that we
have already seen happen to the body as a whole; the organism in its
entirety and consequently each separate part of it--if it is to
develop in accordance with its special biological potentiality and so
attain the limits of finality set for it--must receive nourishment.
It is only natural that children who, during their period of growth,
are deprived of sufficient and suitable nutrition should remain
inferior in development to those who had the advantage of an abundance
of the proper kind of food. The influence of the economic factor is
indisputable. Consequently, reverting once more to the studies above
cited, may we not conclude that the man of letters, the physician,
the person of distinction have a greater development of head than the
manual labourer, the hospital attendant, the illiterate, simply because
it was their good fortune to obtain better nutriment, through belonging
to the wealthy social classes?
_The Influence of Exercise upon Cerebral Development._--The second
interesting question is in reference to the influence which _exercise_
may have upon the development of the brain. As early as 1861 Broca
investigated this question in a classic work: _De l'influence_ _de
l'éducation sur le volume et la forme de la tête_ ("The influence of
education on the volume and form of the head"), in which he arrived
at the following conclusion: that a suitable exercise (intellectual
culture, education, hygiene) does have an influence on the development
of the brain, in the same way as with any other organ, as, for example,
the striped muscles, which gain in volume and strength and beauty
of form through gymnastic exercise. "Consequently," exclaims Broca
enthusiastically, "education not only has the power of rendering
mankind _better_; it has also the marvellous power of rendering man
superior to himself, of enlarging his brain and perfecting his form!"
_"Popular education means the betterment of the race."_
Accordingly we might say, relying on the above-mentioned studies, that
the man of letters, the physician, the person of distinction have
a more highly developed head than the manual workman, the hospital
attendant and the illiterate, because they exercised their brain to
a greater extent, and not because they were more intelligent. This,
however, is a question which differs profoundly from that which we were
previously considering, nutrition, because in this case exercise, in
addition to developing the organ, gives its own actual and personal
contribution to the intelligence.
Therefore, we are able to be creators of intelligence and of brain
tissue, which in turn becomes the creative force of our civilisation.
A system of instruction which, in place of over-straining the brain,
should aid it to develop and perfect itself, stimulating it to a sort
of auto-creation, would truly be, as Broca says, "capable of rendering
man superior to himself." This is what is being sought by scientific
pedagogy, which has already laid the foundation of "cerebral hygiene."
We are still very far to-day from realising this highest human
ambition! We do not yet know the basic laws of the economy of forces
that would lead to a stimulation of the human activities to the point
of creation; on the contrary, we are still at a primitive period, in
which many of the environing conditions interfere, to the point of
preventing the human germ to attain its natural biological finality. In
short, we know how to obtain artificially an arrest of development; but
we have not yet learned the art of aiding and enriching nature!
_The Influence of the Biological Factor upon Cerebral
Development._--What conclusion ought we to reach from what has been
said up to this point? Upon what does the cerebral volume depend, in
all its individual variations, resting on the common biological bases
of race, normality and sex? Is individual variation due solely to
causes of environment, such as nutrition and exercise? And does it
follow that it is not dependent upon _biological potentialities_ more
or less pronounced in separate individuals--in short, upon different
degrees of intelligence?
In the presence of such a multiplicity of questions we must proceed,
not to a selection but to a sum. Every biological phenomenon is the
result of a number of factors. The development of the brain depends
in precisely the same way as the development of the whole body
or of a single muscle, upon the combined influence of biological
factors determining the _individual variability_, and of factors of
environment, principal among which are nutrition and exercise. A
suitable diet aids growth, and so also does a rational exercise; but
underlying all the rest, as a _potential_ cause, is the biological
factor which mysteriously assigns a certain _predestination_ to
each individual. The environment may combat, alter, and impede what
nature "had written upon the fertilised ovum;" but we cannot forget
that this _scheme_, pre-established by the natural order of life, is
the principal factor among them all, the one which determines the
"_character of the individual_."
Now, on the basis of this influence of the biological factor upon
the cerebral development, we may affirm that: to greater intelligence
there corresponds a brain more developed in volume. What gives us proof
of this is the brain of the exceptional man--of men of genius, who
frequently have heads of extraordinary volume.
Persons of high celebrity, and not those, for example, who have
become known through some recent discovery in the field of positive
science--since a piece of good fortune may coincide with a normal
cranial volume--but the true creative geniuses who have left the deep
imprint of themselves upon their immortal works, have generally had a
cerebral volume that was truly gigantic: the poetic brain of the great
Schiller weighed 1,785 grams, that of Cuvier, the naturalist, 1,829
grams, that of the great statesman, Cromwell, 2,231 grams, and lastly,
that of Byron, 2,238 grams. The brain of the normal man weighs about
1,400 grams.
Consequently, these are extraordinary volumetric figures that could not
be acquired, either by much eating, or by being educated according to
the scientific means of the most advanced pedagogy; they are due to the
extraordinary biological potentiality of the man of genius.
In these extraordinary heads the exceptional volume is combined with a
characteristic form: they always have a more than normal development
of the forehead. Even in the course of biological evolution, as we
have already seen, in the higher species a greater cerebral volume
has a correspondingly broader and more erect forehead. If we examine
portraits of men of genius, what strikes us chiefly in them is the
high and spacious brow, as though men of genius, in comparison with
the rest of us, were representatives of a superior race. But if the
portrait shows the face taken in profile, it will be easily observed
that the _direction_ of the forehead is not vertical, but even slightly
recessive; that is, it preserves the characteristic male form, with
the vault slightly inclined backward and the orbital arches slightly
pronounced.
_The Pretended Cerebral Inferiority of Woman._--One final argument,
which is of interest to us, is the great question of the relation
between cerebral volume and intelligence in woman. Because, as you
know, there is a very widespread belief of long standing that is
confirmed in the name of science: that woman is biologically, in other
words totally, inferior, that the volume of her brain is condemned by
nature to an inferiority against which nothing can prevail. Just as
our perfected pedagogy, excellent alimentation and improved hygienic
conditions could never endow a normal man with the brain of a genius,
in the same way, so it is said, it is impossible ever to augment the
size of the brain of woman, who is necessarily condemned to resign
herself to remain in that state of social inferiority to which she is
now reduced and from which she would in vain attempt to emancipate
herself.
Names as famous as that of Lombroso[40] which are associated with the
progress of positive science, lend the weight of their authority to
this form of condemnation! And it is not easy to do away with this
sort of prejudice, which has slowly been disseminated among the people
under the guise of a scientific theory. But to-day there are scientists
who have been impelled to make certain extremely minute, impartial
and objective studies, without any preconception on the subject--such
men as Messedaglia, Dubois, Lapique, Zanolli, and Manouvrier--who,
by calculating the cerebral mass, at one time in comparison with
the whole body, at another with the surface of the body, and still
again with the various active or skeletal parts of the organism--have
arrived at an opposite conclusion: namely, that they can demonstrate
a greater development of brain in woman. Among these scientists it
gives me pleasure to name before all others Manouvrier--one of the most
gifted anthropologists of our day--who has devoted twenty years to an
exceedingly minute study of this problem. Here in brief outline are
his method of procedure and his conclusions. That the cerebral volume
should be considered in its relation to the stature is a familiar
principle; but a comparison between man and woman based solely upon
such a proportion, continues to maintain the cerebral inferiority of
woman. Have we, however, the right to compare a volumetric measure (the
cerebral mass) with a linear measure (the stature)? Such a comparison
is a mathematical error, as we have already technically proved.
Accordingly we find that Manouvrier compares the brain with the mass
of the whole body, its entire bulk; and he analyzes this entire bulk,
considering separately its active parts, without troubling himself
about their functional potentiality. He deduces from them certain
figures and proportions; more than that, he forms a sort of index,
which might be called the "index of sexual mass," between woman (minor
mass) and man, reduced to a scale of 100--which may be summed up in an
equation: man:100 = woman:the following percentual analyses:
Stature and weight of body 88.5
Weight of brain 90.0
Weight of skeleton (femur) 62.5
CO2 exhaled in twenty-four hours 64.5
Vital capacity (at age of eighteen) 72.6
Strength of hands 57.1
Strength of vertical traction 52.6
Hence it is evident, that, in comparison with her actual organic mass,
woman differs from man far more than is indicated by the differences in
stature and in bodily weight.
Instead of taking all these various separate mean measurements, let
us take one single comprehensive mean resulting from them: woman:man
= 80:100; there we have the proportion. Now, Manouvrier proceeds
to reduce all the separate measurements of man from 100 to 80, and
calculates how much brain man would lose if he were reduced to a mass
having feminine limits; he finds that the loss would be 172 grams.
Woman on the contrary has only 150 grams of brain less than man.
Consequently the cerebral volume of woman is superior to that of man!
This is an anthropological superiority which is further revealed in the
more perfected form of the cranium, insomuch as woman has an absolutely
erect forehead and has no remaining traces of the supraorbital arches
(characteristics of superiority in the species).
Thus, we have a contradiction between existing anthropological and
social conditions: woman, whom anthropology regards as a being having
the cranium of an almost superior race, continues to be relegated to an
unquestioned social inferiority, from which it is not easy to raise her.
_Who is Socially Superior?_--But here again we may ask, as we did
regarding the question of intelligence: What constitutes social
superiority? And in our social environment who is superior and who is
inferior?
[Illustration: FIG. 83.--Leptoprosopic face.]
[Illustration: FIG. 84.--Chameprosopic face.]
[Illustration: FIG. 85.--Lina Cavalieri.]
[Illustration: FIG. 86.--Maria Mancini.]
Social superiority, like moral superiority, is the product of
evolution. In primitive times when men, in order to live, were limited
like animals to gathering the spontaneous fruit of the earth, according
to the poetry of the biblical legend, and according to what sociology
repeats to-day, the superior man was the one of largest stature, the
giant. People paid him homage because he was the most imposing, without
troubling themselves to ask whether, or not, he might be insane. In
this way Saul was the first king. When the time came that men were
no longer content to live on the spontaneous fruit of the earth, but
were forced to till the soil, then a new victory was inaugurated,
the victory of the more active and intelligent man. David killed
Goliath. This great Bible story marks the moment when the superiority
of man came to be considered under a more advanced and spiritual
aspect. When the men who cultivated the earth began to feel the need
of other neighbouring lands and became conquerors, then the soldier
was evolved, until in the middle ages there resulted such a triumph
of militarism that the nobles alone were conquerors in war; and the
persons who to-day would be called superior, the men of intellect,
the poets, were considered as feeble folk, despicable and effeminate.
In our own times, now that the great conquests of the earth have been
made and the victorious people consequently brought into harmony, the
moment has come for conquering the environment itself, in order to
wring from it new bread and new wealth. And this is the proud work of
human intelligence which creates by aiding all the forces of nature
and by triumphing over its environment; thus to-day it is the man of
intelligence who is superior. But it seems as though a new epoch were
in preparation, a truly human epoch, and as though the end had almost
come of those evolutionary periods which sum up the history of the
heroic struggles of humanity; an epoch in which an assured peace will
promote the brotherhood of man, while morality and love will take their
place as the highest form of human superiority. In such an epoch there
will really be superior human beings, there will really be men strong
in morality and in sentiment. Perhaps in this way the reign of woman is
approaching, when the enigma of her anthropological superiority will be
deciphered. Woman was always the custodian of human sentiment, morality
and honour, and in these respects man always has yielded woman the palm.
FACE AND VISAGE
_The Limits of the Face._--The face is that part of the head which
remains when the cranial cavity is not considered. To attempt to
separate accurately, in the skeleton, the facial from the cerebral
portion would involve a lengthy anatomical description; for our purpose
it is enough to grasp the general idea that the face is the portion
_situated beneath_ the forehead, bounded in front by the curves of the
eyebrows, and in profile by a line passing in projection through the
auricular foramen and the external orbital apophysis (Fig. 39, page
188).
It is customary during life to consider the entire anterior portion of
the head as constituting one single whole, bounded above by the line
formed by the roots of the hair, and below by the chin. This portion
includes actually not only the face but a _portion of the_ _cerebral
cranium as well_, namely, the forehead; it bears the name of the visage
and is considered under this aspect only during life.
_Human Characteristics of the Face._--One characteristic of the human
cranium, as we have already seen (Fig. 40), as compared with animals,
is the decrease in size of the face, and especially of the jaw-bones in
inverse proportion to the increase of the cranial volume.
"Man," says Cuvier, "is of all living animals the one that has the
largest cranium and the smallest face; and animals are stupider and
more ferocious as they depart further from the human proportions."
In man, the cranium, assuming that graceful development which is
characteristic of this superior species, surmounts the face, which
recedes below the extreme frontal limit of the brain.
The different races of mankind, however, do not all of them attain so
perfect a form; in some of them the face protrudes somewhat in advance
of the extreme frontal limit, and in such cases we say that it is
prognathous.
Thus the relations in the reciprocal development between cranium and
face are different in animals and in man; as they also are in the
various human races. Cuvier gives some idea of these proportions by
comparing the European man with animals, by means of the following
formulas which he has obtained by calculating approximately the square
surface of a middle section of the head:
_Cranium:face_ =
European man 4:1
(cranium four times the size of the face)
Orang-utan and chimpanzee 3:1
Lower monkeys 2:1
Carnivora 1:1
Ruminants 1:2
Hippopotamus 1:3
Horse 1:4
(the reverse of man)
Whale 1:20
[Illustration: FIG. 87.--Portrait of the _Fornarina_ (Raphael Sanzio)
Rome: Barbarini gallery.]
[Illustration: FIG. 88.--Triangular face.]
[Illustration: FIG. 89.--Ellipsoidal face.]
[Illustration: FIG. 90.--Long ovoid face.]
But no general law, no systematic connection can be deduced from such
relative proportions. They serve only to demonstrate a characteristic.
Upon this characteristic depends preeminently the _beauty_ of the human
visage. If we are considering the _visage_ from its æsthetic aspect
and wish to compare it with the muzzle of animals, we may say that in
regard to its proportions it is as though the muzzle had been forced
backward from its apex, while the cranium had swelled, through the
increase of its vertical diameter. The muzzle is formed of the two jaws
alone, on the upper of which the nose is located horizontally; there
is neither forehead nor chin along the vertical line of the visage.
As the jaws recede and the cranium augments, the forehead rises, the
nose becomes vertical, and when the mandible has retreated beyond
the frontal limit, the wide yawning mouth has been reduced in size,
while a new formation has appeared below it--the chin. By this, I am
trying merely to draw a comparison which I trust will be of service
by suggesting a didactic method of illustrating the reduction of an
animal's muzzle to human proportions. Whatever forms a part of the
_visage_ bears the morphological stamp of humanity: the forehead, the
erect nose and the entire region of the mandible, which contains the
principal beauty of the human face.
The narrow opening of the lips, mobile because so richly endowed with
the muscles that unite in forming it, is quite truly the charming
and gracious doorway of the organs of speech, which by shaping the
internal thought into words are able to give it utterance; while the
winning _smile_ allures, captivates and consoles, thereby accomplishing
an eminently _social_ function; and sociability is inseparable from
humanity.
The animal mouth, on the contrary, is the organ for seizing food, the
organ of mastication, and, in felines, a weapon of offence and a means
of destruction.
Tarde says: "The mandibles seem to shape themselves in accordance
to the degree of intelligence; they become more finely modeled in
proportion as the two social functions of speaking and smiling acquire
a greater importance than the two individual functions of biting and
masticating."
And Mantegazza says: "Cruelty has localised its imprint around the
mouth, perhaps because killing and eating are two successive moments of
the same event."
THE NORMAL VISAGE
The visage is that part of the body which is preeminently human; being
richly endowed with muscles, it represents the "mirror of the soul,"
through the expressions that it assumes according to the successive
sentiments, passions and transitions of thought. The visage is a true
mine of individual characteristics, by which different persons may be
most easily and clearly distinguished from one another; while at the
same time it bears the stamp of the most general characteristics of
race, such as the form, the expression, the tone of complexion, etc.,
in consequence of which the face has hitherto held the first place in
the classifications of the human races.
Even the peoples of ancient times, such as the Egyptians, made a
physiognomical study of individual characteristics, founding a sort
of empirical science that sought to read from the physiognomy the
sentiments of the soul, the tendencies of character and the destiny of
man. The visage also contains the greatest degree of attraction and
charm, constituting that physical and spiritual beauty by which one
person arouses in others feelings of sympathy and love. Oriental women
cover their faces with thick veils through modesty, because the face
reveals the entire feminine individuality, while the rest of the body
reveals only the female of the human species, a quality common to all
women.
The visage includes many important parts, which, by developing
differently alter the physiognomy; the forehead, index of cerebral
development, surmounts the face like a crown, revealing each
individual's capacity for thought; furthermore, the visage contains
all the organs of specific sense: sight, hearing, smell and taste, and
hence all the "gateways of intelligence."
The organs of mastication, whose skeleton consists of the maxillaries
and the zygomata which reinforce and anchor the upper maxillary, are
the parts that constitute by far the greater portion of the facial
mass. In fact, their limits (breadth between the two zygomata; breadth
between the external angles of the mandible, chin) are the determining
factors of the contour and general form of the face, which is completed
by the soft tissues.
_Forms of Face._--The first distinction in facial forms is that
which is made between _long_ or _leptoprosopic_ faces and _short_ or
_chameprosopic_ faces. Figs. 83 and 84 (facing page 258) represent
two faces having the same identical breadth between the zygomata or
cheek-bones; the profound difference between them is due to their
different height or length of visage.
[Illustration: FIG. 91.--Tetragonal face (parallelepipedoidal).]
[Illustration: FIG. 92.--Pentagonal leptoprosopic face.]
[Illustration: FIG. 93.--Pentagonal mesoprosopic face.]
[Illustration: FIG. 94.--Face of inferior type prominence of the
maxillary bones (prognathism).]
The precise relation between height and breadth constitutes the _index
of visage_, which is analogous to the index that we have already
observed for the cranium.
Normally there is a correspondence in form between the cranium and the
face; dolichocephalics are also leptoprosopic; and brachycephalics
are chameprosopics; normally, also, mesaticephaly is found in
conjunction with mesoprosopy; but owing to the phenomena of hybridism
or pathological causes (rickets), it may also happen that such
correspondence is wanting; and that we have instead, for instance, a
leptoprosopic face with a brachycephalic cranium or _vice versa_.
Accordingly, _long_ and _short_ faces are characteristics of race
almost as important as the cephalic index. But leptoprosopy and
chamaeprosopy are not in themselves sufficient to determine the _form_
of the face. On the contrary, in the case of living persons it is
necessary also to take into consideration the _contour of the visage_,
which contains characteristics relating to race, age and sex. The races
which are held to be inferior have _facial contours_ that are more or
less angular; those that are held to be superior have, on the contrary,
a rotundity of contour; men have a more angular facial contour, in
comparison with that of women; while children have a contour of face
that is distinctly rotund.
The angularities of the face are due to certain skeletal prominences,
owing either to an excessive development of the zygomata (cheek-bones),
or to a development of the maxillaries, which sometimes produce
a salience of the lower corners of the mandible, and at others a
prominence of the maxillary arch (prognathism).
Accordingly, the facial contours may be either rounded or angular, and
that, too, independently of the facial type; because in either case the
visage may be either _long_ or _short_.
Depending upon the rounded facial contours, the visage may be
distinguished as ellipsoidal or oval; we may meet with faces that are
_long_, _short_ or _medium ellipsoids_ (leptoprosopic, chameprosopic,
mesoprosopic faces), even to a point where the contour is almost
circular: the _orbicular face_. Similarly, the oval faces may be
classified as _long_, _short_ and _medium ovals_. The so-called typical
_Roman visage_ is mesoprosopic, with an ellipsoidal contour. The faces
of Cavalieri and of the _Fornarina_ (Figs. 85, 87), celebrated for
their beauty, are mesoprosopic ovals--and the exceptionally beautiful
face of Maria Mancini is a mesoprosopic ellipse (Fig. 86).
Countenances with rounded and mesoprosopic contours belong to the
Mediterranean race, and the more closely they come to the _mean
average_ of that type and to a _fusion_ of contours, the more
_beautiful_ they are.
Faces with angular contours may be: _triangular_ (due to prominence of
the cheek-bones, or zygomata, and of the chin); _tetragonal_, further
subdivided into _quadrangular_ (chameprosopic) and parallelepipedoidal
(leptoprosopic, due to prominence of zygomata and corners of mandible);
and polygonal, which may be either _pentagonal_, formed by the
protrusion of the zygomata, the angles of the mandible, and the chin;
or hexagonal, formed by protrusion of the frontal nodules, the zygomata
and the angles of the mandible.
There may occur, in certain types of face, a very notable prevalence of
one part over another, so much so as to produce sharply differentiated
and characteristic physiognomies. Thus, for example, a prevalence of
forehead characterises the higher and superior type of the _man of
genius_ (compare the portrait of Bellini or of Darwin). On the other
hand, a prevalence either of the cheek-bones, or the lower jaw, or
the angles of the mandible, together with an accompanying powerful
development of the masticatory muscles, produce three different types,
all of them chameprosopic, which represent, in respect to the face,
inferior racial types, differing from one another, but which are
frequently met with (at least to a noticeable extent) even among our
own people, as types of the lower-class face, precisely because of the
preponderance of the coarser features.
Combined with the general type of face, there are certain specified
particulars of form of the separate parts; as, for example, in the
case of the ellipsoid or ovoid types of mesoprosopic face, which
seem to have attained the most harmonic _fusion_ of characteristics,
and consequently the highest standard of beauty, the eyes are very
large and almond-shaped (the _Fornarina_, Maria Mancini, Cavalieri);
angular faces are characterised by a narrow, slanting eye, through
all the degrees down to that of the Mongolian; faces of low type have
an eye characterised less by its form than by its smallness. The nose
also shows differences; it is long and narrow (leptorrhine) in the
more leptoprosopic faces, and short, broad and fleshy (platyrrhine,
flat-nosed) in chameprosopic faces, especially in the _lower types_; in
mesoprosopic faces it assumes its proper proportions, and occurs as the
last detail or crowning touch of harmony in the perfect faces of the
above-mentioned women.
[Illustration: FIG. 95.--Hexagonal face.]
[Illustration: FIG. 96.--Tetragonal face (square).]
[Illustration: FIG. 97.--Faces of inferior type (cheek bones
prominent).]
[Illustration: FIG. 98.]
When one starts to make the first draft of an ornamental design, it
often happens that the proportional relations are based upon certain
_geometric figures_ that might be called the skeleton of the ornamental
design that is being constructed from them. Accordingly, when an artist
wishes to judge of the harmony of proportions in a drawing, a painting,
or a statue, he often reconstructs with his eye a geometrical design
that no longer exists in the finished work, but that must have served
in its construction. In short, there exist certain secret guiding lines
and points which the eye of the observer must learn to recognise, to
trace and to judge.
This is the way that we should proceed in studying the facial profile.
Let us take or assume a person with the head _orientated_ (_i.e._, with
the occipital point resting against a vertical wall, and the glance
level). The line uniting the point of the tragus (the little triangular
cartilage projecting from the auricular foramen), with the juncture
between the nasal septum and the upper lip, ought, in the case of an
æsthetically regular face, to be _horizontal_. We may call this line
the line of _orientation_. If it proves not to be horizontal, but
oblique, slanting either forward (long nose) or backward (short nose),
this in itself denotes an irregularity which is plainly perceptible,
even to the casual observer. But it is only in exceptional cases that
this line is not horizontal; its horizontality constitutes the _norm_,
in our hybrid races.
Naturally, it is horizontal only when the head is _orientated_ in
the manner above stated. Hence in normal cases its horizontality is
an _index_ of the orientation of the head. The orientated head is
perfectly upright; and the line in question marks its _level_.
Everyone knows that this position of the head is known as that of
"attention" and constitutes the position which formerly only soldiers,
but now school children as well, must assume as a sign of salutation
and respect toward their superiors. It is also the anthropologically
normal attitude (as we may see in statuary). And it is a known fact
that it is a position exceedingly difficult to assume intentionally
with absolute accuracy.
In fact, it corresponds to an attitude which has to be called forth by
some inward stimulus of emotion, and for this reason I would call it
the "fundamental psychological line." The man who is conscious of his
own dignity, or who hopes for his own redemption; the man who is free
and independent involuntarily holds his head orientated.
It is not the vain man, or the proud man, or the dreamer, or the
bureaucratic official, whose head assumes this _involuntary_
_horizontal level_ that is characteristic of the most profound
sentiments known to humanity; persons of such types hold their heads
slightly raised and the line shows a slight backward slant.
The man who is depressed and discouraged, the man who has never
had occasion to feel the deep, intimate and sacred thrill of human
_dignity_, has on the contrary, a more or less forward slant in the
psychological line of orientation.
Look at Fig. 99, which shows a very attractive group of _Ciociari_ or
Neapolitan peasants.
The man, or rather the beardless youth who is just beginning to feel
himself a man, and therefore hopes for independence, holds his head
proudly level; but the very pretty woman seated beside him holds her
head gracefully inclined forward. For that matter, this is woman's
characteristically _graceful_ attitude. She never naturally assumes,
nor does the artist ever attribute to her the proud and lofty attitude
of the level head. But this graceful pose is in reality nothing else
than the pose of slavery. The woman who is beginning to struggle, the
woman who begins to perceive the mysterious and potent voice of human
conflict, and enters upon the infinite world of modern progress, raises
up her head--and she is not for that reason any the less beautiful.
Because beauty is enhanced, rather than taken away, by this attitude
which to-day has begun to be assumed by all humanity: by the laborer,
since the socialistic propaganda, and by woman in her feministic
aspirations for liberty.
Similarly in the school, if we wish to induce little children to hold
their heads in the position of orientation, all that is necessary is to
instil into them a sense of liberty, of gladness and of hope. Whoever,
upon entering a children's class-room, should see their heads assume
the level pose as if from some internal stimulus of renewed life,
could ask for no greater homage. This, and nothing else, is certainly
what will form the great desire of the teacher of the future, who will
rightly despise the trite and antiquated show of formal respect, but
will seek to touch the souls of his pupils.
[Illustration: FIG. 99.--A group of Roman peasants.]
To return to our lines, it follows that the level orientation is the
true human position for the head; it ought never to be abased nor
carried loftily, because man ought never to make himself either slave
or master; it is the _normal line_, because it should be that of the
accustomed attitudes; because man cannot normally be perpetually
meditating, with his gaze upon the ground, as if forgetful of himself
and of his social ties; nor can he forever gaze at the heavens, as
though drawn upward by some supernal inspiration. The normal attitude
is that of the thinking man, who cannot lean either in the one
direction or the other, because he is so keenly conscious of being
in close connection with all surrounding humanity; and he looks with
horizontal gaze toward infinity, as though studying the path of common
progress.
Now, if from the _metopic_ point of the forehead, we drop an imaginary
perpendicular to the line of orientation, it ought to form, in
projection, a tangent to the point of attachment of the nostrils.
Observe the two lines traced on the profile of Pauline Borghese.
This line, if prolonged, passes slightly within the extreme angle of
the labial aperture, and forms the limit of the chin (see the portrait
of Cavalieri, Fig. 101). In this case the profile is eurygnathous.
When the line does not pass in the aforesaid manner, but the facial
profile protrudes beyond it, we have a case of _prognathism_, which may
be total, when the whole face projects; maxillary when the mandibles
project, nasal when it is only the nose that projects, and mental (or
_progeneism_) when it is only the chin that protrudes.
Figures 98, 100 and 103 represent forms of normal prognathism (related
to race, Figs. 98, 100), and of pathological prognathism (Fig. 103,
form associated with microcephaly). These two microcephalic profiles
call to mind the muzzle of an animal; there is no erect forehead, the
orbital arch forming the upward continuance; the nose is very long and
almost horizontal to the protruding jaw; the fleshy lips constitute in
themselves the anterior apex of the visage; while the chin recedes far
back beneath them.
But leaving aside these exceptional profiles, which serve by their
very exaggeration to fix our conception of _prognathism_, let us
examine the series of profiles in Fig. 100, which include some forms
more or less peculiar, and others that are more or less customary, of
prognathism; forms that serve to characterise the physiognomy.
[Illustration: FIG. 100.--(1) Orthognathous face; (2) prognathism
limited to the nasal region; (3) prognathism limited to the subnasal
region; (4) total prognathism, including the three regions,
supra-nasal, nasal and subnasal; (5) exaggerated total prognathism,
accompanied by mandibular prognathism; (6) the same in a child; (7)
very marked prognathism, but due entirely to the prominence of the
supra-nasal section, resulting in an apparent orthognathism (male
of tall stature); (8) opposite type to the preceding: pronounced
prognathism not extending to the supra-nasal region (feminine type);
(9) misunderstood Greek profile (incorrect) resulting in a notable
prognathism; (10) correct Greek profile, i.e., conforming to that of
Greek statues, and incompatible with prognathism.[41]]
Manouvrier, analysing the forms of prognathism from the point of
view of physiognomy and cerebral development, notes that varieties 4
and 5 seem to him to correspond to a more or less serious cerebral
development; variety 2, very frequent in France and more particularly,
according to the author, among the Jews, is not incompatible with a
high cerebral inferiority. Variety 3, more frequent in the feminine
sex, is found in conjunction, sometimes with a weakly skeletal system,
and frequently with rickets and cretinism; nevertheless, Beethoven
showed an approach to this profile.
Variety 4 indicates on the contrary an extremely vigorous development
of the skeleton, with the qualities and defects commonly associated
with great physical strength; variety 7 is regularly associated with
tall stature; in fact, in this case the prognathism is determined by
excessive development of the frontal bone-sockets.
It is this development, prevalent in the male sex, that renders
subnasal prognathism much rarer in man. As a matter of fact, the
feminine type of prognathism shown in No. 8 is not greater in degree
than the male type, No. 7. Variety 9 shows us a form of _prognathism
in art_, due to a false interpretation of the Greek profile; it is
commonly believed that in the Greek profile the frontal line is a
continuation of that along the bridge of the nose, and hence we
frequently meet with commemorative medals, etc., bearing the monstrous
profile shown in No. 9, with pronounced prognathism and receding
forehead. The true _Greek_ profile is shown in No. 10, but we can
better analyse it by studying the profile of the Discobolus (Fig. 105)
and of Antinoous (Fig. 106).
[Illustration: FIG. 101.]
[Illustration: FIG. 102.--Head of Pauline Bonaparte Borghese (Rome,
Borghese Museum).]
[Illustration: FIG. 103.--Profiles of microcephalics.]
The lines of the facial angle have been traced upon the profile of the
Discobolus, but the profile of Antinoous has been left untouched, in
order that we may trace the same lines upon it in imagination, and thus
judge of its perfect beauty (facing page 270).
Let us first examine these two Greek profiles, without stopping to
analyse their separate characteristics, but considering them from the
more general point of view of the facial profile in general. Reverting,
instead, for our analytical study to the schematic figure shown in Fig.
104, we see that it also shows the line of the facial profile, that
of orientation and the vertical, and that these lines form certain
right-angled triangles; the right angle _MPA_ is not the facial angle,
any more than the corresponding angle shown in the Discobolus is the
facial angle. It is said that Greek art considered the right angle as
the perfect facial angle; but that is not true. In order to obtain
the facial angle it is necessary to draw a third line (_MS_) which
extends from the metopic point to the point of attachment of the nasal
septum to the upper lip; this is the line of the facial profile, and
the angle _MSA_ is the facial angle. It is never a right angle (see
the Discobolus), but it approaches very closely to a right angle. Let
us examine the triangle _MPS_, bounded by the vertical, the line of
profile and the line of orientation; it is right-angled at _P_. Hence,
the sum of its other two angles must be equal to one right angle; but
the upper angle, corresponding to the nasal aperture, is of only 15°,
and consequently the facial angle is 75°. The facial angle of the
Discobolus also, like that of Antinoous, like that of the _normal human
visage_, is 75°.
[Illustration: FIG. 104.]
Examine further this Fig. 104; in it the line of the facial profile,
extending from the metopion to the septo-labial point also passes
through the point corresponding to the attachment of the base of the
nose (nasion).
The figure is schematic; but anyone who will trace it in imagination
upon the profile of Cavalieri, or on that of the seated woman in the
group of Neopolitan peasants, or on any of the classic profiles known
in art as the Roman profile, will find that the nasal line, connecting
the supra- and subnasal points, coincides with the line drawn from the
subnasal point to the metopion. But if we observe the Greek profile
of the Discobolus, we shall find that the line of profile does not
coincide with the base of the nose, but passes behind it.
This is the real characteristic difference between the _Roman_ and
the _Greek_ profile: in the Greek profile, the root of the nose is
attached further in front of the metopico-subnasal line, and this is
due to the special form of the Greek forehead, which, instead of being
slightly flattened at the glabella, as in the equally beautiful Roman
forehead, is rounded to such a degree that the transverse section
of the forehead follows a circular line. Hence, it results that the
metopic region of the forehead is more prominent and the nose straight,
and hence also the line of the forehead is a perceptible continuation
of that of the nose (compare the Antinoous). This unique and essential
difference between the Greek and the Roman profile has not hitherto
been pointed out, so far as I am aware; it is indicated by just one of
the facial lines, the one which forms an angle of 75° with the line
of orientation. I had an opportunity to observe these differences in
my study of the women of Latium, which I pursued side by side with a
study of the statues in the museums of Rome, under the guidance of
distinguished art specialists; nevertheless, they had none of them
ever defined by mathematical lines the sole difference between the two
classic types.
The habit of tracing these imaginary lines renders us far more keen
in recognising any and every degree of prognathism, even the least
perceptible, and any other imperfection of the profile, than the most
complicated system of goniometry would make us. For instance, examine
the profile of Pauline Borghese; it is certainly not prognathous, since
the vertical line reveals a most impeccable orthognathism. But let
us trace the nasal line: it meets the vertical line before reaching
the metopic point; in order to meet it at this point, the nose would
have had to be narrower from front to back; in that case the profile
of Pauline Borghese would have been a perfect Roman profile; but the
imperial stigma of the Napoleonic house deprived the beautiful princess
of the privilege of perfect classic beauty.
In my studies of the women of Latium, in addition to the Greek
and Roman forms of profile which are very frequent (the former
distinguished by the morphological peculiarity of having no definite
naso-frontal angle nor metopic flattening of the forehead) I found
a third profile, less frequent yet quite characteristic, among the
representatives of the Mediterranean (Eurafrican) race. It is worthy of
note (Figs. 107, 108).
First of all, the forehead has a slight transverse depression along
its middle line, and the mandible is slightly elongated; but if we
draw our imaginary vertical line from the extreme forward point of the
brow, we find that none of the forms of prognathism is involved, and
that the auriculo-subnasal line is horizontal. This is the type that
has been described by Sergi as Egyptian; and the young woman, shown
in profile, really does suggest a reincarnation of the proud beauty
of the daughters of Pharaoh; the somewhat fleshy lips and the form of
the eyes, not almond-like, but very wide and horizontal, complete the
characteristics of the type immortalised in Egyptian art.
In the normal profile two forms can be distinguished which are
associated with the two general forms of leptoprosopic and
chameprosopic face, and hence also with the dolichocephalic and
brachycephalic forms of cranium. In the one case, the features are
more elongated and seem to be more depressed laterally, with the
result that the profile is more refined, the visage narrower, along
the longitudinal line; in this case the profile is _proopic_ (as, for
example, in the aforesaid Egyptian profile and in the elongated ovoidal
English face, Fig. 90); aristocratic faces of the finer type are
proopic. On the other hand, broad faces are anteriorly flattened to
such an extent that the flatness shows even in the profile: _platyopic_
_profile_.
[Illustration: FIG. 105.--The Discobolus by Miron (Rome, Vatican
Museum).]
[Illustration: FIG. 106.--Head of statue known as the _Capitoline
Antinoous_ (Rome, Capitoline Museum).]
[Illustration: FIG. 107.]
[Illustration: FIG. 108.]
These general forms are associated with certain special forms of the
separate organs.
Thus, for example, in proopic faces the palate is narrow, long and
high; in platyopic faces, on the contrary, it is broad, low and flat;
and the teeth corresponding to them may present a widely different
appearance (long, narrow teeth; broad teeth).
_Low Types and Abnormal Forms._--Low types, as we have already noted,
depend upon the development of the face in its least noble parts
(those of mastication); prominence of the cheek-bones and maxillary
angles, great development of the upper and lower jaw (prognathism).
These conditions are frequently accompanied by a low, narrow, or
receding forehead, indicating a scanty cerebral development. Lombroso
found a great prevalence of similar forms among criminals; but
recent studies have disclosed the fact that such forms of facial
development are in some way related to the environment in which the
individual has developed, so much so that, on the basis of these
morphological characteristics, we might almost succeed in delineating
the physiognomies distinguishing the different _social castes_. In
fact, while the aristocratic face is ellipsoidal and proopic, that
of the peasant is characterised by a pronounced wideness between the
cheek-bones, and that of the city labourer by a peculiar development in
the height of the mandible. Thus the peasant has a broad face, and the
city workman a somewhat elongated face, with very pronounced maxillary
angles.
A real and important abnormality which indicates a deviation from
every type of race or caste is _facial asymmetry_ or _plagioprosopy_,
analogous to plagiocephaly, and frequently associated with it.
It is necessary, however, in the case of the face, to distinguish
instances of _functional asymmetry_, due to unequal innervation of
the muscles in the two sides of the face; either from some cerebral
cause, or from some local cause affecting the facial nerves. In such
cases, the trophic state of the muscles and their contractibility being
unequal, there is a resultant asymmetry, especially evident in the play
of facial expression.
This form of asymmetry must necessarily be limited to the soft
tissues and be due to a pathological cause; consequently it should
not be confounded with the asymmetry due to a different skeletal
development of the two sides of the face, an abnormality analogous
to plagiocephaly, which is met with among degenerates as a stigma of
congenital malformation. We owe to Brugia a most admirable method for
demonstrating the high degrees of facial asymmetry which sometimes
reach such an extreme point as to give the two halves the appearance
of having formed parts of two different faces. This is precisely
what Brugia shows by the aid of photography, uniting each half with
a reversed print of itself, making the two prints coincide along the
median line. The result is that every asymmetric face gives two other
faces formed respectively from one of the two inequal halves, and
presenting profoundly different aspects.
Other abnormalities are revealed by the _facial profile_. They are
due either to total or partial prognathism (already analysed), or to
orthognathism, where the facial angle equals or exceeds a right angle;
such a profile occurs in cases of _hydrocephaly_ or of _macrocephaly_
in general, usually resulting from infantile arrest of development.
_The Evolution of the Face._--The human countenance, that is so
marvellously beautiful in our superior hybrid races, passes, during its
embryonal life, through many forms that are very far removed from such
perfection.
Figures 110, 111, and 112 represent the evolution of the face in
animals and in man: and the complete evolution of a woman's face from
the embryo during the first weeks of its formation to the attainment of
old age.
The embryonal face, as may be seen even better in animals than in
man, is surmounted by the brain divided and differentiated into its
superimposed primitive vesicles; furthermore, it consists of one
single, widespread cavity, at the sides of which may be discerned two
diminutive vesicles or bulbs, which are offshoots of the brain and
constitute the first rudiments of the eyes. In studying a more advanced
stage of development, we may note in what constitutes the upper lip of
this wide facial cavity, two _nasal ducts_ or furrows, which are the
first indications of the nose.
The principal differentiation which takes place in the face consists of
the development from its two lateral walls on left and right, of two
thin plates or laminæ that advance across the cavity itself, in its
anterior portion, and proceed to unite in a median ridge, the _raphe
palati_; this constitutes the formation of the palatine vault, which is
destined permanently to divide the single cavity into two cavities--an
upper or nasal, and a lower or buccal cavity. If this process of
formation is not completed, the result is a grave abnormality, the
cleft palate, popularly known in Italy as a "wolf's throat," and
consisting in the fact that the nasal and buccal cavities to a greater
or less extent open into each other; this abnormality, due to an arrest
of embryonic development, is almost always accompanied by a hare-lip.
Simultaneously with the formation of the palatine vault, another and
vertical septum is formed, which divides the upper cavity into two
halves, right and left. This division, however, is limited to the
anterior portion; the three cavities thus formed have no such division
in the rear, but all three open into the gullet or oesophagus, which
represents the only relic of the single original cavity.
The maxillary bones are formed in a manner analogous to that of the
nasal and palatal septa, through extroversions destined to become
ossified.
It is not until later that the _external nose_ is formed (middle of the
second month of embryonal life).
After this, the evolution of the embryo becomes evidently a
_perfectionment_ and a _growth_, rather than a transformation.
In the _new-born child_ the face is extremely small in comparison with
the cerebral cranium.
If we compare the head of an adult with that of an infant, and draw
the well-known line of separation between the facial and the cerebral
cranium, the difference in the reciprocal proportions between the two
parts at once becomes apparent. The infant's face seems like a mere
_appendix_ to its cranium; and the mandible is especially small; in
fact, very young children remain much of the time with their mouth open
and the under lip drawn back behind the upper.
[Illustration: FIG. 109.--Face of inferior type. Prominence of angles
of jaw (Gonia).]
[Illustration: FIG. 110.]
[Illustration: FIG. 111. FIG. 112.
_a_, eye; _v_, anterior brain; _m_, middle brain; _s_, frontal process;
_h_, nasal septum; _o_, _u_, _h_, _d_, _r_, primitive embryonal
formations, explained as being _branchial_ (_i.e._, gill) arches; _z_,
tongue; _g_, auditory fissure. Note the analogy between the different
parts of the head in animals and in man; every species, however, has
special embryonal characteristics.]
Consequently, the growth of the face obeys laws and rhythms differing
from those of the cranium, in comparison to which the face is destined
to assume very different proportions by the time that the adult age is
reached. The face grows _much more_ than the cranium.
In its characteristic infantile form, the face is quite round (short
and broad), and, when the child is plump, it often happens that at
birth the face is broader than it is long. Seen in profile it is
_orthognathous_, and this orthognathism endures throughout early
infancy, because the profile still remains in retreat behind the
plane of the protruding forehead; i.e., the facial angle exceeds a
right angle, and the mandibular region is further back than the nasal
(compare profile of infant).
In the course of growth it may be said in a general way that the facial
index diminishes; that is, the numerical proportion between width and
height becomes lowered as the face lengthens; while the facial angle
changes from somewhat more than a right angle to a right angle, and
finally to an acute angle of 75°.
In order to obtain an exact idea of the transformations of the face,
children should have their pictures taken, full face and profile, on
every birthday, as is already customary in England for the purposes of
the _carnet maternel_, the "mother's note-book."
In the illustrations facing this page we have portraits of the same
person taken at successive ages (Figs. 113, 114, 115, 116), _i.e._, at
the age of six months, one year and a half, seven, and lastly twelve
years; it will be seen that the face has steadily lengthened.
In this case the individual happens to be noticeably leptoprosopic; but
observe the rotundity of the infantile face at the age of six months.
An analogous observation may be made in the case of the girl
represented in Figs. 118 and 119, at the age of ten months and thirteen
years respectively.
Even in the case of abnormal children the same law holds good; an
examination of the three pictures of an incurable idiot boy, taken at
the ages of six, eleven, and sixteen years (Figs. 121, 122, 123 facing
page 276), shows that the face, from being originally rotund has become
elongated.[42]
We owe to Binet the most exact and complete studies that exist in
anthropologic literature on the subject of the growth of the face. He
has made a great number of facial measurements, both of children and
young persons of the male sex, from four to eighteen years of age,
taking the measurements at intervals of two years. The measurements
chosen by Binet are all the possible distances that will serve to
give the various widths of the face, the distance of the ear from the
various points of the profile, and the heights of the various segments;
namely (for an exact understanding of these measurements, see section
on _Technique_), auriculo-mental diameter, auriculo-nasal diameter,
auriculo-subnasal diameter, auriculo-ophryac diameter, auriculo-metopic
diameter, frontal diameter, biauricular diameter, bizygomatic diameter,
length of nose, length of chin, subnase-mental distance, height of
forehead.[43]
Binet's conclusions are as follows: the growth of the whole head may
be divided into three rhythms: that of the cerebral cranium, that of
the face apart from the nose, and that of the nose.
If the total development of the cerebral cranium from the fourth to
the eighteenth year shows a proportion of 12 per cent., the facial
development shows an increase of 24 per cent. and that of the nose 39
per cent. Consequently the face increases twice as much as the cranium,
and the nose three times as much. In the growth of the face, however,
the transverse dimensions must be distinguished from the longitudinal
dimensions, because the _facial index_ varies greatly according to the
age. The width of the face follows very nearly the same rhythm as the
cranium, never exceeding the latter's proportional increase; the length
of the face, on the contrary, follows the special rhythm of the growth
of the face, which lengthens far more than it broadens.
If we consider the distances of the various points in the profile from
the auricular foramen, we find that these distances show a greater
increase in proportion as the points in question are further from the
forehead and nearer to the chin.
The central section (the nose) and the mandible are the portions which
contribute most largely to the increase in length of the face.
While in the case of the cranium there is a _very slight_, and
often imperceptible puberal acceleration of growth, the puberal
transformations of the head are, on the contrary, most notable in
respect to the face.
The entire region of the upper and lower jaws, but more especially the
lower, undergoes a _maximum increase during the period_ _of puberty_.
In regard to the nose, its rapid growth begins at the time immediately
preceding puberty; that is, it undergoes a _prepuberal_ _maximum
increase_. When a boy is about to complete his sexual development, the
nose begins to gain in size.
The puberal growth of the mandible has long been a familiar fact, and
bears a relation to the development of the sexual glands.
A special characteristic noted by Binet and by myself is that the
height of the lower jaw in boys who have reached the prepuberal stage
is greater in the boys who are least intelligent; just as in the
case of these boys the nose is less leptorrhine and the face less
broad. This means that at the period of puberty the most intelligent
boys not only have a greater development of head, but also certain
distinctive facial characteristics. They should have, for instance,
a more ample forehead, a broader face, especially in the bizygomatic
diameter (between the cheek-bones), and a leptorrhine nose (infantile
leptorrhine type). The backward boys, on the contrary, have a longer
face, accompanied by a higher mandible and a flat or "snub" nose. Here
are the comparative figures:
[Illustration: FIG. 113.--A child at six months.]
[Illustration: FIG. 114.--The same child at a year and a half.]
[Illustration: FIG. 115.--A seven-year-old boy.]
[Illustration: FIG. 116.--The same boy at the age of twelve.]
FACIAL MEASUREMENTS
Binet Children from the elementary schools of Paris from 11 to 13
years of age
Montessori Children from the elementary schools of Rome from 9 to
11 years of age
--------------+--------------------------+--------------------------
| Binet's figures | Montessori's figures
+---------+--------+-------+---------+--------+-------
Measurements |Brightest|Backward|Differ-|Brightest|Backward|Differ-
| pupils | pupils | ence | pupils | pupils | ence
--------------+---------+--------+-------+---------+--------+-------
Minimum | | | | | |
frontal | | | | | |
diameter | 104 | 102 | 2 | 99 | 98 | 1
Height of | | | | | |
forehead | 46 | 45.5 | 0.5 | 57 | 56 | 1
Mento-subnasal| | | | | |
distance | 62 | 64.6 | 2.4 | 54 | 56 | 2
Bizygomatic | | | | | |
diameter | 124.8 | 122.9 | 1.9 | 109 | 107 | 2
Bigoniac | | | | | |
diameter | 93.5 | 92.1 | 1.4 | 87 | 86 | 1
--------------+---------+--------+-------+---------+--------+-------
COMPARATIVE FACIAL MEASUREMENTS OBTAINED FROM THE
BRIGHTEST AND THE MOST BACKWARD PUPILS IN THE
SCHOOLS OF ROME (MONTESSORI)
------------------------+-----------+----------+-----------
Measurements and indices| Brightest | Backward | Difference
in millimetres | pupils | pupils |
------------------------+-----------+----------+-----------
Height of mandible | 34 mm. | 36 mm. | 2 mm.
Length of nose | 47 mm. | 45 mm. | 2 mm.
Width of nose | 28 mm. | 29 mm. | 1 mm.
Nasal index | 59 mm. | 64 mm. | 5 mm.
------------------------+-----------+----------+-----------
These results would seem to prove that there are high and low
_infantile_ types of face, analogous, let us say, to types of social
caste; and in school life they correspond to the castes of the
_intelligent_ and the _backward_ pupils.
Intelligent children tend to preserve the infantile form of face more
intact (broad and short) or rather, if we extend our researches to
pupils who have reached the prepuberal age, we may conclude that
intelligent pupils develop according to the normal laws--the growth is
confined to the nose; backward children invert the order of growth--the
lower jaw is already enlarged before the nose has even begun the
acceleration of puberal growth. This difference remains permanent in
the adult, and we have in consequence _low_ types of face characterised
by a flat nose and heavy lower jaw.
=Facial Expression.=--The study of the human face cannot be limited to
a consideration of the form alone; because what gives character to it
is the _expression_. Internal thought, sensory impressions and all the
various emotions produce responsive movements of the facial muscles,
whose contractions determine those _visible phenomena_ corresponding to
the inner state of mind.
The teacher ought to understand facial expression, just as a physician
must train himself to recognise the _facies_ corresponding to various
diseases and states of suffering. The study of expression ought to
form a part of the study of psychology, but it also comes within the
province of anthropology, because the habitual, life-long expressions
of the face determine the wrinkles of old age, which are distinctly an
anthropological characteristic.
The facial muscles may be divided into two zones: one of which
comprises the frontal and ocular region, and the other the buccal
region; corresponding to which are the two upper and lower branches of
the frontal nerve.
Accordingly we may speak of a frontal or higher zone of expression and
of an oral or lower zone.
The expressions of pure thought (attention, reflection) group
themselves around the forehead; those of emotion, on the contrary, call
forth a combined action of both zones, and frequently irradiate over
the entire body. But as a general rule the man of higher intelligence
has a greater intensity of frontal expression, and the man of low
intelligence (uneducated men, peasants, and to a much greater degree,
imbeciles, idiots, etc.) have a predominance of oral expression.
In children the frontal zone has slight mobility, and the oral zone
has a preponderance of expression; infantile expression, however,
is diffuse and exaggerated and is characterised by _grimaces_.
Undoubtedly there are certain restraining powers, which develop in the
course of time and serve to limit and definitely determine the facial
expressions.
[Illustration: FIG. 117.--Profile of a child.]
[Illustration: FIG.--118. A child of ten months.]
[Illustration: FIG. 119.--The same, 13 years old.]
As for the mechanics of expression, they consist of the facial
nerve, and the surface muscles stimulated by it, which are: the
_frontal muscle_, which covers the entire forehead and merges
above into the epicranial aponeurosis; the _superciliary_ _muscle_
extending transversely along the superciliary arch and concealed
by the _orbicular muscle of the eyelids_ (_m. orbicularis
palpebrarum_), which surrounds the eye-socket like a ring; the
_pyramidal_ muscle (_m. pyramidalis nasi_), which is connected with
the point of origin of the frontal muscle at the inner angle of the
eyebrow, and separates below into four symmetrical fasciæ, two of
which are attached to the _ala_ or wing of the nose, and the other
two to the upper lip.
[Illustration: FIG. 120.--The Muscles of the Head and Face.]
A group of very delicate muscles controlling the sensitive
movements of the wings and septum of the nose (_m. compressor
narium_, _m. depressor aloe nasi_, _m._ _levator aloe nasi_,
_anterior_ and _posterior_, and _m. depressor septi_) have their
points of attachment around the nasal _aloe_ (just above the upper
incisor and canine teeth). There is a great wealth of muscles
surrounding the mouth; no animal, not even the anthropoid ape, is
equipped with so many muscles; it is due to them that the human
mouth is able to assume such a great variety of positions. The
greater number of these muscles are arranged like radii around the
mouth; and there is one which, unlike the rest, surrounds the oral
aperture like a ring.
The radiating muscles, descending from the sides of the nose down
along the chin are: the levator muscle of the upper lip (_m.
levator labii superioris_, starting from the bony margin below
the infraorbital foramen); the levator muscle of the angle of the
mouth (_m. levator anguli oris_, starting from the fossa of the
upper maxilla); the large and small zygomatic muscles (starting
from the anterior surface of the malar bones); the risorial
muscle (_m. risorius_), the smallest of all the facial muscles,
which has its origin in the soft surface tissues (aponeurosis
parotido-masseterica); the depressor muscle of the mouth angle (_m.
depressor anguli_ _oris_, or _m. triangularis_) originating on the
lower margin of the maxilla; the depressor muscle of the lower lip
or quadratus muscle of the chin (_m. quadratus labii_ _inferioris_
or _quadratus menti_, also originating on the lower maxilla); the
levator muscle of the chin (_m. levator menti_) between the two
_musculi quadrati_, also has its origin in the lower maxilla; the
buccinator muscle, hidden beneath the preceding, has its origin
behind the molar teeth in the alveolar process of the two maxillæ,
and extends horizontally, terminating in the two lips, in such a
manner that its two fasciæ; partly cross, so that the upper fasciæ
of the muscle starting from the mandible extend to the upper lip,
and the lower fasciæ of the muscle starting from the maxilla extend
to the lower lip. Consequently the contraction of this muscle
stretches the angles of the mouth in a horizontal direction only;
it is the most voluntary of all the muscles, and plays a greater
part than the others in forced laughter; in consequence it robs
this movement of its characteristic charm.
Lastly we must note the _orbicular_ muscle of the lips (_m.
orbicularis oris_ or _sphincter oris_), which constitutes the
fleshy part of the lips and surrounds the oral aperture like a ring.
The contraction of these muscles produces antagonistic motorial
action; for instance, the orbicular muscle tends to close the mouth
into a circular orifice; the various muscles which radiate from
the corners of the mouth (especially the buccinator) tend, on the
contrary, to enlarge and stretch it in a transverse direction;
certain muscles tend to raise the mouth, and others to lower
it. Accordingly, there results a _play_ between the muscles of
expression and upon their continual antagonism depend the changing
expressions of the human countenance.
Here are a few of the principal facial expressions, described in a
masterly manner, and for the first time, by Charles Darwin:[44]
_Expression of Sorrow._--The muscles that are principally brought into
play are the superciliary, the frontal and the triangular or depressor
muscles of the lips; the eyebrows are furrowed, being drawn upward
by the action of the frontal muscle; this, however, cannot contract
completely because drawn downward laterally by the superciliary
muscles, and hence the forehead wrinkles only at its middle point and
together with the slanting eyebrows assumes a shape that suggests three
sides of a quadrilateral.
[Illustration: FIG. 121.--A six-year-old boy.]
[Illustration: FIG. 122.--The same, eleven years old.]
[Illustration: FIG. 123.--The same, sixteen years old.]
Simultaneously there is a drooping of the corners of the mouth, which,
when exaggerated in infancy, forms the characteristic and charming
_grimace_ of a child who is on the point of crying. Accordingly, sorrow
draws the frontal zone upward, and the labial zone downward; in other
words, it _lengthens_ the face.
_Expression of Pleasure._--On the contrary, _laughter_ and _happiness_
shorten the face; all the muscles are brought into play that stretch
the corners of the mouth, as well as those which raise the upper lip,
in consequence of which the upper teeth are disclosed.
The frontal zone remains in repose; excepting that there is a
contraction of the orbicular muscle of the eyelids, especially in its
lower portion; the lower lid is drawn upward and the skin is puckered
at the external angle of the eye; the lachrymal gland is compressed,
the circulation of blood stimulated, as always results from every
expression of joy, the secretion of the gland is increased, and
consequently a few tears are readily shed. The eye, grown smaller and
half hidden, shines brilliantly, because moistened from without and
irrigated from within by an abundant flow of blood.
_Expression of Various Emotions_: _Anger._--During _anger_ the
superciliary muscles prevail in exceedingly energetic action, drawing
the forehead strongly downward, wrinkling it vertically, and also
producing transverse wrinkles on the nose. In the labial zone the
orbicular muscle is intensely active, and the lips contract. When anger
endures for a long time, the condition above described diminishes in
intensity, leaving only a slight frown, while the closed lips protrude
in tubular form. An expression usually described by the terms, to
_sulk_ or _pout_.
This is the way in which little children express their displeasure; and
the pouting lips sometimes rise clear to the tip of the little nose, in
sign of proud defiance. This form of grimace is common to the children
of every race: it has been observed in the children of Hottentots and
Chinese, as a sign of prolonged anger and ill humor.
Hence the contraction of the mouth is a characteristic sign of anger;
and when the emotion is very strong, even the masticatory muscles may
enter into play, causing a _grinding of the teeth_.
_Surprise._--In _surprise_, on the contrary, the entire labial zone is
in repose, and there is complete and free contraction of one muscle
alone, the frontal; consequently it produces longitudinal lines across
the entire forehead, uplifting the eyebrows, which passively follow the
elevation produced by the frontal muscle, forming two arches around
which the wrinkles of the forehead form themselves in parallel lines.
The eyes in consequence are stretched to their widest. The oral zone is
so far relaxed that the lower jaw droops in obedience to gravity and
the mouth gapes open: _bouche béanie_. Sometimes a less intense degree
of surprise fails to do away with the contraction of the orbicular
muscle of the lips, which, without being actively contracted, but
simply because relieved from the interference of antagonistic muscles,
closes the mouth in a rounded or tubular aperture.
This same facial expression, which is a very striking one, exists in
all races.
When children are still too young to contract the frontal muscle
completely, they show surprise by a gaping mouth, and a puckering of
the entire forehead, in place of the transverse furrows.
_Expression of Thought._--In addition to the expressions of the
emotions, the authorities describe those due to thought, and give
special consideration to the expression of _external_ or sensory
_attention_, and _internal attention_ (reflection, meditation). The
young child is capable of intense sensorial attention, which is
manifested especially in visual attention.
I have been able to make many observations in the "Children's Houses,"
where children two or three years old take part in games that demand
attention, comparison, and the exercise of reason, without tiring their
minds or encountering any great difficulty. These children wrinkle
their foreheads and hold their mouths slightly open.
This is the expression also noted by Darwin, and the one which
notoriously produces those vertical lines in the middle of the
forehead, known as the _lines of thought_.
When these children are obliged to make an effort of thought or when
they are for any reason troubled and anxious, slight contractions pass
across their foreheads, like a continuous succession of broken shadows
(Darwin).[45]
It should be noted that in any case a contraction of the eyebrows
during intellectual work denotes _effort_, a _difficulty_ to be
overcome. Pure thought, by itself alone, produces no such contractions.
The contemplative man, absorbed in profound meditation, shows a face
overspread with serenity, due to muscular repose; the gaze is fixed
upon the void, and the head, as though no longer sustained by the
relaxed muscles, is inclined forward.
If his eyes retain steadfastly the same original direction, even after
the body has dropped forward, they give the impression of being turned
on high. Such is the expression of the man sunk in profound thought, so
long as his thought follows an uninterrupted course.
But when a difficulty arises, see how he begins to knit his brow. It is
the difficulty which has arisen, and not the course of his thoughts,
that has produced this muscular reaction.
The movement is similar to what occurs in the case of any difficulty to
overcome, as, for instance, the threading of a needle.
Consequently the wrinkles of thought are the wrinkles of the _fatigue
of thought_.
The mystics, who are purely contemplative thinkers, and not solvers
of difficulties, have a forehead without lines. Similarly in art,
the faces of the Madonna or of the Saints have an intense expression
of thought in their gaze, but the serene countenance shows neither
contractions nor lines.
De Sanctis[46] has made some interesting observations regarding the
facial expression of the mentally deficient. They have a singular
difficulty in contracting the frontal muscle even at the age of
eleven or twelve years; even when urged by example and command,
they frequently do not succeed in contracting the forehead. Labial
expression, on the other hand, is much more developed, and frequently
attention is indicated by a contraction of the orbicular muscle of the
lips into a circle; and surprise is shown in the same way.
In general, however, what characterises the face of the imbecile, the
idiot, the epileptic, is its _immobility_: hypomimia or amimia.
There are, however, frequent cases of cerebrophlegia (a progressive
malady of the brain occurring during the early years of childhood),
in which exaggerated contractions of the face occur as the result of
the least mental effort. The French give the name of _grimaciers_
to children who show such symptoms; from pathological causes they
exhibit a hypermimia that transforms their facial expressions into
grimaces. Furthermore, there are certain degenerate children in whom
the muscular reactions do not correspond to the normal expression
of their feelings; for example, they exhibit sorrow when they mean
to show attention, etc. In such cases the play of the opposite and
contradictory facial muscles has become perverted: _dismimia_.
One of the most frequent occurrences among the abnormal is asymmetry of
the facial expressions; the muscles contract more on one side of the
face than on the other. This symptom, however, in a mild degree, is met
with also in normal persons.
From what has been said, it is evident that for the examination of
the face we must depend, if not exclusively, at least far more upon
anthroposcopy than upon anthropometry; and since the minute description
required is too difficult and too lengthy a task, especially as
regards the _facial expressions_ (which are so characteristic of the
individual) it is necessary in pedagogic anthropology to resort to
photography.
The instantaneous photograph, in all progressive countries, is already
within the reach of mothers. It ought also to form part of the
equipment of our schools.
THE NECK
The neck is a part which is anatomically of much importance, but not
of equal importance from the anthropological side. The skeleton of the
neck is formed of the seven cervical vertebræ. Notwithstanding that in
all the higher vertebrates the neck is constituted of the same number
of vertebræ, it can assume the most varied dimensions, all the way from
the giraffe to the whale. Similarly, at the different ages of man it is
at one time barely indicated and almost wanting altogether, as in the
new-born child, and again long and flexible, as in the lovely women of
some of the higher races.
Godin has observed that the maximum increase of the neck takes place
between the fourteenth and sixteenth year, _i.e._, at the epoch of
puberty; but at the fourteenth year it undergoes such a rapid increase
that it surpasses proportionally the puberal increase of the total
stature.
This is shown in the following table:
PROPORTION OF LENGTH OF NECK TO THE STATURE REDUCED TO 100
Age in years: 13-1/2 14 14-1/2 15 15-1/2 16 16-1/2 17 17-1/2
Proportions: 10 12 10 10 10 10 10 10 10
Consequently the proportion between neck and stature is a datum that
tends strongly to remain a _fixed_ quantity. The result, however, is
different if we study the proportion between the neck and the vertebral
column as a whole.
PROPORTION OF LENGTH OF NECK TO THE TRUNK REDUCED TO 100
Age in years: 13-1/2 14 14-1/2 15 15-1/2 16 16-1/2 17 17-1/2
Proportions: 34 35 34 35 35 35 35 35 34
Accordingly it is about one-third of the trunk.
The circumference of the neck is also taken, for it shows whether the
neck is _slender_ or _thick_; and this often bears a relation to the
degree of development of the thyroid gland.
In my work upon the women of Latium I have shown that the small, dark
women have a longer and more flexible neck than those who are fair
and of tall stature. Therefore this is a racial difference, similar
to the difference we have already noted for _types of stature_. The
macrosceles have a long and slender neck, and the opposite is found
in the case of the brachysceles; consequently, a very long neck is an
indication of a weak constitution.
FOOTNOTES:
[36] See the application to pathological surgery of this
anatomo-physiological condition of the cranium, as given by Tillaux,
_Anatomia topografica_.
[37] Broca gives, not as mean averages, but as extreme limits, 70.0 for
dolichocephalics (Tasmanians) and 90 for brachycephalics (natives of
the Sandwich Islands).
[38] BONNIFAY, _On the development of the Head from the point of view
of cephalometrical_ _measurements taken after birth_. Thesis, Lyons,
1897.
[39] MONTESSORI, _Sui caratteri antropometrici in relazione alle
gerarchie dei fanciulli nelle_ _scuole_, p. 51. ("Anthropometric
characteristics in relation to the grading of children in schools").
[40] LOMBROSO (who died while this book was in press) defended the
principle of the innate inferiority of woman and regarded her, in
comparison with man, as a case of infantile arrest of development.
[41] The above elucidation and illustrations of the face are taken from
MANOUVRIER, _Cephalométrie Anthropologique_.
[42] From THULIÉ, _Le Dressage des jeunes dégénérés_, page 633.
[43] BINET, _Le croissance du crâne et de la face chez les normaux
entre 4 et 18 ans_.
[44] CHARLES DARWIN, _The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals_.
[45] CHARLES DARWIN, _Op. cit._
[46] SANTE DE SANCTIS, _La Mimica del Pensiero_ (The Expression of
Thought).
CHAPTER III
THE THORAX
We have already had occasion to point out, in connection with the
_types of stature_, the importance of the thorax.
The relation of the thoracic perimeter (circumference of the chest) to
the total stature (see chapter on _Technique_) was called by Goldstein
the _index of life_, in order to indicate that the organic resistance
of any individual depends upon the proportional relation between the
thorax and the whole body; whoever has a narrow chest is liable to
pulmonary tuberculosis, and in his physiological entirety is a weakling
(see chapter on _Macroscelous and Brachyscelous_ _Types_).
_Anatomical Parts._--Anatomically the thorax is determined in height
by the twelve dorsal or thoracic vertebræ, which are characterised by
having a transverse apophysis, which articulates with the twelve pairs
of ribs, forming the _thoracic cage_, or chest.
The first seven pairs of ribs articulate in front, by means of
cartilages, with the lateral margins of a flat bone, the sternum
or breast-bone, which is formed of three pieces: the _manubrium_
uppermost, then the _corpus_, then, lowest of all, the _ensiform_
(sword-shaped) _process_.
The manubrium and the corpus form, at their juncture, an angle more or
less marked, according to the individual, and the lateral articulation
of the second rib corresponds to this angle. In the new-born child
the sternum is a cartilage with points of ossification arranged
longitudinally like the beads of a rosary. The seventh vertebra
articulates laterally at the point at which the ensiform process is
attached to the corpus of the sternum. The next three ribs (8th, 9th
and 10th) are articulated together and with the seventh by means of
cartilaginous arches; the last two pairs of ribs (11th and 12th) are
free or _floating_. At the top, the thoracic cage is reinforced by the
_thoracic girdle_, which serves also to afford articulation for the
upper limbs, and which consists of the _clavicles_, in front, and of
the scapulæ, behind. The clavicles are long bones placed in an almost
horizontal position above the thorax, and they determine the _width_ of
the chest; at the inner extremity they articulate with the manubrium
of the sternum and at the outer extremity they are attached to the
acromial process of the scapulæ. The scapulæ are flat bones which are
attached to the posterior surface of the thoracic frame, on which they
are freely movable, covering a tract extending from the second to the
seventh rib. At their upper and outer extremity they are provided
with two bony processes; namely, the _acromion_, already mentioned,
which contains the points of maximum width of the shoulders, and the
_coracoid process_, which terminates anteriorly and, together with the
acromion, overhangs the articulation of the humerus with the body of
the scapula.
Powerful muscles clothe the thoracic frame, serving partly in
the movements of respiration and partly in the movements of the
upper limbs. It may suffice to mention, among the muscles situated
posteriorly, the _cucullaris_, the great dorsal (_m. longissimus_
_dorsi_), the rhomboids of the scapulæ (_m. rhomboideus major_ and
_minor_), and the _serratus posterior_ of the ribs; anteriorly, the
large and small pectoral and the great _serratus_; beside which there
are the intercostal muscles, extending from rib to rib and taking part
in the movements of respiration. But the most important muscle is
the _diaphragm_, which completely closes the thoracic cavity, rising
into it in a convex vault and separating it from the abdomen; this
constitutes the most active of all the muscles which participate in
the movements of respiration. The thoracic cavity, thus determined,
encloses the two most important viscera of vegetative life--the heart
and the lungs.
The heart is a muscle shaped like a pear or cone, having its base
turned upward, and its apex or point turned downward and outward
toward the left, corresponding to the fifth intercostal space; it is
divided, as is well known, into four cavities, and constitutes the
_great motor power_ of the circulation of the blood. The lungs are
two in number, right and left, and surround the heart, completely
filling the thoracic cavity. The lungs are divided into superimposed
_lobes_, three in the right and two in the left lung; they are composed
essentially of infinitely small ramifications of the bronchi, resolving
into tiny series of chambers, the _pulmonary alveoli_ or air-cells.
These alveoli, consisting of a single layer of extremely small cells,
are surrounded by a dense network of capillary tubes, through which
takes place the interchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. It has been
calculated that if we should estimate and sum up the internal surfaces
of the pulmonary alveoli, or, what comes to the same thing, if we
should spread out and join together the alveolar walls of the lungs,
they would have a superficial area of 200 square metres. This area
might be compared to the foliage of a great human tree (respiratory
surface).
_Physiological and Hygienic Aspect._--The importance of the thorax
is physiological, because it contains the highly important viscera
of vegetative life; but this importance is especially associated
with the lungs. The lungs are the organs that acquire the oxygen
from the outside environment, and this oxygen, when taken up by the
hemoglobin in the blood, will serve to oxygenate the tissues of the
entire organism, and thus aid in the processes of cellular metabolism.
A large supply of oxygen stimulates this interchange of matter, not
only because the organism as a whole is enriched in the substance
essential to this process (oxygen), but because the heart responds
to the increased activity of the lungs by more energetic pulsations
calculated to set the blood circulating in far greater quantities. It
is no exaggeration to say that our whole physiological life is enclosed
within the thorax, because the digestive system does nothing more
than prepare a blood that is unfitted to irrigate the tissues for the
purpose of supplying them with nutriment; it is only after this blood
has passed through the lungs that it is transformed into _oxygenated
blood_ and is adapted to assimilation. Consequently the intestines
prepare nothing more than the _raw material_, and it is the lungs which
perform the service of perfecting it; while the heart drives it through
its circuit into contact with all the tissues of the organism.
Whoever has inadequate lungs is for that reason alone a person who
necessarily receives insufficient nutriment (thin and weak macroscele),
and frequently is also a melancholiac. Melancholia accompanies every
form of physiological decadence. On the contrary, persons with ample
lungs are generally serene of spirit and joyous. In fact, the emotion
of joy is at the same time both the cause and the consequence of an
active circulation of oxygenated blood (florid or ruddy complexion).
Certain experiments conducted with birds have proved that if free
oxygen is introduced under an air-bell in which the birds have been
enclosed, they gradually become more and more excited, singing and
fluttering as if possessed by a frenzy of joyousness. It is a fact
that we often rid ourselves of a fit of melancholy by taking a walk in
the open air; persons possessed of good lungs feel within themselves
a vital potentiality that perceptibly aids them to make what we call
an "effort of will"; when sorrow befalls them, or overexertion has
exhausted their strength, persons of this type feel some force spring
up within them that seems to give them fresh hope and courage. It is
their oxygenated blood, which neither weariness nor depression of
spirit can stay in its luxuriant course; the man of weak lungs, on
the contrary, is mentally depressed, because his physiological life
has slowed down; and, instead of aiding him, it is his physiological
life which demands of him a genuine effort of will to reestablish its
equilibrium.
Accordingly, those persons who have a well-developed chest are
certainly the healthiest and the happiest.
But this is not the only pulmonary function; the lungs are also the
_organs of speech_. In fact, while speech is manufactured in the brain
and the cerebral nerves that stimulate the organs of the spoken word,
it requires also its "driving power," that is to say, air, in order to
obtain utterance; and it is the lungs to which singers and speakers
alike owe the physical strength of their voice. Even the respiratory
rhythm has a great influence upon speech.
The spoken word requires a most complicated mechanism, and among the
details of this mechanism, by no means the least important are the
acts of _inspiration_, by which the air is received into the lungs,
and of _expiration_, by which it is expelled, simultaneously with all
the other movements producing speech. Indeed, we know that when speech
is further complicated by the act of singing, it becomes necessary to
_study special rules_ for breathing; in short, to _educate the voice_.
Now, why do we not also educate the voice for its ordinary task of the
spoken language? Speech is one of the marvels that characterise man,
and also one of the most difficult spontaneous creations that have
been accomplished by nature. Through the voice, the lawyer defends the
innocent, the teacher educates the new generations, the mother recalls
her erring son to the path of virtue, lovers unite their souls, and all
humanity interchanges ideas. If intelligence is the triumph of life,
the spoken word is the marvellous means by which this intelligence is
manifested.
We trouble ourselves to educate the voice only for the purpose of
singing, and neglect the spoken word. We do not stop to think that
_singing_ appeals only to the senses and emotions, while speech appeals
to the emotions and the intellect, and therefore charms and at the same
time convinces.
Anyone who has heard that wonderfully gifted speaker, Ofelia Mazzoni,
expounding our great poets to the labouring classes at the People's
University in Milan, rousing the slumbering intelligence of the working
man, will understand what an immense educative force we are neglecting.
In a century in which we speak of an intellectual reawakening and a
brotherhood of man, we have forgotten the _voice_! Yet in this new era
of humanity that is learning brotherly love and striving for peace,
the voice plays a part analogous to that of the trumpet-call in the
centuries consecrated to war.
As a matter of fact, our schools so far neglect defects of speech that
it is not uncommon to hear a stammerer undergoing examinations for a
degree in jurisprudence. The fact that an otherwise cultured man lisps
or stammers is treated by us as quite an indifferent matter, just
as among savage tribes a king may have unclean nails without anyone
observing the fact.
Yet it is now known that stammering may usually be cured by a
systematic training in the art of breathing.
Respiratory gymnastics ought to constitute one of the principal courses
of instruction in schools for children. I have introduced it into the
"Children's Houses," among children between the ages of four and six,
combining it with a special instruction in written language (letters of
the alphabet), designed to _educate_ _the movements_ of the organs of
speech, without worrying or tiring the children, and this method has
borne such good results that our little ones, by the time they are five
years old, have lost nearly all their defects in pronunciation.
=Spirometry.=--The _pulmonary capacity_ may be measured directly by
means of an instrument called the _spirometer_; the breath must be
strongly expelled through a tube opening into a hollow cylinder, thus
raising a graduated piston contained in it; and, by reading the figure
indicated on the piston-rod, we learn the volume of air expelled from
the lungs.
Such an instrument is better adapted for use by adults than by
children; and if it should ever come to be introduced into the
schools, it should not in any case be used below the elementary grades.
The person who is going to measure the capacity of his lungs by means
of the spirometer, begins by drawing in an unusually deep or _forced
inhalation_; then, after holding his breath for a moment, he proceeds
to expel into the rubber tube all the air in his lungs, in a _forced
exhalation_. In an exercise of this sort, all the difficulties of
respiratory gymnastics are successively surmounted--inspiration,
respiratory pause, expiration.
In fact, in accomplishing the _forced inspiration_, all the pulmonary
alveoli must be dilated to the maximum extent, and at the same time
the thorax must reach its _maximum dilation_. This is a very different
matter from normal inspiration, which does not completely dilate the
alveoli. As a matter of fact, the _tidal air_ or _air of respiration_,
_i.e._, the air taken in and expelled in each normal respiration,
is about 500 cubic centimetres; but the sum total of air habitually
contained in the lungs is made up of two quantities: first, that which
may be emitted by a _forced expiration_, the _supplemental_ _or reserve
air_, amounting to 1,600 cubic centimetres; and secondly, the air which
cannot ever be emitted, because no amount of effort could completely
expel all the air from the lungs; _residual air_ or _respiratory
residuum_ amounting to 1,200 cubic centimetres. To recapitulate,
the average pulmonary capacity is the sum of the following average
quantities of air:
_Residual air, or respiratory residuum_
(which can never be expelled from the lungs) = 1200 cu. cm.
Respiratory reserve
(which can be expelled by a forced expiration) = 1600 cu. cm.
Tidal air = 500 cu. cm.
Complementary air
(which can be drawn in by a forced inspiration) = 1670 cu. cm.
Accordingly, the total pulmonary capacity is about 5,000 cubic
centimetres, or five litres. But in normal respiration, the capacity is
less, _i.e._, about 3,300 cubic centimetres, the air due to a forced
inspiration not being included.
Therefore, in each normal respiration a half litre of pure air
(assuming that it is pure) is introduced and mingled with the vitiated
air already within the lungs; and since, in expiration, a third only
of this 500 cubic centimetres is eliminated, it follows that 166 cubic
centimetres are mingled with the 3,300 cubic centimetres; in other
words, that only one-tenth of the air is renewed in each _normal_ act
of respiration.
A very energetic forced _inspiration_ may draw into the lungs, in
addition to the customary 500 cubic centimetres, an additional 1,670
cubic centimetres of pure air, _complementary air_. In this case the
lungs contain upward of 5,000 cubic centimetres of air.
The _forced expiration_ which follows upon this extra deep inhalation
_purges_ the lungs of the vitiated air which has formed there. In this
way we complete an exercise that is eminently hygienic.
Now, these spirometric movements are fraught with difficulties: 1. The
forced inspiration, deep enough to extend the alveoli, may be more or
less complete. If a cloth wrung out in cold water is laid across the
shoulders, the _inspiration_ which follows as a result of reflex action
is far deeper than that produced by an act of will; this proves that
the lungs can be dilated to a point beyond that which seems to us to be
the extreme limit, and therefore that _with_ _practice_ we may learn to
dilate our lungs still further.
2. When the attempt is made to _hold the breath_ after a forced
inspiration, almost everyone at the first trials will allow more or
less of the air to escape; that is, they will discover themselves
incapable of controlling their own organs of respiration; therefore,
a gymnastic exercise for acquiring such control is necessary. This is
the exercise which will make us masters of the movements required to
produce vocal sounds at pleasure.
3. A slow expiration so controlled as to give time for the air to
penetrate into the spirometer, is accomplished, though somewhat
unevenly, the first few times, and is perfected with practice.
It results from the above that: 1. We take in less air than we are
able to take in; 2. part of this air is lost outside the spirometer;
consequently the spirometer registers a pulmonary capacity below that
which the lungs actually have; and we shall find that, with _practice_,
the volumetric figure will successively augment. But the pulmonary
capacity has not augmented in proportion; it is only that _practice
has perfected_ the respiratory movements. Accordingly, the spirometer
may serve as an instrument to test the progress made in respiratory
gymnastics, and, in the case of those who have already become _skilful
in its use_, it becomes a really valuable instrument for measuring the
respiratory capacity.
When we remember that a portion of the air, _i.e._, 1,200 cubic
centimetres, never issues from the lungs, it follows that the
_respiratory_ _capacity_ is less by 1,200 cubic centimetres than the
_pulmonary_ _capacity_, which, as we have seen, is on an average
upward of 5,000 cubic centimetres (5,370) in the adult man. Hence,
the spirometer directly measures the _respiratory capacity_, and only
indirectly the pulmonary capacity.
When women measure their lungs by means of the spirometer, they have
difficulty in registering 2,000 cubic centimetres, and men have
difficulty in attaining 2,600 cubic centimetres. Instead of which,
a man ought to be able to register between 3,800 and 4,000 cubic
centimetres.
What keeps the lungs healthy is an abundant aeration with air rich
in oxygen, and not impure with carbon dioxide and other poisonous
gases. When the pulmonary air-cells are insufficiently dilated, they
are predisposed to attack by the bacillus of tuberculosis. Indeed,
pulmonary tuberculosis usually begins at the _apexes of the lungs_,
which are less thoroughly aerated, and also usually attacks persons
with narrow chests. The _treatment_ of tuberculosis is eminently a
_fresh-air treatment_; tuberculous patients may be benefited and even
cured in a remarkable percentage of cases (50 per cent.) if they are
exposed day and night to the open air. In this way the relation between
free respiration and pulmonary health is demonstrated.
In America at the present time the hygienic rule of sleeping at night,
winter and summer, with the windows open, is gaining ground, and even
the practice of sleeping in the open air. And the various forms of
_sport_ also have the beneficial effect of bringing those who indulge
in them into a healthy contact with fresh air, which civilised man has
shown a fatal tendency to abandon.
The same exercise which dilates the lungs (the contents) also dilates
the thorax (the container). The result is that man ends by acquiring
the thorax corresponding to his vocation, or in other words, a thorax
corresponding to the life that he leads in consequence of the form of
work to which he devotes himself. Shepherds in mountain districts and
mountain peasants have the largest thorax, notwithstanding, as we have
seen, that they are more scantily nourished. In cities, the maximum
average circumference of chest is found among the cart-drivers, and
the minimum among university students and in general among those who
have grown up in an inclosed environment, with the thorax artificially
cramped by the position assumed while writing or reading at a desk; yet
this is the class of persons who have abundant nutriment.
Consequently, we find a division of air and bread between different
social castes; those who have air, do not have bread, and they possess
large lungs, out of proportion to bodies which, being underfed, have
been unable to grow; and those who have bread do not have air, and
they possess lungs that are insufficient for the needs of bodies that
have grown under the influence of abundant nutrition. Consequently,
all civilised men are physiologically out of equilibrium, and their
physical health is lessened. But those who suffer most from this loss
of equilibrium are the _studious_ class, who have nourished themselves
upon hopes and opened their minds to great ideas, and deluded
themselves into undertaking big enterprises; but in real action they
find that they are weak, and that they easily fall into discouragement
and depression, and when their will-power forces them onward, their
organism responds with nervous prostration and melancholia.
It is a sad fact that at the present day the best energies of man reach
maturity possessed of insufficient lungs, and consequently liable to
break down in health, energy and strength.
A large part of the _studious_ class, such, for instance, as the
teachers, are at the present day devoting themselves to a form of work
which is not a pulmonary exercise, but pulmonary _destruction_.
We must remember that healthy exercise of the lungs should take
place in the open air, and consists of indrawn breaths deep enough
to _dilate_ the air-chambers. Instead of this, the teacher _speaks_,
which means that he makes _forced expirations_, during many hours in an
enclosed environment and in an assemblage of persons who, for the most
part, are far from clean. The bacillus of tuberculosis finds in the
teacher its favourite camping-ground. In fact, statistics indicate that
the maximum mortality from tuberculosis is among teachers; higher even
than among nurses. It is really distressing to think of the ignorance
of hygiene in which our schools are even yet steeped, so that they
seem forgetful of the body, in their pursuit of a spirit that eludes
them and that, as a matter of fact, is not being educated in anything
approaching a rational manner.
When we enter a class-room, we see rows of benches constructed like
orthopedic machines, to the end that the vertical columns of the pupils
shall not be distorted during their enforced labour; and the thought
arises: this is the spot in which the teacher becomes a consumptive
for the sake of transforming the children into hunchbacks. What is
the reward of so great a sacrifice? What sort of a preparation in
ideals and in character are they giving to the new generations through
such disastrous means? What are the obstacles which they are being
taught, through so much suffering, to surmount and to conquer? What,
in short, is the spiritual gain achieved at the cost of so great an
impoverishment of the body?
The answering silence that greets these questions indicates that we
have a great mission to accomplish.
Anthropological studies made upon pupils have demonstrated that
school-children rarely attain a sufficient chest development. I
also have made my modest contribution, proving that the brightest
scholars, the prize-winners, etc., who, as a general rule, also enjoy
an advantage in social position, have a _narrower chest measure_.
Among the children that are recognised as the brightest in their
classes, I have been able to distinguish two categories: those who are
exceptionally intelligent, and those who are exceptionally studious;
the former have a better chest development than the latter.
Signorina Massa, one of my pupils at the University, in the course of
kindred studies made among pupils of a uniform social grade (the poorer
classes) observed that the _best_ and _brightest_ scholars, etc., have
a chest circumference and a muscular strength notably inferior to the
children who are not studious. There can be no doubt that an assiduous
application to the study table impoverishes the organism and above all
impedes the normal development of the thorax. This fact has a really
overwhelming importance. Study the tables of mortality in Italy for
infective diseases, _i.e._, those diseases in which mankind meets the
assault of the microscopic invader either with a strong constitution,
or with one already predisposed to defeat. The most dreaded diseases,
such as diphtheria, typhoid, measles and scarlet fever are all grouped
together under a mortality oscillating between five and twenty-five
thousand deaths a year. But bronchitis and pneumonia each cause a
mortality that ascends to between seventy and eighty thousand deaths;
in this group it is evident that we must take into consideration, not
only the infected environment, but also the organic predisposition.
Every man and woman has been prepared, by their years in school, to
have in the form of a narrow chest and an insufficient development of
the organs of respiration, a _locus minoris resistentiæ_. Whoever talks
of the _war against tuberculosis_ ought first of all to investigate the
school and its pedagogic methods.
=Anthropological Aspect.= _Growth of the Thorax._--In the course of its
growth the thorax undergoes an evolution, not only in itself, but also
in its relation to the vertebral column.
[Illustration: FIG. 124.]
The nature of the transformations undergone by the skeleton of the
trunk in relation to its different parts is substantially as follows:
in the child at birth the vertebral column is straight, and the thorax
is higher up than in the adult; the pelvis, on the contrary, slants
forward and downward. In the adult the vertebral column is curved in
the form of an S, showing the two-familiar dorsal-lumbar curves, and
the axes of the thorax and pelvis are more perceptibly horizontal; in
short, in the course of growth a _descent of the thorax_ has taken
place, together with a _rotation_ of the pelvis (Fig. 124).
A. _Descent of the Thorax._--This is the chief of these
characteristics: the thorax descends in the course of its growth.
In the new-born child the upper edge of the manubrium of the sternum
is in juxtaposition to the body of the first dorsal vertebra, while in
the adult it is situated on a level with the lower edge of the second
vertebra.
Even the tendinous arch of the diaphragm has shifted, being lowered by
the space of a vertebra; it is situated between the eighth and ninth
vertebræ in the child at birth, and between the ninth and tenth in the
adult.
The outside characteristics are in correspondence with this fact; the
shoulders descend in the course of growth. In the adult, the acromia or
points of the shoulders are on a lower level than the incisura or cleft
in the sternum (which is visible at the anterior base of the neck, and
may be felt as an indented half-moon); while in the new-born child, on
the contrary, the shoulders are higher up than the upper extremity of
the sternum.
Another external characteristic of the descent of the thorax is the
change in position of the nipples at successive ages; the mammary
papillæ of the adult correspond to the level of the lower extremity of
the sternum, and are situated respectively at the central points of the
two halves of the thorax; in the new-born child, on the contrary, the
mammary papillæ are further apart and higher up.
[Illustration: FIG. 125.--A = vertex of triangle; B B' = extremities of
base, corresponding to the two nipples.]
These characteristics of the _descent_ of the thorax are fully
established in the period of puberty and are of great importance,
since, if not completed, they indicate cases of arrest of development
or _infantilism_.
Quétélet has made a study of the _triangulation_ of the thorax (Fig.
125).
If the two nipples and the sternal incisura are connected by straight
lines inclosing an isosceles triangle _ABB´_, the length of the base in
the new-born child is 70 millimetres, and that of the sides _BA_, _B´A_
is 54 millimetres, and the height 41 millimetres.
In the adult the dimensions are as follows: _BB´_ = 197 millimetres;
_AB_, _AB´_= 184 millimetres; and the height = 155 millimetres.
Comparing the measurements of the child at birth with those of the
adult, we find that the base in the adult is 2.81 times, and the
side 3.41 times that of the child; in other words, the sides of the
triangle increase far more than the base, and its height in the adult
(representing very nearly the entire height of the sternum), is 3.78
times that in the new-born child. Consequently, in the course of its
transformation the thorax not only descends, but it is also lengthened
in the adult, as compared with the form that it had at birth.
B. _Dimensions of Thorax in Relation to Stature._--Besides its
_descent_, there is a second transformation of the thorax, in regard
to its volumetric relations to the rest of the body. The perimeter of
the thorax and the circumference of the head are pretty nearly equal
in the new-born child; if anything, the circumference of the thorax is
a _trifle less_ than that of the head; but when it equals it, this is
a sign of _robustness_. In the majority of cases it is not until the
second year or thereabouts that the two circumferences become equal.
If, however, such inequality should still persist after the child had
entered upon the third year, it would constitute a sign of _rickets_
(head too large, chest too narrow).
As to the relations between the thoracic circumference and the stature,
it is found that in the child at birth the thoracic circumference
exceeds one-half the stature by about 10 centimetres. If the difference
is less than 8 centimetres it is a sign of feeble constitution, if it
is greater than 10 (for instance, 11 centimetres) it is a sign of great
robustness.
This difference disappears little by little; at the age of five years
it is already reduced to between 4 and 5 centimetres; at the age of
fifteen, the period of puberty, it has wholly disappeared, and the
well-known relation between the stature and the circumference of the
thorax has become established; the thoracic circumference is equal to
one-half the stature (see chapter on _Form_), and this constitutes
Goldstein's _vital index_:
_Vi_ = (100×_Tc_)/(_S_)
As early as 1895, Pagliani published some studies of children, which
reveal the _physiological_ importance of the dimensions of the thorax;
watching the lives of infants whose measurements he took at the
foundling asylum, he observed that the _mortality_ of infants is quite
rare when they exceed the above proportions between circumference of
chest, head, and stature.
From a study of 452 infants, Fraebelius has drawn the following
conclusions:
I. Mortality 21 per cent.; circumference of thorax greater than half
the stature by 9.10 centimetres; circumference of thorax less by 1.5
centimetres than perimeter of cranium.
II. Mortality 42.9 per cent.; circumference of thorax greater by 7
centimetres than one-half the stature; circumference of thorax less by
2.8 centimetres than circumference of cranium.
III. Mortality 67.5 per cent.; circumference of thorax greater by 4.5
centimetres than one-half the stature; circumference of thorax less by
4.7 centimetres than the cranial circumference.
The thorax in children of five years and upward ought to be larger by a
few centimetres (not more than from 4 to 5) than one-half the stature.
_C. Transformations of the Thorax Considered by Itself: Alterations_
_in Shape._
_Thoracic Index._--Lastly, the thorax changes its shape in the course
of growth. In the new-born child it is very prominent in front,
and narrow laterally; in the adult, on the contrary, it is more
flattened in its antero-posterior dimension and wider transversely.
Consequently the transformation consists in a notable difference in the
proportion between the width and depth of the chest, that is, between
the antero-posterior and the transverse diameters (see chapter on
_Technique_). This proportion constitutes the _thoracic_ _index_, which
is expressed by the following formula:
_Ti_ = (100A-_PD_)/_TD_
and this formula gives an idea of the _shape_ of the thorax.
In the child at birth the antero-posterior diameter is very nearly
equal to the transverse; accordingly, the index, at birth, oscillates
between 90 and 100.
In the adult, however, the thoracic index is on an average 75;
the transverse diameter therefore increases much more than the
antero-posterior diameter. According to Quétélet, while the transverse
diameter multiplies threefold in the course of its growth, the
antero-posterior merely doubles (2.36); in addition to this the thorax
also lengthens, as we have already seen.
_Proportion, Shape and Dimensions of the Thorax._--In the adult normal
man we find the following proportions: The distance between the mammary
papillæ is about equal to the antero-posterior diameter of the thorax
(hence the papillæ indicate the depth of chest) and is also perceptibly
equal to one-half the breadth of the shoulders (measured between the
two acromia), which, by the way, is the maximum transverse dimension of
the skeleton.
This maximum dimension (the biacromial distance) may be regarded as an
index of the skeletal development; and Godin takes its proportion to
the _transverse thoracic diameter_ (the horizontal distance between
the two vertical lines drawn from the arm-pits, in the plane of the
mammary papillæ, see Chapter VII, _Technique_) in order to estimate
the proportional relation between the skeleton and the organs of
respiration. Since in the course of growth the thorax _broadens_, that
is, the transverse diameter increases more than the antero-posterior,
we should expect to find that in the course of evolution, the
difference between the transverse development of the skeleton and the
lateral development of the thorax steadily diminishes.
It happens, on the contrary, that from the age of ten years onward,
during the whole puberal development, the transverse diameter of
the thorax steadily becomes less, as compared with the breadth of
the shoulders, so much so that if the difference was at first 97
millimetres, it becomes finally 116 millimetres. According to Godin,
this indicates that the thorax does not obey the harmonic laws of the
development of the skeleton as a whole, but that, owing to causes
of adaptation (the school!) it remains definitely inferior to the
development which it might have attained, and consequently results in
throwing the organism _out of its physiological equilibrium_. In fact,
if we make men raise their arms, especially men of the student class,
a certain hollowness, which is æsthetically displeasing, is revealed
along the sides of the thorax. This deficiency is corroborated,
according to Godin's studies, by his observation of another
correspondence in the measurements of the thorax. In addition to the
customary measurements, Godin introduced, besides the well-known and
classic _thoracic perimeter_--which is the circumference taken in the
horizontal plane passing through the nipples--two other circumferences:
one of them higher up, the _subaxillary circumference_, which includes
a large proportion of the pectoral and dorsal muscles; and the other
lower down, the _submammary circumference_, which determines solely the
measurement of the thoracic skeleton, since the intercostal muscles
are practically the only ones which descend to this level. These two
circumferences are to be considered together, according to Godin, as
expressing the relation between the organs of respiration and the
muscular mass. In complete repose, the subaxillary circumference
is much greater than the submammary; but at the moment of _maximum
inspiration_ the latter should become equal to the former; hence, the
difference between the submammary circumference in repose and during
inspiration furnishes an indirect index of the _respiratory capacity_,
and the subaxillary circumference is a test of individual capacity.
Godin notes that inspiration _almost never_ succeeds in attaining an
equality between the two circumferences.
_Shape of the Thorax._--In regard to the shape, which stands in
relation to the _thoracic index_, it is found to vary according to
individual _types_; in fact the index itself, although showing a mean
average of 75, oscillates between the extremes of 65 and 85. As a
general rule, the brachycephalic races have a deeper thorax, _i.e._,
having a cross-section of more rounded form; the dolichocephalics, on
the contrary, have a more flattened thorax in the antero-posterior
direction (these races, such as the negroes, are more predisposed
to contract pulmonary tuberculosis). Consequently there is a
correspondence in _type_ between the head and the thorax. In the
measurements taken by me among the women of Latium the results show
that the brachycephalics had an average depth of thorax amounting to
188 millimetres and the dolichocephalics only 181 millimetres, while
the transverse diameters were very nearly equal: 241 millimetres in the
brachycephalics, and 240 millimetres in the dolichocephalics. Hence,
the resultant thoracic index of 78 for the brachycephalics and 75 for
the dolichocephalics.
Such differences in the index indicate also differences in the
formation of the thorax: that it is more or less flattened in the
dolichocephalics, and more prominent in the brachycephalics. There is
a corresponding diversity of form in the breasts of the women: the
dolichocephalic races have more elongated breasts (pear-shaped), the
brachycephalics more rounded.
The shape of the thoracic section is at the present time taken into
careful consideration, especially in medicine, because it is apt to
reveal predispositions to diseases.
It may be obtained by the aid of the cyrtometer (see chapter on
_Technique_). At the present day, however, exceedingly complicated
instruments have been constructed, which, by the aid of recording
indexes, give a direct representation of the shape of the thoracic
perimeter, together with its modifications and respiratory oscillations.
Since these instruments are, for the present, very far removed from
widespread practical use, we may adopt as an excellent method for
determining the shape and, at the same time, the dimensions of the
thorax, that of Maurel, in his research regarding "the square surface
of the thoracic section."
Having determined the anthropometric points, Maurel passes strips of
metal (stiff enough to retain the shape given them) around the thorax,
after the fashion of a tape-measure, first around one half, and then
around the other.
Next he places these metal strips (_still retaining the shape given_
_them_ by contact with the thorax), upon a sheet of especially prepared
paper, marked in squares, and traces upon it the _inner outline_ _of
the strips_.
The two halves must be made to coincide in such a manner as to
reproduce faithfully the thoracic section, both in form and in
dimension.
By adding up the squares contained within the outline we obtain the
area of the section.
[Illustration: FIG. 126.]
This method is the only really rational method for studying the thorax;
and its simplicity, practicality and graphic representation recommend
it as a valuable aid to pedagogic anthropology.
There is, for example, an abnormal form of thorax, which I have very
often met with in deficient children. It consists in an exaggerated
curve of the posterior costal arches, which consequently form a very
sharp angle with the vertebral column, which is notably indented,
while the sternum is also depressed in a groove, and occupies a plane
posterior to that of the ribs. The section of the thorax, in this case,
approaches the form of a figure 8; and the thoracic perimeter would
not represent the true measurement because it would include the empty
spaces left by the front and back depressions. The thoracic index
would also give a false idea of the facts, because the antero-posterior
diameter would be nowhere so short as at the centres of measurement for
this diameter.
The only method for representing the true shape and area of this type
of thorax is that employed by Maurel.
_Anomalies of Shape._--In addition to the preceding anomaly, very
frequent in degenerates, and associated with a _deficient development_
_of the lungs_ and with physical weakness, there are numerous other
anomalies. Among others, those that principally deserve attention are
the funnel-shaped or _consumptive thorax_, in which the longitudinal
diameter is excessive; the thoracic frame is greatly elongated and
the ribs descend to a very low level; this type of thorax is frequent
in neuropathic women, and, according to Féré, is associated with
degeneration.
The opposite form is the _barrel-shaped thorax_, in which the
prevailing diameter is the antero-posterior; it is very prominent and
is frequently met with in persons who are subject to forms of asthma,
maladies of the heart, etc.
The _bell-shaped_ thorax is similar to the preceding, but is
characterised by an accompanying exceptional brevity of the
longitudinal diameter, which causes it to resemble the infantile thorax
(arrest of morphological development).
The _grooved_ thorax is the one described above as common among the
mentally deficient.
A considerable importance attaches to a form of thorax distinguished
by the _shortness of the clavicles_, in consequence of which the chest
remains flat, paralytic or _flat thorax_ (_habitus phthisicus_).
The flattened appearance is due to the fact that the chest cannot
rise in front, and the shoulders, being cramped by the shortness of
the clavicles, curve forward, while the scapulæ stand out from the
plane of the back and spread themselves like wings (scapulæ alatæ).
I have met with this form in deficients, accompanied by such _laxity
of articulations_, that it was possible to grasp the points of the
shoulders and draw them together until they very nearly met in front.
This form of thorax is characteristically predisposed to pulmonary
tuberculosis, and is frequently met with in the macroscelous types.
The commonest deformities of the thorax are those associated with
_rachitis_.
One of the forms regarded as being rachitic in origin is the
_keel-shaped_ _thorax_, in which the sternum is thrust forward and
isolated along its median line, like the keel of a boat.
But the thoracic deformities due unquestionably to rickets are of the
well-known types that go popularly under the name of _hunchback_,
and are accompanied by curvatures of the vertebral column. The first
admonitory symptoms are shown by the so-called _rachitic rosary_,
_i.e._, by the small swellings due to enlargement of the ends of the
ribs at their point of attachment to the sternum. Subsequently, the
softened ribs become misshapen in various ways, especially from the
fourth rib downward, the upper ribs being fastened and sustained by the
thoracic girdle and by the muscles. The curvatures of the vertebral
column which accompany rickets are _scoliosis_ or lateral deviation
(frequent in school-children) and _kyphosis_, or deviation in a
backward curve; for the most part these two curvatures occur together,
so that the vertebral column is thrust outward and at the same time is
twisted to one side: _kyphoscoliosis_.
=Pedagogical Considerations.=--The following considerations are the
natural sequence of what has been said above. Deficiency of the thorax
is one of the _stigmata_ left by the school, which in this way tends to
make the younger generations feeble and physiologically unbalanced.
The exaggerated importance which is given to the _school_ _benches_ for
the purpose of avoiding deformities of the vertebral column deserves
to be put aside and forgotten, as an aberration of false hygiene. The
bench will not prevent restriction of the thorax; before reaching the
critical point which the improved school bench is intended to prevent,
many impoverishments of the organism, fatal to robustness and health,
and often to _life itself_ (predisposition to tuberculosis!) have
been incurred; and there is no other remedy to obviate them than a
_reform in pedagogic methods_. The admonitory fact that neglected,
despised, half-starved children have an enormous _advantage_ in the
development of the thorax over the more intelligent children who are
well-fed and carefully guarded, and solely because the former are free
to run the streets, ought to point the direction in which we should
look for means of helping the new generations hygienically. They have
need of free movement and of air. The recreation rooms which tend to
keep the children of the street shut up indoors even during recess
are taking from the children of the people the sole advantage that
still remained to them. Try to realize that these children are obliged
to sleep in dark, crowded environments, and that every night, during
the period of sleep, they suffer from such acute poisoning by carbon
dioxide that they frequently awaken in the morning with severe pains
in the head. The life of the streets is their salvation. We condemn
children to death, under the delusion that we are working for their
moral good; a perverted human soul may be led back to righteousness;
but a consumptive chest can never again become robust. Let those who
talk of education and morality and similar themes be sure that they are
benefactors and not executioners, and let those who wish to do good
seek the light of science.
Curvatures of the vertebral column, such as lordosis and kyphosis,
cannot be considered solely in relation to the thorax, but in
relation to the pelvis as well, because, especially in lordosis, the
lumbar vertebræ are also involved, while the pelvis also suffers a
characteristic deformity.
CHAPTER IV
THE PELVIS
_Anatomical Note._--The five lumbar, the five sacral and the four
coccygeal vertebræ constitute the lumbar and sacro-coccygeal section of
the vertebral column.
[Illustration: FIG. 127.--Skeleton of Pelvis, Seen from Above.]
The _sacrum_, formed by the union of the five sacral vertebræ, appears
in the adult in the form of a bone that narrows rapidly from above
downward in a general curve whose convex side is turned inward. The
coccyx has the importance of being a real and actual caudal appendage,
reduced in man to its simplest anatomical expression. On each side
of the sacrum the two ossa innominata or hip-bones are attached,
constituting a sort of massive girdle (cintura pelvica), serving as
point of attachment for the lower limbs, while at the same time it
sustains the entire weight of the body and the abdominal viscera. These
two bones are made up of three separate parts: an upper part, very
broad and rather thin (the ilium, which constitutes the flank or hip),
one in front (the os pubis), and a third behind, quite massive, and
shaped like the letter V (the ischium). The two ossa innominata and
the os sacrum form the pelvis or pelvic basin, a broad cavity with bony
walls that are by no means complete, within which are a portion of the
digestive organs and a considerable part of the organs belonging to the
genito-urinary system. The pelvis supports the vertebral column and is
in turn supported by the lower limbs, in quite marvellous equilibrium.
The maximum sexual differences of the skeleton are in relation to the
pelvis; in woman the iliac bones form a far ampler basin; in man, the
pelvis is higher and more confined and formed of more solid bones;
but it is not broader. But where the difference is most apparent is
in the pelvic _aperture_ (see Fig. 127) which divides the pelvis into
two parts, the upper or great pelvis and the lower or small pelvis.
This aperture has distinguishing marks that differ widely between the
sexes; in woman it is rounder, in man it is more elongated from front
to back and is narrowed toward the pubis. One of the most important
points of measurement in anthropology and in obstetrics is the extreme
anterior apex of the superior border of the ilium or _crista iliaca
antero-superior_. The woman in whom this dimension (the bis-iliac)
is less than 250 millimetres cannot give birth naturally; similarly
the woman who has a prominent os pubis (due to rachitis) will owe the
attainment of maternity to the intervention of surgery, and perhaps
even of the Cæsarean operation.
There are also many ethnical differences in the pelvis: brachycephalics
(the mongolian race) have a broader and shallower pelvis than the
dolichocephalics, who, on the contrary, have a deeper and narrower
pelvis (the negroes). The same thing is met with, notwithstanding its
intermixture, in our own race: blond, brachycephalic women have a wider
pelvis than brunette, dolichocephalic women.
Accordingly, cranium, thorax and pelvis correspond in one and the same
ethnic type.
The abdomen extends from the arch of the diaphragm to the lower
extremity of the pelvis. It contains all the viscera of alimentation:
the digestive system together with the glands belonging to it; the
liver and pancreas, besides the renal system and, in women, the organs
of generation (uterus and ovaries). The diaphragmatic arch, having its
convex side uppermost, enters the thoracic frame as far as the first
dorsal vertebra. The intestinal mass is more noticeable and prominent
in persons having a narrow pelvis; in children, for example, the
abdomen is very prominent.
_Growth of the Pelvis._--In the skeleton of the new-born child the
pelvis differs from that of the adult in two particulars: _height_ and
_direction_. The pelvis is low in the new-born child and higher in the
adult. The central axis is more oblique from front to back (in the
higher mammals the axis of the pelvis is almost central); in the adult,
on the contrary, this axis tends to straighten up, to the point of
becoming nearly vertical, in relation, that is, to the erect position
of man. Hence in the course of growth the pelvis not only becomes
proportionally higher, but it undergoes a rotary movement around the
cotyloid axis; this movement has the effect of elevating the pubis and
bringing the ischium forward.
[Illustration: FIG. 128.]
The vertebral column rests upon the sacrum, which is the retro-cotyloid
portion of the pelvis, and its pressure tends mechanically to
straighten the pelvis (see diagram, Fig. 128). This process of
straightening has certain limits, and is dependent upon the _form
of curvature_ of the vertebral column; if this is exaggerated, as
in lordosis, the weight is thrown further forward, almost over the
cotyles; consequently, the elevation of the pelvis is not properly
accomplished (low pelvis found in lordotics). If, on the contrary, the
lumbar curvature is wanting or reversed (kyphosis), the pressure of
the column is thrown backward and the straightening up of the pelvis
is exaggerated (high pelvis found in kyphotics). Independently of
pathological deformities, there are various forms of lumbar curvature
in the vertebral column that are normal oscillations, or oscillations
acquired through adaptation.
An exaggerated lumbar curvature or saddle-back is found in children
accustomed to carry heavy loads upon their shoulders; a diminished
curvature is found in children constrained to remain in a sitting
posture for many hours a day. The sitting posture tends to cancel the
lumbar inward curve; consequently, while children are in school they
are promoting the elevation of their pelvis.
The elevation of the pelvis proceeds rapidly at the fifteenth year,
during puberty, when the muscular masses become more solid.
A woman is not fitted for motherhood, even if physically developed,
so long as her pelvis has not rotated normally. But if the rotation
is exaggerated (due to prolonged sitting posture during years of
growth), this is very unfavourable to normal childbirth. In rickets,
associated with kyphosis, there is a form of exaggerated rotated pelvis
(pubis high). The laborious "modern" childbirth, and the dangerous
childbirth in the case of women who have devoted much time to study,
must be considered in connection with these artificial anomalies. _Free
movement_ and gymnastics have for this reason, in the case of women, an
importance that extends from the individual to the species.
CHAPTER V
THE LIMBS
The study of the limbs is of great importance, because, although it is
the special province of the bust to contain the organs of vegetative
life, it is the limbs which render it useful. In fact, it is the lower
limbs which control our locomotion and the upper limbs which execute
the labour of mankind.
One characteristic of man, equally with that of standing in an erect
position, supported only on the lower limbs, is the independence of
the upper limbs, which are raised from the ground and relieved of the
function of locomotion--a function that still continues in all other
mammals, excepting the anthropoid apes, whose upper limbs are extremely
long and barely escape the earth, and serve the animal merely as an aid
and a support in walking. The birds, although supported on their hind
limbs alone, nevertheless have their fore limbs assigned to the sole
office of wings for the transportation of their bodies.
Consequently, the free and disposable upper limb, peculiar to mankind,
would seem to mark a new function in the biologic scale--human labour.
_Anatomy of the Skeleton of the Limbs._--In contrast to the bust,
the limbs have an internal skeleton, adapted solely to the function
of support (not of protection). The bones are covered with masses
of striped muscles, which have as their special function voluntary
movement, that is to say, obedience to the brain.
The upper and lower limbs correspond numerically, and the arrangement
of the bones is analogous; and this holds true for all the higher
vertebrates. The nearest bones, those that are attached to the trunk,
are single in all four limbs. Then, just as though branching out, they
next double in number, and then multiply successively as we approach
the extremities of the limbs. Thus the forearm and the lower leg have
two bones, and the hands and feet have many.
In the upper arm we have the humerus, in the thigh the _femur_, in the
forearm the _ulna_ and _radius_ (the ulna is situated on the same side
as the little finger and the radius on that of the thumb), in the lower
leg the _tibia_ and _fibula_. Then come the many short bones (eight in
the carpus and seven in the tarsus) which in the hand form the wrist or
_carpus_, and in the foot the ankle or instep, the _tarsus_. These are
followed by other long bones (five in the hand and five in the foot),
which constitute the _metacarpus_ and _metatarsus_, and these in turn
by the long bones of the _phalanges_ (fingers and toes), which grow
successively smaller toward the extremities and are successively named
_proximal_, _middle_ and _distal_ _phalanges_ (_phalangettes_). These
last are missing in the thumb and the big toe. In conjunction with the
last phalanges, the fingers and toes are protected by nails.
_The Growth of the Limbs._--Recent studies, conducted principally
by Godin in France, author of the classic work upon growth, have
demonstrated that the long bones of the limbs obey certain special laws
of biologic growth.
While a long bone is growing in length it does not grow in width or
thickness, and while it is increasing in thickness it does not gain in
length; hence the lengthening of the bones takes place in alternate
periods; during the period of repose relative to growth in length, the
bone gains in thickness.
I have already explained, in connection with the stature, that we owe
the growth of the long bones to a variety of formative elements, the
cartilages of the epiphyses, which control the growth in length of the
long bones, and the enveloping membrane of the body of the bone, the
periosteum, which presides over the growth in thickness.
The above mentioned alternation in the growth of the bones must
therefore be attributed to an alternation in the action of these
various formative elements of the bones.
In the case of two successive long bones (for example, the humerus
and radius, the femur and tibia, the metacarpus and phalanges, etc.),
they alternate in their growth; while one of them is lengthening, the
other is thickening; consequently the growth of a limb in length is
not simultaneous in all the bones, but takes place alternately in the
successive bones. During the time when the growth devolves upon the
longest bone, the limbs show the greatest rate of increase in length,
and when, on the contrary, it devolves upon the shortest bone, the
growth is less; but in either case it continues to grow.
The growth of the long bones of the limbs proceeds by alternate periods
of activity and repose, which succeed each other regularly.
These periods of activity and repose occur inversely in each two
successive bones.
The periods of repose from growth in length are utilised for gain
in thickness, and reciprocally. The long bones lengthen and thicken
alternately, and not simultaneously.
It is only at the age of puberty (fifteenth year) that a complete
simultaneity of growth takes place, after which epoch the growth in
stature and length of limb diminishes, yielding precedence to that of
the vertebral column.
When the complete development of the bodily _proportions_ is attained
(eighteenth year), the length of the lower limbs is equal to one-half
the stature.
When the upper limbs are extended vertically along the sides of the
body, the tip of the middle finger reaches the middle point of the
thigh, while the wrist coincides with the ischium (hip-bone). The total
spread of the arms is, on an average, equal in length to the stature.
The proportions between the lower limbs and the bust, resulting from
the attainment of complete individual development, determine the types
of stature: _macroscelia_ and _brachyscelia_. Since the order of growth
as between the two essential portions of stature is now determined,
we are able to interpret macroscelia as a phenomenon of infantilism
(arrested development of the bust).
_Malformations. Excessive Development of the Nearer and Remoter_
_Segments._--But there are other proportions that are of interest to
us, within the limbs themselves. Even between the nearer and remoter
portions of the limbs there ought to be certain constant relations
(indices) that constitute differential characteristics between the
various human races and between man and the ape. If the humerus or
upper arm is taken as equal to 100, the radius or forearm is equal
to 73 in the European, while in the negro it is equal to about 80.
Furthermore, it is a well-known fact that excessive length of the
forearm is an ape-like characteristic.
Consequently, the measurement of the segments of the limbs is
important, and it is made with a special form of calipers; when the
index of the segments deviates from the accepted normal figure, this
constitutes a serious _anomaly_, frequently found in degenerates,
and it often happens that an excessive development of the remoter
segments, the bones of the extremities, explains the excess of the
total spread of the arms over the stature, unassociated with the
macroscelous type.
_Absence of Calf._--In addition to this fundamental deviation from
normality, there are other malformations worthy of note that may occur
in the limbs. Such, for example, is a deficiency or absence of the
calf of the leg. The well-turned leg, which we admire as an element of
beauty is a distinctive human trait most conspicuous among the races
that we regard as superior. Among the more debased negro races the leg
is spindling and without any calf; furthermore, it is well known that
monkeys have no calves, and still less do they exist among the lower
orders of mammals.
_Flat Feet._--Another important malformation relates to the morphology
of the feet. Everyone knows the distinctive curve or arch of the foot,
and the characteristic imprint which it consequently leaves on the
ground. Sometimes, however, this arch is missing, and the sole of the
foot is all on the same plane (flat foot). The dark-skinned natives of
Australia have flat feet as one of their racial characteristics; in our
own race it constitutes an anomaly that is frequent among degenerates.
Flat feet may also be acquired as the result of certain employments
(butler, door-keeper, etc.), which compel certain individuals to
remain much of the time on foot. But in such cases the deformity is
accompanied by a pathological condition (neuralgic symptoms and local
myalgia). Like all malformations, this may have special importance in
connection with infantile hygiene (the position of the pupil, the work
done by the children, etc.).
_Opposable Big Toe._--Another malformation combined with a functional
anomaly, that is never met with as a deformity resulting from
adaptation, is the opposable big toe. Sometimes the big toe is greatly
developed and slightly curved toward the other toes, and capable of
such movement as to give it a slight degree of opposability; hence the
foot is prehensile. This characteristic, regularly present in monkeys,
is so far developed in certain degenerates as to make it possible for
them to perform work with their feet (knitting stockings, picking up
objects, etc.); so that this class of degenerates, who are essentially
parasites, solve the problem of supporting themselves by trading on the
curiosity of the public, so that, by straining a point, we might bestow
upon them the title of _foot labourers_.
_Loose and Stiff Joints._--Anomalies may also occur in connection
with the articulation of the joints. It sometimes happens that they
are extremely loose and weak, and allow the bones an excessive play of
movement; and, if the lower limbs are thus affected, it increases the
difficulty of maintaining equilibrium when standing erect or walking.
On the other hand, it may happen that the articulations are too stiff,
and consequently render many movements difficult, especially if through
an anomalous development of the outer coating of the bone, it results
in congenital ankylosis.
_Curvature of the Legs._--A special importance attaches to certain
alterations undergone by the heads of the bones which contribute
to the formation of the knee, because of the curvature of the leg
which results from them (rachitis, paralysis). The leg may become
bowed outward or inward; when it is bowed inward (knock-knees, _genu
valgum_), the knees strike together in walking; when, on the contrary,
it is bowed outward, the result is bow-legs (_genu varum_), known
popularly in Italy as "legs of Hercules," a deformity which in a mild
degree may also result from the practice of horse-back riding.
_Club-foot (Talipes)._--Other deviations from the normal position occur
in connection with the foot. Certain paralytic children (Little's
disease) walk on the fore part of the foot (_talipes equinus_, "horse's
foot"); in some cases the foot is also turned inward, and consequently
such children cross their legs as they walk (_talipes_ _equino-varus_).
THE HAND
_Chiromancy and Physiognomy. The Hand in Figurative Speech._ _The High
and Low Type of Hand._--The hand is in the highest degree a human
characteristic. It is man's organ of grasp and of the sense of touch,
while in animals these two functions are relegated to the mouth. The
hand has always claimed the attention not only of scientists but of all
mankind without distinction. Attempts have been made to discover the
secrets of human personality from the hand, and a whole art has been
built up, called _chiromancy_, which endeavours to read from the hand
man's destiny and psychic personality, just as _physiognomy_ was the
art of interpreting the character from the face.
Chiromancy was an accredited art as far back as the days of ancient
Greece, and it also had a great vogue in the middle ages; while to-day
it is out of date and superseded, or perhaps is destined to rise
again in some new form, just as physiognomy has risen again in the
study of "expressions" of the face and the imprints which they leave
behind them. Scientists also have made the hand the object of their
careful consideration; and the result of their researches shows that
the hand really does contain individual characteristics that are
not only interesting but, up to a certain point, are revelations of
personality. A written word, a clasp of the hand, may furnish documents
for the study of the individual. Graphology, for instance, is naturally
related to the functional action and to the characteristics of the hand
itself. Gina Lombroso has recently made a study of the _hand-clasp_ in
its relation to character; when a haughty person offers his hand, he
has the appearance of wishing to thrust you from him; the miser barely
offers the tips of his fingers; the timid man yields a moist and chilly
hand to your touch; the loyal friend makes you feel the whole vigor of
his hand in its cordial pressure.
In the gesture we have an individual form of linguistic expression.
Consequently, man reveals himself, not alone through his creative part,
the head, but also through its obedient servant, the hand. "The hand
is gesture, gesture is visible speech, speech is the soul, the soul is
man, the soul of man is in the hand."
Furthermore, we can judge from the hand whether a man is fitted for
work or not; and it is to work that the hand owes its human importance.
The first traces of mankind upon earth are not remains of skeletons,
but remains of work--the splintered stone. The whole history of social
evolution might be called the history of the hand. To say that the
hand is the servant of the intelligence is to express the truth in too
restricted a way, because the intelligence is nourished and developed
through the products of the hand, as by degrees the work of the latter
transformed the environment. Hence, the history of our intellectual
development, like that of our civilization, is based upon the creative
work evolved by the collaboration of hand and head. And so, in the
orphan asylums, we have the children sing the hymn to the hand, which
is a hymn to labour and to progress:
"Our hand is good for every task."
All the solemn acts of life require the cooperation and sanction of
the hand. We take oath with the hand; marriage is performed by uniting
the hands of the bridal pair; in proof of friendship or to seal a
compact, we clasp hands. The word hand has come to be often used in a
symbolic sense in many expressive phrases possessing a social and moral
significance: "Take heed that the hand of the Lord does not fall upon
you;" "Pilate washed his hands;" "to put oneself into another's hands;"
"to have a lavish hand;" "to sit with idle hands" or "with the hands in
the pockets;" "one hand washes the other;" "to have a hand in the pie;"
"to turn one's hand to something;" "to lend a final hand;" "to speak
with the hand on the heart;" "to believe the evidence of one's hands,"
etc.
And this high and symbolic significance given to the hand dates back
even to bible times:
Solomon says: "The length of days is in her right hand; and in her left
hand riches and honour" (_Prov._ 3, 16).
And Moses: "Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your soul and
bind them for a sign upon your hand" (_Deut._ 11, 18).
Attempts have recently been made to describe the "psychological
types" of the human hand. Zimmermann, for instance, studies two types
of hand: the _high type_, delicate, small, slender, with rounded,
tapering fingers, and convex nails; a hand which would indicate a fine
sensibility, delicate and refined sentiments, a well balanced mind, a
high degree of intelligence, a strong and noble character. And there is
the _low type_, coarse, short and stocky, with thick fingers and flat
nails; an index of sluggish sensibilities, vulgar sentiments and a low
order of intelligence, a weak will and apathetic character.
In accordance with the theories of mechanics, the type of hand has
been considered in relation to its organic use and morphological
adaptation. In general, the hand used in the coarser forms of work is
of the low type; the high type of hand is that required for nimble and
fine movements, in which there is need of the successive concurrence
of all those delicate little groups of muscles which are able to act
independently and thus give to this organ the marvelous and subtle
variety of movements which distinguish it. In regard to dimensions,
the large, heavy hand would betoken use, and the little hand _disuse_.
Therefore, the small hand may be considered as a stigma of parasitism,
a distinction which at the present day has lost its nobility. Excepting
in so far as the "brain workers," who make themselves useful without
employing their hands, may still show a distinctive smallness of these
members.
We should not, however, adhere solely either to the psychological
theory of the hand, or to the theory of adaptation; it is necessary to
consider the characteristics of the hand from several different points
of view.
_Dimensions._--The dimensions of the hand bear a constant relation to
the stature and to certain partial dimensions of the body, while the
various parts of the hand preserve constant reciprocal proportions.
As far back as in the time of Vitruvius it was known that the human
hand is related to the stature in the proportion of 10 to 100. This is
a very important fact to know, because the proportion varies in the
inferior races and in the anthropoid apes, the descent in the scale
showing a corresponding increase of length of hand relatively to the
stature. Thus, for example, in the Mongolian races the proportional
length of the hand is 12.50, and in the higher apes it equals 18.
Consequently too long a hand is in itself an anomaly that indicates a
low type of man; it is to be classed with those anomalies that were
formerly regarded as atavistic reversions, phenomena of absolute
retrogression in the biological scale.
_Relations between the Hand and the other Dimensions of the Body._--The
closed fist, taking the extreme outside measurement between the
metacarpophalangeal articulations, corresponds to the breadth of the
heart.
The length of the hand corresponds to the height of the visage, and
also to the distance intervening between the sternal incisura and the
auricular foramen; it is also equal to the distance between the two
nipples, and therefore also corresponds to the depth of the chest.
There may be hands which are either excessively large or much too
small, and that are really marks of degeneration. An excessive volume
of these members is called _megalomelia_, and an excessive smallness
_oligomelia_.
We may encounter an extremely small hand quite as often in the son
of an alcoholic labourer as in the son of a degenerate aristocrat;
frequently men whose parents were mentally deficient have small,
delicate, almost effeminate hands.
_The Proportions between the Various Segments of the Hands._--The
length of the middle finger, measured from the digito-palmar _plica_ or
fold, ought to equal the length of the palm.
Hence the index of the palm should be the proportion between the length
of the palm itself and the length of the middle finger. This proportion
is of importance because it has certain human characteristics; as a
matter of fact, in the anthropoid apes the metacarpus is much longer
than the fingers and the palm has a far lower index than that of man.
In degenerates (thieves) the hand is frequently narrow and long.
_The Proportions of the Fingers._--If the first and second
articulations of the fingers are flexed, leaving the third extended, we
find that the extremity of the middle finger reaches to the point where
the thenar and _hypothenar_ eminences (fleshy prominences at base of
palm) are nearest to each other.
This basic point is only approximate and serves to tell us whether the
middle finger is normal. The middle finger serves as a measure for the
others, as follows:
The _index-finger_ reaches to the base of the nail of the middle finger.
The _thumb_, to the middle of the first phalanx of the middle finger.
The _ring finger_, to the middle of the nail of the middle finger.[47]
The _little finger_, to the third articulation of the ring finger.
It often happens that the development of the ulnar side of the
hand--the little finger, or both little and ring finger together--is
defective. Sometimes the little finger is not only extremely small,
but a special malformation renders it shorter still when the hand
is open; the second phalanx remains flexed, and cannot be extended.
Combined with the shortness of such fingers there is also an extreme
slenderness--_cubital oligodactylia_. It is a far rarer thing to find
similar anomalies in the case of the index-finger. The thumb, on the
contrary, is sometimes extremely short, in consequence of which it has
slight opposability.
_Functional Characteristics._--What characterises the functional action
of the human hand is the opposability of the thumb. There ought to be
a perfect movement of opposability of the thumb in respect to all the
other fingers; but many imbecile children accomplish this movement
imperfectly. The mobility of the thumb is associated with a group of
muscles situated at its base which forms the great tenar eminence of
the palm, opposite which, in corresponding relation to the little
finger is the small hypothenar eminence. An insufficient development of
these palmar eminences represents a serious malformation, which entails
functional disturbances. The hand of the monkey is flat.
_The Nails._--We have already seen that in the high type of hand the
nails should be convex and long, and that in the low type, on the
contrary, they are short and flat.
The normal nail should extend to an even level with the fingertip.
Manual labour should normally serve the purpose of keeping the nails
worn down; but we, who are not hand-labourers, must use the scissors,
in order to maintain the normal state.
For, if they were not worn down, the nails would attain an enormous
length, like the nails of certain kings of savage tribes, who as
a badge of authority have such long nails that their hands are
necessarily kept motionless; these kings must in consequence be waited
on, even for the smallest need, and actually become the slaves of their
own nails, which might be shattered by any sudden movement on the
part of their royal possessor. Long nails, therefore, are a sign of
idleness, while at the same time they demand a great deal of attention.
Accordingly, let us repudiate the fashion of long nails.
As a form of anomaly, we sometimes meet with nails of such exaggerated
length that they have the aspect of claws--_onychogryposis_; or,
again, an almost total absence of nails, which are reduced to a narrow
transverse strip--this characteristic is often found in idiots, and is
aggravated by the fact that from childhood such persons have had the
habit of "biting their nails."
Sometimes the nails are exceedingly dense, or actually consist of
several superimposed layers, so rich in pigment that they lose their
characteristic transparency.
This condition is due to trophic disorders of the nails.
_Teratology and Various Anomalies._--There are certain monstrosities
that sometimes occur in connection with the hand, such as
_hexadactylism_ and _polydactylism_, or hands with six or more fingers;
or else hands with less than five fingers--_syndactylism_. There may
even be a congenital absence of a phalanx, with a consequent notable
shortness of the finger--_brachydactylism_.
Another sort of anomaly frequently found in deficients consists of an
excessive development of the interdigital membrane, to the extent of
giving the hand the appearance of being web-fingered. An anomaly of
minor importance consists in a distortion of the fingers; the little
finger has one of its phalanges turned backward. All the fingers ought
to be in contact throughout their whole length, and not leave open
spaces between them.
_Lines of the Palms._--The lines of the palms, which used to be of so
much importance in chiromancy, are now taken into consideration even in
anthropology, being studied in normal and abnormal man, and also in the
hands of monkeys. The lines of the palms are three in number. The one
which follows the curve of the tenar eminence is known in chiromancy
as the line of life, and, if long, deep and unbroken, was supposed to
denote good health and the prospect of a long life; in anthropology it
is called the _biological line_. The second crease, which ought to meet
the former between the thumb and the index-finger, is the line of the
head, or _cephalic line_, and in chiromancy its union with the line of
life was supposed to denote a well-balanced character.
The line highest up, which begins between the index- and middle
finger and extends to the extreme margin of the palm, is the line of
the heart or the _cardiac line_, which in chiromancy is supposed to
indicate the emotional development of the individual. These lines taken
together form a semblance of the letter M, and are characteristically
and gracefully curved. It is considered as an anomaly, to be met with
among degenerates and even in mongoloid idiots, to lack any of these
lines (numerical reduction) or to have their arrangement distinctly
horizontal, and reminiscent of the hand of the monkey.
If we trace backward in the zoological scale, we find as a matter of
fact that to begin with, there were no lines in the palms, and then
there appeared a single crease high up, such as we still find in the
Cebus. In the human hand Carrara has recently made a study of these
anomalies, distinguishing several types. In the first type there is
a single transverse furrow. In the second type there are two furrows
which, however, follow a definitely straight and horizontal direction
and consequently are parallel. In a third type a single transverse
furrow is associated with a very deep longitudinal furrow running from
the carpus to the base of the index- and middle finger--a form that
Carrara has found only in criminals. Nevertheless, many idiots exhibit
a similar longitudinal furrow, due to a peculiar development of the
palmar aponeurosis.
[Illustration: FIG. 129.--Imprint of human hand, showing papillary
lines on palm and fingers.]
The disposition of the furrows in the palm is not strictly symmetrical
in the two hands; in fact, it is said in chiromancy that the right hand
represents our natural character, and our left hand the character which
we have acquired in the course of living.
_Papillary Lines._--For some time past the papillary lines have
been attracting the attention of students, in regard to their
earliest appearance (in the zoological scale), their disposition and
complications. They were already spoken of by Malpighi and Purkinje.
Alix has investigated the first appearance, in the animal scale, of
these lines in the thoracic and pelvic limbs, and concludes: "The
greater or lesser development of the papillary lines seems to bear a
relation to the higher or lower position of the group to which the
animal belongs, the perfection of its hand and the degree of its
intelligence."
Morselli has studied the disposition of these lines in monkeys. We know
that the papillary lines bear a relation to the exquisite delicacy
of the sense of touch. The primates (higher apes) have on their
finger-tips patterns that are far simpler than our own, resembling
geometric figures, among which the principal ones are the triangle,
the circle, and forms resembling the cross-section of an onion. In
the normal human hand, on the contrary, it should be impossible to
distinguish any closed figure. The resulting designs, which are very
fine and complicated, are not uniform on all the fingers, but differ
from finger to finger in proportion to the degree of evolution in a
given hand. For example, there is a certain uniformity of design in
cases of arrested mental development (imbeciles, epileptics, etc.).
This variety of designs produces individual characteristics which are
utilized in criminal anthropology for purposes of identification;
hence, it is highly important to be able to take impressions of the
papillary lines.
Professor Sante de Sanctis has quite recently invented a practical
method of preserving papillary imprints by the aid of photography.
FOOTNOTES:
[47] Many authorities maintain that the normal relation between the
index and ring finger is the reverse of that given above; abundant
examples occur in favor of each of these views.
CHAPTER VI
THE SKIN AND THE PIGMENTS
_Pigmentation and Cutaneous Apparatus._--The outer covering of the
body possesses an importance that is not only physiological, as a
defense of the living animal, but biological and ethnical as well. In
fact, the covering of the body frequently constitutes a characteristic
of the species, and we may say that it constitutes to a large extent
the æsthetics of coloration, supplementing that of form. In the
covering of the body there are in general certain appendages which
include the double purpose of defense and attraction, as, for example,
the scales of fishes, the quills of the porcupine, the marvellous
plumage of certain birds, the furry coat of the ermine. Man, on the
contrary, is almost completely deprived of any covering of the skin,
and is conspicuous among all animals as the most defenseless and
naked. Consequently, the characteristics of the skin itself, quite
apart from any covering, assume in man a great ethnic importance,
especially as regards his pigmentation. In fact, it is well known that
the fundamental classifications of the human races due to Blumenbach
and Linnaeus are based upon the cutaneous pigmentation (white, black,
yellow races, etc.). This is because it is a recognised fact that
the pigmentation is biologically associated with race, and hence
inalterable and hereditary, in the same way, for example, as the
cephalic index; although we must not forget the modifications of
pigment through phenomena due to adaptation to environment. This would
lead us into scientific discussions which would here be out of place,
since they have no immediate importance to us as educators. It may
suffice to indicate that the distribution of racial colour should not
be studied in relation to temperature and the direction of the sun's
rays, but rather in connection with the history of human emigration;
because, while as a matter of fact it is true that there are races at
the equator which are darker and races near the poles which are fairer,
it is also true that the Esquimaux, for instance, are a dark race,
while in Lybia there are types of ashen blond, which is the palest
blond in the whole range of human pigmentation.
The pigment is distributed throughout the skin, the cutaneous
appendages and the iris.
In the skin, the distribution is not uniform, there being some regions
of the body that have more, and some that have less; it is localised in
the Malpighian mucous layer, _i.e._, the granular, germinative layer of
the epidermis, which rests directly upon the papillæ of the derma or
corium.
The derma, being abundantly supplied with blood-vessels, if seen
by itself would appear red; but this color, due to the blood, is
concealed to a greater or less extent by the epidermis, according as
the latter contains more or less pigment. In the iris of the eye and
in the piliferous appendages of the skin, among which we must, from
the anthropological point of view, give chief place to the hair of the
head, the pigment tends to accumulate, producing a constantly deeper
shade.
Pigmentation constitutes an eminently descriptive characteristic, and
consequently, in all attempts to determine it, must be subject to all
manner of oscillations in judgment on the part of the observer; yet,
because it also constitutes an ethnical characteristic, it deserves
to be determined with precision. To this end we have in anthropology
_chromatic charts_, corresponding not only to the various shades of the
skin, but also to those of the piliferous appendages and of the iris.
They consist of a graduated series of colour-tones extending over the
entire possible range of the real colours of pigmentation in human
beings; and every gradation in tone has a corresponding number. When
we wish to use the charts practically, for the purpose of determining
accurately the precise degree of pigmentation of a given person's hair,
we need only to compare the tone of the hair with the colours of the
chart, and, having identified the right one, to note the corresponding
number. For instance, we may record: "Pigmentation of hair = 34 Br.
(_i.e._, No. 34 in Broca's table). Or, again, if we are making a more
complex study of all the children in a certain school, we may say: "The
chestnut tones (35, 42, 43 Br.) constitute 87 per cent., the remaining
percentage consists of the blond shades (36, 37, 46 Br.). And in the
case of the skin and the iris the procedure is analogous. By this means
the investigation is objective and accurate.
As a rule, the three pigmentations are determined in accordance with
a reciprocal correspondence. The light colourings, as well as the
dark, generally go together; _i.e._, a person having blond hair has
also light eyes and a fair skin, and _vice versa_--in other words, the
entire organism has either a greater or less accumulation of pigment
in all its centres of pigmentation. Furthermore, these anthropological
characteristics are accompanied by others of equal ethnical importance,
such as the stature, the cephalic index, etc.; and all of them combine
to determine an ethnic type in all its complex morphology.
In this, as in all other anthropological data, it is necessary to
determine the limits between which it may oscillate. In the races of
mankind, the colour of the skin ranges from a black brown to a gray
brown, to brick red, to yellow, and to white; but among the population
of Italy, and among Europeans in general (excepting certain localised
groups, like the Lapps, etc.), the variation is confined within the
limits of the so-called white tones, that is, from brunette to a sallow
white, a rosy white, or a florid red, with each of which tints there
are special corresponding grades of pigmentation for hair and eyes,
and also, on broad, general lines, different ethnical characteristics
oscillating within our normal limits of stature and cephalic index.
All of which may be summarised in the following table:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Pigmentation | |
------------------------------------| Stature | Cephalic index
Skin | Hair | Iris | |
--------------+----------+----------+--------------+----------------
Brunette | Black |Black |Medium or low |Dolichocephalic,
Yellow-white }| Light |Chestnut |Medium or high|Brachycephalic
Pink-white }| chestnut| and blue.| |
}| & blond.| | |
Florid red | Red |Gray |(Outside of ethnical
| | |characteristics: the red colour
| | |of the hair is abnormal)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
in which we have also included the abnormal colour of red hair, which
plays a part in the actual colour scale of Italian pigmentation: not,
however, as a racial characteristic, but rather as a deviation.
In addition to the oscillation of limits, we should also study in
any given population the geographic distribution of a definite
anthropological datum. This must also be done in the case of the
pigments. Among Livi's splendid charts, there is one regarding the
distribution of the brunette type in Italy. From this it appears
that the greatest prevalence of the brunette type is in Sardinia and
Calabria, and that in general there is a prevalence of the dark types
in the southern districts; while the lowest percentage of brunettes is
found in Piedmont, Lombardy and Venetia, and in general the number of
brunettes is less in northern and central Italy.
The relative distribution of other ethnical data should be noted, such
as the stature and the cephalic index, in the corresponding charts.
By combining these results, we find that in the north of Italy the
prevalent type is blond, brachycephalic, and of tall stature; while
in the south it is a dark, dolichocephalic type, of low stature. This
is what I succeeded in showing in my work upon the women of Latium,
in which I sought to complete the details of these two ethnic types.
In Latium there is a prevalence of the dark, dolichocephalic type of
low stature, a type that is still almost pure at Castelli Romani;
this type is fine, slender and delicate in formation, and corresponds
to Sergi's Mediterranean stock, to which are due the great Egyptian
and Græco-Roman civilisations. The other race is blond, tall and
brachycephalic, and has only a scanty representation in southern
Latium, but is prevalent in an almost pure form in the neighborhood of
Orte. This type is much coarser and more massive in its formation, with
a euriplastic skeleton, and corresponds to Sergi's Eurasian race that
immigrated from the continent.
* * * * *
In general, we may say that it is foreordained in our biological
destiny not only what form, but also what colouring we ought to attain
in the course of our individual evolution, when we finally arrive at
mature development.
_The Pigments during Growth._--In the course of individual evolution,
it is not only the form that becomes modified, but the pigments as
well. We know, for example, that children are more blond than adults.
Transformations in regard to the pigments occur, however, more
especially at the period of puberty.
_Pigmentation of the Hair._--The colour of the hair becomes darker
in the course of growth, changing from light chestnut to dark, from
blond to light chestnut, from dark to black, from light auburn to
fiery red. Sometimes this darkening of the hair is accompanied by a
change in tone (from blond to chestnut); at other times it consists
in an _intensification_ of the original colour through an increase
of pigment, which _fixes_ and _defines_ a colour that was previously
indefinite.
In children who were ill or ailing during their early years, in other
words, weakly children (through denutrition, exhausting illnesses,
overexertion), this phenomenon is imperfectly achieved, just as their
growth as a whole is imperfectly achieved. The consequence is that
these weaklings retain a paler and less decided pigmentation, which
explains the fact that statistics show a greater proportion of frail,
rachitic, tuberculous and mentally deficient persons among the blonds
than among the brunettes; but it is among that class of blonds whose
light colour represents an arrest of development (suppressed brunettes).
Social conditions also exert an influence upon the colour of the hair;
a larger number of blonds and of lighter and more indefinite blonds
are to be found in the schools for the poor than in those for the
rich; also a larger number in country schools, where the poverty is
greater, than in city schools. Consequently we may conclude that there
are two classes of blonds: that which is associated with a racial
type, and that which is the consequence of arrested development. The
first type has a vivid, uniform and decisive colour tone, accompanied
by physiological robustness; the second is indefinite in colour tone
and lacks uniformity--for example, the more exposed parts of the body
are paler, and the hair varies in tone, some locks showing greater
intensity of colour than others. This is especially noticeable in frail
young girls from the country, where the sun discolours the surface
layer of hair. In this connection it should be remembered that in
those geographical regions where the rays of the sun are most nearly
perpendicular, the pigments are, on the contrary, darker and that the
skin becomes bronzed under the ardent kiss of the sun. But while the
sun intensifies the tints that are strong with life, it destroys those
that are weak and moribund, just as it does in the case of lifeless
fabrics, which become bleached out by the action of the solar light.
Accordingly the pigments give us an important test for judging the
robustness of the body; the blonds who are the product of arrested
development of brown tones that have not been attained because of
weakness, are frail in health and physical resistance, which is the
basis of the popular belief that vigorous wet-nurses must be brunettes.
As a matter of fact, in our own population of Latium the brunette type
prevails over the blond by a percentage of 86 per cent.; and it may be
that a blond Roman wet-nurse is a weakly creature, just as a Roman red
wine is in all probability a white wine that has been coloured.
* * * * *
_Pigmentation of the Iris._--In regard to the coloration of the eyes,
a change often takes place at puberty which is the opposite to that
already noted in regard to the hair: _the eyes become more_ _uniformly
light_; this happens in the majority of cases.
In the coloration of the eyes it is necessary to distinguish two
factors, the _uvea_ and the _pigment_.
The iris has a fundamental and uniform light colour (due to the _uvea_)
which oscillates, according to the individual, between blue and
greenish.
In this layer the pigment is deposited; it may be more or less intense
in tone, shading from yellow to a dark maroon.
When the pigment is wanting or is very scant, the fundamental blue or
greenish colour of the uvea is apparent.
In little children the pigment is distributed over the uvea in a
manner by no means uniform, in little masses or spots that are usually
of a mixed colour, so that the colour of the iris in infancy may be
uncertain. At puberty a uniform distribution of the pigment already
accumulated takes place; but rarely an intensification. Hence the
colour becomes more decided, but not deeper, as Godin has recently
succeeded in proving.
_Pigmentation of the Skin._--In the colouring of the skin it is
necessary to distinguish between that which is due to the blood and
that which is due to the pigment.
The blood, whose colour shows transparently through the layers of the
epidermis, produces the various pinkish tones.
The pigment, deposited in all races of mankind under the Malpighian
layer, produces the various brownish tones. The quantity of
cutaneous pigment is a constant _racial_ factor--a hereditary
factor. Nevertheless, in certain individuals, it may be influenced
by external agents (sunshine, heat) which tend to cause it to vary;
such alterations produce _individual varieties_, and also variations
in coloration of the skin between the covered parts of the body and
those exposed to the sun or to atmospheric action in general; these
variations, one and all, are not hereditary.
At puberty the pigment is increased in certain portions of the body
in connection with the generative functions which become established
at that time. Besides this, the general pigmentation is intensified;
children are whiter than adults.
_The Skin and the Hair during the Evolution of the Organism._--In the
case of the hair also, the pigment does not remain a constant quantity
throughout the different periods of life. Grey hair is a normal sign of
the decadence of an organism which has entered upon its involution. As
is well known, the hair of the head, the beard, and in general all the
piliferous appendages turn white, beginning in the regions where the
hair is most abundant, _i.e._, on the head. In some men, however, the
hairs of the beard are the first to turn grey; this is not perfectly
normal, it is an _inferior_ manner of growing old. A German proverb
says, that he who works much with the head (the thinking class) turns
grey first in his hair, and that he who works much with his mouth (the
hearty eater) turns grey first in his beard.
The skin also gives manifest signs of decadence in the form of
_wrinkles_. These serve up to a certain point as documentary evidence
of the life which the individual has led and the _high_ or _low_ _type_
to which he belongs. Just as in the case of grey hair, it is the class
of thinkers who have the most wrinkles on their forehead; those who
were given over to baser passions, such as called for labial rather
than frontal expression, have on the contrary, more wrinkles around the
mouth. We know how the peasant class has a veritable halo of wrinkles
around the mouth.
Thinkers, on the contrary, have a single vertical furrow in the middle
of the forehead: the line of thought. The transverse lines on the
forehead are parallel and unconnected.
Faces with precocious wrinkles may be met with, even in children
(denutrition, mental anxiety, dystrophic conditions); and conversely,
there are faces which have been preserved unwrinkled up to an advanced
age (especially in the case of women of the aristocracy, in whom it may
happen that neither suffering nor mental effort has left its traces on
their lives).
_Pigmentation of the Hair._--This anthropological datum merits special
consideration, since it plays so large a part in the æsthetics of
the human body; and also preserves certain constant characteristics
that serve to differentiate the races. In a study of the hair it is
necessary to consider the _quantity_, the _disposition_ and the _form_.
Abundant, strong, sleek hair is in physiological relation to robustness
of body. Thin hair, on the contrary, or hair that is easily extirpated
at the slightest pull, or dry hair, indicate insufficient nutrition,
which may also be connected with dystrophic or pathological conditions
(hereditary syphilis, cretinism).
The normal disposition of the hair is characteristic, but it may assume
a number of individual variations, as has recently been shown by Dr.
Sergio Sergi, son of our mutual instructor Giuseppe Sergi (Sergio
Sergi, _Sulla disposizione dei capelli intorno_ _alla fronte_--"The
disposition of the hair upon the forehead"--Acts of the Società di
Antropologia, Vol. 13, No. 1).
The hair, after forming a single whorl or _vortex_, corresponding
to the _obelion_, flows over the forehead in either two or three
divisions, the _lines of the parting_ (either lateral lines or a single
central line) corresponding to the natural divisions of the flowing
hair. Across the forehead the hair ceases at the line of _the roots_,
which crowns the face cornice-like; it is a sinuous line and rises at
the sides in two points, corresponding to the natural partings of the
hair. The hair stops normally at the boundary-line of the forehead,
which together with the face forms the _visage_, leaving bare that
part which in man corresponds to that portion of the frontal bone that
rises erect above the orbital arches, _i.e._, the human portion of the
forehead.
The form of the hair is an ethnical characteristic. Among our European
populations the extreme forms are wanting, namely, _smooth_ hair
(stiff, coarse, sparse hair peculiar to the red and yellow races, such
as the American Indian, Esquinaux, Samoyed and Chinese), and _kinky_
hair (wooly hair, curling in fine, close spirals, such as is found in
all its variations among the Australians and the African negroes).
Consequently, we cannot use the words _smooth_ or _kinky_ for the
purpose of qualifying the forms of hair found in our populations.
We may, however, meet with _straight_ hair (not _smooth_), or _curly_
hair (not _kinky_). In addition to these forms, which among us
represent the extremes, there are also two other forms--namely, _wavy_
hair (in ample curves) and _spiral_ hair (forming much narrower curves,
the so-called ringlets). Corresponding to these various qualities of
hair, there are essential differences in the physical structure of the
stem or shaft of the hair itself. If we make transverse sections of
hair and examine them under the microscope, we find that the resulting
geometrical figures are not all equal: the forms of the sections
oscillate between rounded and ellipsoidal forms. Furthermore, there are
races in which we may find hair having a circular section (_smooth_
hair) and there are others in which we may find, on the contrary, an
extremely elongated elliptical section (_kinky_ hair); in the first
case the hair is a long, bristly cylinder; in the second, it is a
ribbon with a tendency to roll up.
[Illustration: FIG. 130.]
In general, the straighter the hair is, the nearer its cross-section
approaches a perfect circle; and the more curly it is, the nearer
its cross-section approaches an elongated ellipse. The accompanying
examples are drawn from the results of my own study of the women of
Latium; they represent five microscopic preparations. The figure in the
middle (No. 3) represents _straight_ hair; the two figures, No. 1 and
5, are from curly hair; No. 2 is wavy hair, and No. 4, close-curled
hair, or ringlets. Thus we see how widely the sections of hair differ
according to the relative degree of curliness; and conversely, how
identical the two sections, Nos. 1 and 5 are, both of them taken from
equally curly hair, although from different heads. Straight hair has
an almost circular section, although, slightly elliptical; this proves
that really straight hair does not exist; in fact, even when it attains
the maximum degree of smoothness, it retains a tendency to curl, which
is shown, if in no other way, by the readiness with which it acquires
a waviness, if habitually kept braided. There is no other section so
perfectly circular as that of the red races, thus demonstrating the
bristle-like rigidity of the smooth type of hair. Wavy hair is that
which, in the form of its section, approaches most nearly to straight
hair; it is a slightly elongated ellipse (No. 2).
_Anomalies relating to the Pigment, the Skin and the Piliferous_
_Appendages: Pigment and Skin._--There are certain congenital anomalies
of the skin, occasionally to be met with, among which I make note of
the following principal ones:
_a. Anomalies due to Hypertrophy of the Pigment and the Corium:_
_Ichthyosis._--The surface of the skin presents large, raised,
irregular patches of various dark colours tending to maroon.
_b. Anomalies due to Hypertrophy of the Pigment_:
1. _Nævi Materni_: dark isolated spots (moles, birth-marks).
2. _Freckles_: small, light brown spots, no larger than the head of a
pin, scattered over the body, principally on the chest and face.
3. _Melanosis_: the entire skin has a dark appearance, similar to that
of the lower races of mankind, but especially on the face and hands.
_c. Anomalies due to Atrophy of the Pigment. Albinism._--The skin
presents an appearance of milky whiteness; even the hair is white, and
the iris of the eye is red.
_Wrinkles._--The wrinkles of the face are deserving of attention, as
being a detail of noteworthy importance. In regard to wrinkles, two
points should be noted; a. precocity; b. anomalies.
_a. Precocity of Wrinkles._--This is an indication of rapid involution,
and is frequently met with in degenerates. Idiotic children often show
a flabby, shrivelled skin, overstrewn with a multitude of wrinkles that
give them the aspect of little old men.
_b. Anomalies_: the following are to be specially noted:
1. Transverse wrinkles on the nose, frequent in flat-nosed idiots.
2. Wrinkles on the forehead; in normal persons these are interrupted
and broken, they are not quite parallel, nor perfectly horizontal, nor
very deep.
In degenerates it is frequently noticed that the wrinkles on the
forehead form one continuous horizontal line, extending completely
across it; sometimes it is so deep that it seems to divide the
forehead transversely into two parts. The various wrinkles, straight
and unbroken, are quite parallel.
3. The zygomatic (cheek-bone) wrinkles and the wrinkles around the
mouth are extremely deep in mentally defective adult and aged persons,
and also in criminals, whose facial expression is especially active
in the region of the nose and mouth, which constitute the least
contemplative portion of the face.
_Anomalies of the Hair.--1. Quantity._--The quantity of hair may be
excessive--_polytrichia_, a mark of degeneration easily to be met
with among delinquents and prostitutes; or there may be a scarcity
of hair--_atrichia_, among neuropaths, feeble-minded and cretins.
Sometimes, precocious baldness occurs, as a result of defective
nutrition of the skin.
[Illustration: FIG. 131.--Showing various types of the line of roots of
the hair.]
_2. Disposition._--We should note: a. the line of roots of the hair; b.
the vortices.
_a. Line of Roots._--This may be situated _too_ _far down_ upon the
forehead, in which case it gives a false impression of a low forehead,
or _too far back_, in which case it gives a false impression of a high
forehead.
Note in addition the form of the line of roots; it ought to be, as we
have already said, sinuous; sometimes, on the contrary, this line is
straight, and forms a uniform curve, without sinuosity, across the
forehead (imbeciles); at other times it descends in a peak at the
middle point of the forehead.
_b. Vortices._--Normally, there ought to be one central whorl or vortex
over the sinciput.
Abnormally it may happen:
That the vortex is misplaced--above, below or laterally;
That the vortex is double;
That there are also vortices along the frontal line of roots, or near
this line.
_3. Form._--It sometimes happens that we find in degenerates forms of
hair that are normal in inferior races, _i.e._, smooth hair, or kinky,
wooly hair.
_Grey Hair._--Sometimes in the case of degenerates or those suffering
from dystrophy, a precocious greyness occurs (grey-haired young men,
children with white hair); or a partial congenital greyness (clumps of
white hair). No form of grey hair, however, should be confused with
albinism.
_Anomalies relating to the Eyebrows and the Beard. The
Eyebrows._--Various anomalies may occur, in respect to the quantity of
hair, and the form of the eyebrows.
The hairs may be too abundant or too scanty.
The form may be _oblique_, in degenerate mongoloid types.
A notable anomaly consists in a union of the eyebrows, which meet and
form an unbroken line across the region of the glabella. The "united
eyebrows" constitute a grave sign of degeneration, and are popularly
regarded in Italy as a mark of the "_jettatura_" or "evil eye."
_Beard._--It may be very thick or very thin. Too thick a beard is
important, especially if the hairs are also abundant on the cheeks
and even on the forehead, a characteristic that is frequently
accompanied by an abundant growth of hair over the entire body (general
hypertrichosis).
A thin beard and moustache may constitute a normal characteristic in
certain races, such as the Kaffirs and other African negro tribes;
as also in the Chinese. In our own race, on the contrary, it is an
abnormal characteristic, which has been interpreted as a sexual
inversion (feminism) and is met with frequently among thieves.
MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF CERTAIN ORGANS (STIGMATA)
In our morphological analysis of certain organs, we shall have occasion
to enumerate a number of separate _malformations_, to the study of
which criminal anthropology has devoted much attention. Since many
of these are met with in children, we will make a rapid enumeration
of them, but must keep in mind that the ability to distinguish
the abnormal form from the normal requires practice in the actual
observation of subjects, while mere verbal descriptions may lead to
false and confusing impressions.
SYNOPTIC CHART
{ position
{ rima palpebrarum / high type
{ or eye-slit \ low type
Eyes { size of eye-ball { macrophthalmia
{ microphthalmia
{ exophthalmia
{ sclerotic coat
{ { miosis
{ foramina (pupils) { mydriasis
\ anisocoria
{ asymmetrics / position
{ \ form
Ears { { Wildermuth's ear
{ { embryonal ear
{ malformations { Morel's ear
{ handle-shaped ear
{ crumpled ear
\ canine ear, etc.
/ leptorrhine
{ types { platyrrhine
Nose { \ mesorrhine
{ / flat
{ anomalies { crooked
\ trilobate
/ simian mouth
{ lips { negroid mouth
{ \ hare-lip, etc.
{ / number
Buccal { { dimensions
apparatus { teeth { form
{ { diastemata
{ \ irregular position
{ tongue / macroglossia
{ \ microglossia
{ palate / ogival (pointed arch)
\ cleft
_Generalities._--Passing on to a more minute study of form, we
shall have to invade the field of human æsthetics. The proportions
of the body are all determined, in respect to their harmony; and
especially admirable is the harmony existing between the principal
parts of the human physiognomy. Artists know that in a regular face
the length of the eye is equal to the interocular distance, or to
the width of the nose, while the latter stands to the width of the
mouth in a ratio of 2 to 3. The length of the external ear remains,
at all ages, exactly equal to the sum of the width of the two eyes.
The eyes and the external ears grow but little, consequently they
are relatively quite large in children. The nose and mouth, on
the contrary, grow much more, and hence appear quite small in
infancy. The growth of the face, like that of the whole body, is an
evolution.
Among all the harmonies of the human body, that which can undergo
the greatest numbers of alterations in the course of its evolution
is the reciprocal harmony between the parts of the face. There are
more children than grown persons with beautiful faces, because the
efforts of adaptation to environment, or congenital biological
causes, or pathological causes may easily alter the evolution of
the face.
We will take a rapid glance at the principal morphological
anomalies likely to be encountered in connection with the face.
All the malformations that we are about to enumerate are still
included under the generic name of _stigmata_, and they may be
_degenerative stigmata_ (congenital anomalies), _pathological
stigmata_ (acquired through disease), or _stigmata of caste_
(caused by adaptation to environment).
_Anomalies relating to the Eye._--The eyes may be too far apart
(usually in broad, square faces of the Mongolian type), or too near
together (for the most part in long narrow faces, with a hooked
nose).
_Rima Palpebrarum (Eye-slit)._--A straight, narrow slit (low type);
an oblique slit (Mongolian eye).
_Size of Eye-ball._--The eye-ball may be too large
(_macrophthalmia_) and hence often protrudes from the socket
(_exophthalmia_); or it may be too small and deep-sunken
(_microphthalmia_), or asymmetrical in size (one eye-ball larger
than the other).
_Direction.--Strabism_ (inward, outward, mono-lateral, bilateral).
_Sclerotic Coat._--It may be injected with blood (delinquents), or
partly covered over by an abnormal development of the semilunar
_plica_ or fold of the palpebral conjunctiva.
_Pupillary Foramina._--The two foramina of the pupils ought to be
equal in size, circular and with a clearly marked contour. But
under various conditions of age and ill health the size as well as
the equality of the pupils may vary.
As regards the size of the pupils:
When the pupillary foramina are too small, this constitutes
_miosis_--a condition frequently found in certain serious nervous
diseases (locomotor ataxia, paralytic dementia), and in chronic
opium poisoning; it is frequent in meningitis. In old persons
miosis is a normal condition.
When, on the contrary, the foramina of the pupils are too large,
this constitutes _mydriasis_ (poisoning from atropine, intestinal
diseases, etc.).
In addition to these, there is _anisocoria_, when the two foramina
are unequal (neurasthenia, chronic alcoholism, first stage of
paralytic dementia).
_Form of the Pupillary Foramen._--It is not always round, sometimes
it is oval (cat's-eye). Frequently the form of the pupil is
permanently altered as the result of a surgical operation.
Thus, the contour of the pupil may be broken instead of clear cut;
in verifying this phenomenon it is important to inquire whether the
subject has suffered from any progressive disease of the iris, such
as might produce the same condition.
_Anomalies of the Ear._--While in the case of animals the external
ear is greatly developed, movable and detached from the cranium,
in man it is reduced in size, immovable and attached to the
cranium. Two measurements are taken of the ear, the length and the
width, and by means of the usual formula we obtain the index of
the ear, which for the European race is about 54 per cent. This
index has a certain importance because we find that the proportion
of width to length steadily increases as we descend through the
inferior human races, down to the ape, and the same increase
continues if we descend through the different grades of the simian
order.
This is to a large extent a result of the fact that, in the descent
from man to ape, the lobule of the ear, which is essentially a
human form, steadily diminishes, until it finally disappears.
From this it may be concluded that there exist minute zoological
differences other than generic between man and animals. As to
malformations of the human ear, which may consist of shortness
or absence of the lobule (formerly interpreted as a simian
inheritance) they are to-day attributed to physiological causes.
An abundant circulation produces an ample and _fleshy_ lobe;
in oligohæmic constitutions (deficiency of blood) the lobe is
delicate, pale and even atrophied. Brachysceles often have a big
lobe, and macrosceles, predisposed to phthisis, often have no lobe.
In regard to the external ear we should observe:
1. _Symmetry._--The ears should be symmetrical:
a. In respect to their position.
b. In respect to the more or less pronounced divergence of the
ears from the cranium.
c. In respect to their form.
a. _Position._--We must look for this form of asymmetry by
observing the cranium according to the occipital norm. The
asymmetry may be caused by one of the ears being placed _too high
up_ or _too far back_ in respect to the other, or both asymmetries
may occur together.
b. The asymmetry due to divergence is observed from two norms,
the facial and the occipital.
c. Asymmetry of _form_ is perceived by observing successively
the two external ears according to the lateral norms; their
morphological aspect should correspond on the two sides.
2. _Anatomy and Malformations of the External Ear._--A preliminary
anatomical note is necessary. The external ear consists of
various parts, which were first studied and named by Fabricius of
Acquapendente:
1. _The Helix._--This is the outermost fold of the ear; it takes
its origin above the auricular foramen in a root starting from the
inside of the concha and rises upward, to descend again describing
a regular helix; and it terminates in the _lobule_. At the point
where the helix bends downward to form the descending branch, a
small cartilaginous formation can be discerned by the sense of
touch; this is the _Darwinian tubercle_.
2. The _Antihelix._--This originates in two roots under the
ascending branch of the helix and terminates in the _antitragus_;
it is a cartilaginous formation.
3. _The Auricular Fossa._--This divides the helix from the
antihelix.
4. _The Tragus._--This is a little triangular cartilaginous
formation situated in front of the auricular foramen. Between the
tragus and the antitragus is the _intertragical fossa_.
5. _The Concha._--This is the concavity, the internal fossa of
the auricle, which leads to the channel of the internal ear.
Instances may be found of _malformation_ of each and all of these
various parts of the ear, which may be excessively developed, or
almost wanting, or altered in form.
_The Helix._--The over-folding of the cartilage may be wanting,
leaving the margin of the auricle straight; this form is met with
in the Mongolian race, but among us it is a malformation (Morel's
ear). It is a more serious malformation if it occurs combined with
excessive development of the Darwinian tubercle; in this case the
auricle assumes a really animal-like aspect ("canine ear").
The helix may originate within the concha from a root so prolonged
that it divides the concha itself into two parts, an upper and a
lower.
The helix may be greatly developed and sharply divergent from the
cranium--handle-shaped ear; or it may be bent at an angle at the
upper outer margin--_embryonal_ _ear_.
The _lobule_ is, as we have already said, an essentially human
formation, and as though man were conscious of this fact and proud
of it, it is customary in all races to adorn it with ear-rings,
to such an extent that in India and in Cochin-China the lobe is
burdened with ornaments of great weight, in consequence of which it
has continued to develop until it almost touches the shoulder.
The lobule may be attached to the cheek (sessile lobule).
The antihelix may be so developed as to rise in front of the
helix--_Wildermuth's_ _ear_.
Another important malformation connected with the ear, which is
commonly found in idiots, is a prolongation and restriction of the
intertragical fossa into a fissure (_fissura intertragica_). The
tragus ought normally to exceed the antitragus in dimensions.
_Anomalies of the Nose._--The nose presents very numerous
individual varieties, even among normal individuals. In the
European race we distinguish the straight nose (Italian), the
aquiline, the retroussé (French), the sinuous, etc. But in all
these forms one characteristic remains more or less constant: the
aperture of the nostrils is long and narrow, or rather its length
exceeds its width (the nostrils are thin and mobile, the skeleton
of the nose projects above the plane of the face). In the other
races of mankind, on the contrary, two other types of nose are
distinguished in respect to this characteristic: 1. The aperture of
the nostrils is round (the nostrils themselves are fleshy, the base
of the nose somewhat flattened)--_mesorrhine nose_, characteristic
of the Mongolian race, and found repeatedly in mongoloid idiots;
2. the aperture of the nostrils is broadened, _i.e._, the width
exceeds the length (the nose is flattened and almost level at the
base, and furrowed for the most part with transverse wrinkles, the
nostrils are exceedingly fleshy and immobile)--_platyrrhine nose_,
peculiar to the African and Australian races. Corresponding to
the external form of the nose there is also a difference in the
skeleton in relation to the _piriform aperture_ and the naso-labial
duct; the external form of the nose is really dependent upon the
skeleton consequently, the above-mentioned nomenclature applies
also to the piriform aperture of the cranium (see _Skeleton of the
face_). The flat nose is found as a malformation in idiots, and is
usually accompanied by prognathism.
Other important malformations relating to the nose are the
development of a tubercle at the tip--_trilobate nose_, frequent in
_low types of idiots_; and the _tip of the_ _note bent sideways_
(usually toward the left); this form occurs in leptorrhine noses
and is considered to be a stigma of criminality (thieves).
_Anomalies relating to the Buccal Apparatus._--Malformations occur
in relation to the lips, the teeth, the tongue and the palate.
_The Lips._--The European type of lips is well known both as
regards their proportions and their lines of contour which
determine the distinctive form.
Sometimes this graceful modeling is wanting; the contour of the
lips is formed of almost horizontal lines, the oral aperture is
very wide, and has the appearance, especially when laughing, of
being edged by a perfectly uniform, narrow line, thus resembling
the mouth of a monkey.
At other times we meet with thick, fleshy lips, slightly pendulous,
like those of the black races, especially the Hottentots and
Australians; it is a malformation frequent among idiots, and occurs
together with prognathism and the flattened nose.
Another notable form is that in which the lips are not only thick
and fleshy, but the internal tissues are so abnormally developed
that they protrude from the oral orifice in a slight prolapsus;
this form of lips is quite characteristic of myxedematous idiots.
Finally, we may meet with the so-called hare-lip, or lip divided
in the middle, signifying an arrest of embryonal development and
frequently accompanied by a cleft palate and a double uvula (see
_Development of the face_).
_The Teeth._--There is nothing new to tell of the characteristic
forms of the teeth--the incisors, the canines, the premolars,
and the molars--nor of their regular placement in a single row
corresponding to the curve of the maxilla and the mandible. I shall
therefore merely give the two dental formulæ corresponding to the
two dentitions of man.
First dentition, or "milk teeth":
2--2 1--1 2--2
2--2 2--2 2--2 = 20 teeth
incisors canines premolars
Second or final dentition:
2--2 1--1 2--2 3--3
2--2 1--1 2--2 3--3 = 32 teeth
incisors canines premolar molars
In relation to the teeth there are a great number of anomalies
which may occur, in number, in position, in size and form, and
these anomalies are so frequent that we may say the _smile_
stigmatizes the degenerate. Frequently it is the most evident
stigma of the whole face; so much so that this same smile which
adds so much charm to the normal human countenance becomes ugly and
repulsive in degenerates.
_Anomalies in Number of Teeth._--Sometimes there are more than 32
teeth, owing to the presence of certain _supernumerary teeth_;
these will be found to occur most frequently in the case of the
canines, next in that of the incisors, and lastly in that of the
premolars.
[Illustration: FIG. 132.--Mongolian eye.]
[Illustration: FIG. 133.--Embryonal ear.]
[Illustration: FIG. 134.--Decayed teeth.]
[Illustration: FIG. 135.--Worn-down teeth.]
[Illustration: FIG. 136.--Example of a worn-down tooth.]
[Illustration: FIG. 137.--Handle-shaped ears.]
Sometimes the number of teeth is less than 32, in which case it is
necessary to distinguish two cases of very different significance:
First, the last molars ("wisdom teeth") may be wanting; secondly,
some of the other teeth may be wanting (incisors, canines, or
premolars). The last molar is of no use whatever to man, because it
does not enter into the service of mastication, and it is tending
to disappear. We may even predict that the day is coming when
mankind will no longer have wisdom teeth, and the human dental
formula will be as follows:
2--2 1--1 2--2 2--2
---- ---- ---- ---- = 28 teeth
2--2 1--1 2--2 2--2
incisors canines premolar molars
The absence of useful teeth, on the contrary, is a grave sign of
degeneration, and one which leaves wide spaces between two adjacent
teeth (wide diastemata).
The _diastema_, or space left between adjacent teeth, is of great
importance.
There are various causes for this stigma. Besides the one already
mentioned, due to congenital absence of a tooth (broad diastema),
another recognized cause is an _anomalous placing_ of the teeth
(narrow diastema). The significance of this is not always the same:
for example, the diastema between two upper incisors indicates a
very slight anomaly of embryonal development, and, some people
think, gives a sympathetic charm to the smile. On the contrary,
a diastema occurring at the side of a canine tooth signifies a
congenital malformation.
At other times such anomalous spaces may be due to the fact
that the teeth have remained small, or happen to have worn away
laterally and present an almost filiform or thread-like aspect
(diastemata due to microdontia resulting from syphilis or various
dystrophic conditions).
The _form_ of the teeth demands consideration next in order
of importance. Sometimes we encounter cases of teeth that are
all nearly alike in form; they have lost that morphological
differentiation which already existed in the anthropoid apes; there
is an insensible transition from the incisors, all exactly equal in
form and dimensions, to the premolars, which also present the same
appearance, passing over a tooth which it would be difficult to
define either as incisor or premolar (the canine tooth). Usually in
such uniform dentition there are slight diastemata.
This condition, however, is not frequently met with; it is much
more usual to find this anomaly occurring only in part; the incisor
teeth are all equal, or else the canine resembles an incisor or a
premolar. In combination with this characteristic, it often happens
that there is a diastema next to the canine.
In regard to size, the teeth may be too large, _macrodontia_, or
too small, _microdontia_.
Microdontia may be due to a true and actual arrest of development
of the teeth (white teeth, small and narrow, often all very much
alike), or to a kind of _corrosion_ of the teeth due to congenital
dystrophism (syphilis). In this case the teeth are ground down and
_worn away_ either horizontally or laterally (filiform teeth), or
again the cutting edge of the tooth is not horizontal in the two
upper canines, but oblique, so that the teeth have the appearance
of being broken.
Often the teeth are furrowed transversely with yellow streaks
corresponding to a lack of development of the enamel.
Finally, the teeth may present various anomalies of position, which
may be grouped under three heads:
a. Narrow teeth, so placed as to leave slight intervals between
them.
b. Isolated teeth, planted outside the common line, or else
transversely instead of horizontally.
c. The dentition does not follow the regular curved line, but shows
various sinuosities, usually bending in at the point corresponding
to the canine tooth.
_The Tongue._--The tongue may present morphological anomalies of
great importance, since they are the cause of many defects of
speech. Sometimes the tongue is too big--_macroglossia_, in which
case it cannot move freely within the buccal cavity and even finds
difficulty in remaining within the mouth, but projects between
the lips, contributing in no small measure to giving the face an
imbecile expression. At other times it is too small--_microglossia_.
A deficient or excessive development of the lingual frenulum may
also interfere with the movements of the tongue (tongue-tie).
_The Palate._--It is a frequent experience to meet with idiots
having an _ogival_ or gothic-arched palate, with the vault much
curved and narrow, such as is met with in animals and similar in
section to a gothic window. A special bony ridge or crest may also
occur along the _raphe_ or median line. Lastly, the palatine vault
may be divided in two (cleft palate), a form frequently accompanied
by a double uvula; this stigma may also be one of the causes of
defective speech, so frequently met with in deficient children.
The palate normally presents a diversity of forms: Narrow and
high, or broad and low--forms associated with the general type of
head (dolichocephalic, high palate; brachycephalic, low palate)
and especially with the type of face, as we have already seen in
treating of the latter.
=Importance of the Study of Morphology.=--The study of morphology is
of high importance in biology, and even more so in anthropology. And
since the organism is a harmonic whole, in which the parts and their
functions are closely interrelated, any external anomaly leads us to
assume that there are corresponding anomalies of the internal organs,
and hence, functional anomalies; hence also, in man, psychic anomalies.
And conversely, if perfection of form has been attained, it leads us to
assume that the entire organism is perfect in its internal organs as
well, and in its complex physical and psychic functional action.
"Assure yourselves and one another," says Lelut in his _Cadre_ _de
philosophie et de l'homme_, "that wherever you see a change in the
body, you will have to search for a corresponding change in the
intelligence. Assure yourselves that you will have to establish this
correlation throughout the entire scale, from the lowest degradations
of imbecility to the highest achievement of genius, from the
clearest and strongest mentality to that which is most profoundly and
irremediably disordered."
This correlation between the morphological and the psychic personality
must be sought throughout the entire scale of human variations, from
the genius to the most degraded of imbeciles, from the strongest and
most upright character to that which is most profoundly perturbed.
Hence morphology constitutes a fundamental part in the study of human
personality.
The principle of this aforesaid correlation was at first exemplified
in the field of biological science only by abnormal persons, whose
noticeable deviations from the customary limits, both in the external
form of the body and in their psychic manifestations, gave proof of
the phenomenon by exaggerating it. In his classic work, _Traité des
dégénérescences_, Morel asserts that "the study of physical man cannot
be isolated from the study of moral man." But in our own day, the
theory has been marvellously illuminated and popularised by Cesare
Lombroso, and precisely on its pathological side.
The Lombrosian theories were so rapidly popularised even before they
were fully matured, that it seemed as though the spirit of the times
was ripe to receive them, and had awakened to greet the new order of
thought, after having long slumbered over the old; thus they wrought a
revolution in the field of law and morality, and even laid a foundation
for the erection of a new pedagogy.
Or to state it better, they again brought to light certain principles
of truth that had been understood even from the most ancient times.
For the principles proclaimed by Lombroso are in their general line
certainly nothing new nor suddenly derived from a study of modern
civilization; the belief that a physical stigma represents a moral
stigma is exceedingly ancient. In the Bible we find Solomon saying: we
may read the heart in the face. Homer describes the malignant Thyrsites
as having a narrow forehead and ferret-like eyes. Caesar feared only
those conspirators who were pale and lean. In the Middle Ages there
was a law which held that in case of doubt as to which of two men
was guilty, the uglier looking one should be hanged. And this same
principle has been established from time immemorial in the current
wisdom of the people, as is demonstrated by proverbs, which are like
laws graven upon stone, and have been gathered experimentally through
the repeated observation of successive generations. The proverbs
tell us of the physical stigmata of the wicked: "Beware of those who
bear the mark of God;" "The bristles prove the brute." Even in art,
degenerative stigmata are introduced to represent the malevolent. The
satyrs are represented as being of the microcephalic type. The devil
was formerly represented as having goat's feet and a tail; Michelangelo
pictures him with a narrow, receding forehead and pointed ears.
To-day all this is shown to be true. The truth, and sometimes the
intuitive semblances of truth in their relation to outward phenomena,
have the most ancient and diffuse history, because, since they always
existed, they were analogously interpreted by the intelligence of
man. And this is proved by the glorious discoveries of positive
science, which we may trace back to far distant foreshadowings; what
was in danger of being lost has been born again with an overpowering
fertility. The great theories of Darwin regarding evolution were
already perceived by Herodotus. The cycle of indestructible material,
proclaimed by Greek philosophy, formed the palpitating heart of the
teachings of Giordano Bruno; and in our day it formed the fascinating
halo of materialism which illuminated the face of my own teacher, Jakob
Moleschott.
Now, the fact that it is not new demonstrates that the Lombrosian
theory explains phenomena which really exist, since they came under
the observation of man from the earliest times. And the fact that this
theory has become popularised tells us that the times were ripe to
fertilise its renovating principles into practical action. For where
is it that we find the triumphant success of science? The attainment
of its most profound purposes? We find it wherever science achieves
something that is practical and useful for all mankind. Because, so
long as anything is merely perceived or looked into, or even deeply
studied, it never attains the apogee of its scientific glory and
dignity unless it finds some means of benefiting and ameliorating
humanity.
Lombroso grasps a principle and turns it into a benefit; and he sends
it broadcast throughout human society, to purify society of the spirit
of personal vengeance.
Garibaldi redeems an oppressed people and saves the oppressors from the
burden of being unjust and tyrannical, through a work of humanity which
has no national boundary; Lombroso, by means of his new scientific
and moral principle, effects a world-wide redemption of a despised
and outcast class, and saves us from the iniquitous burden of social
vengeance. Two great deeds of heroism, one of the heart and the other
of the brain; two great works of redemption.
Nevertheless, the principle of a morphological and psychic relationship
was not wholly wanting in examples of practical application. Not,
however, in the case of man; but in regard to animals it had been
utilised for a long time back. For instance, when a horse cannot be
broken by ordinary methods, the veterinary is called in, and he either
discovers some ailment and prescribes a treatment, or else be studies
the conformation of the forehead and the nasal bones, and if they are
abnormal, he declares that the horse is absolutely untameable. In India
the natives are afraid of the solitary elephant with a narrow forehead,
for they know that he is ferocious.
To-day we know that many children who can be taught nothing in the
public schools are really sick children, in whom anomalies of character
coincide with morphological anomalies; and we are beginning to replace
the old custom of blind and brutal punishment with a personal interest
that leads us to invoke the aid of the physician and to establish
special schools for the mentally deficient.
We may say that this new and reforming principle of pedagogics
and the school, which transforms punishment into medical care and
creates special educational institutions which are at the same time
sanatoriums, constitutes the pedagogical application of the Lombrosian
theories and accomplishes that social task which was foreordained to
emanate from the lofty brain of Lombroso.
In its special application to pedagogics, anthropology aids in the
difficult task by its diagnosis between the _normal_ and the _abnormal_
child.
But the contribution of anthropology to pedagogics is vastly wider than
this. In this restricted sense of diagnosis, it accomplishes, to be
sure, a complete reform of the penal sciences, but it is very far from
doing like service to the science of pedagogy.
Scientific pedagogy must concern itself before all and above all, with
_normal_ individuals, in order to protect them in their development
under the guidance of biological laws, and to aid each pupil to adapt
himself to his social environment, _i.e._, to direct him to that form
of employment which is best suited to his individual temperament and
tendencies.
In this new task, anthropology not only studies the individual, but
also gives real and personal contributions to the solution of many
pedagogic problems; among others, that relating to study after school
hours; to rewards and punishments; to physical training, elocution,
etc.; while, by regarding the children as the _effects_ of biological
and social causes, it establishes new and enlightening standards of
morality and justice, and reveals to educators responsibilities not
hitherto conceived. It will suffice to call to mind the fact that the
most studious children, and therefore those who receive the greatest
amount of praise and prizes, show a deficiency in weight, in chest
development, and in muscular force; consequently, a physiological
impoverishment the blame for which must be attributed to an ignorance
of hygiene and of anthropology, such as still persists throughout
the whole field of pedagogy; an ignorance which leads the teacher to
encourage by his praises the impoverishment of the best forces that
reveal themselves in the school (the most intelligent and studious
children) in an age when social industries, multiplied and grown to a
giant size, demand the cooperation of a vigorous race, and to inspire
by rewards and praise a sentiment of superiority and of vanity in
an age that is dominated by the sentiment of universal equality and
brotherhood.
The teacher ought, on the contrary, to appoint himself the defender of
the race, and to demand, among his other rights, that of making such
social reforms and such reforms in the school and in pedagogies as
may be necessary to the accomplishment of his purpose, which is the
attainment of the highest degree of civilisation and of prosperity.
But this subject would lead us to repeat principles on which we have
already insisted; it will suffice to reassert that the tendency of
anthropology is undoubtedly toward a reform in the school and the
opening of a new era in pedagogy.
_The Significance of the So-called Physical Stigmata of
Degeneration._--We have studied so many congenital malformations
and pathological deformations that a synthetic statement of their
significance becomes necessary. All the more so, because certain
principles in this connection, already widely circulated among the
general public, have now been rejected by science.
One of these principles refers to the so-called _atavism_ and formed
part of the original Lombrosian doctrines: but blessed is the scientist
who is obliged to correct himself, for that means that his brain is
still fertile.
Certain morphological anomalies call to mind forms of the inferior
races and species, from which, according to the original Darwinian
doctrine of evolution, the human species had descended in a direct
line: hence the term "_atavistic survival_." It will suffice to mention
the receding forehead that calls to mind the Neanderthal cranium,
the long simian arms, the prognathism distinctive of the inferior
human races and of animals, microcephaly which suggests the crania of
anthropoid apes, the mongoloid eyes and protruding cheek-bones, which
recall the yellow races; the "canine" ear, the wooly or smooth hair,
polytrichia, the dark skin, etc.
Now, all this assemblage of stigmata which went under the name of
_atavistic_, or _absolute retrogression_, were held to be in almost
direct relation to _degeneration_.
Degeneration was supposed to revive in us forms that had been
superseded in the course of evolution, and hence also psychic states
that had also been superseded in the history of the human race; it is
well known that, according to Lombroso, a criminal might be defined as
a savage, a barbarian born among us, yet still having within him his
particular instincts of theft and slaughter.
To-day, since the original interpretation of the Darwinian theory has
been discarded, with it have fallen all those deductions which medicine
and sociology were in too great haste to draw, in order to make
scientific application of them.
In conclusion, the principle remains firmly established of a
correlation between physical and psychic anomalies, which forms the
very essence of the Lombrosian theory. What science wishes to-day to
correct is the _atavistic_ interpretation of stigmata and of types
of degenerates. This takes nothing away from the brilliant record of
Lombroso, who interpreted biological and pathological phenomena in
the selfsame light that shed glory upon Ernest Haeckel, namely, the
Darwinian theory. In the first enthusiasm of that luminous flame which
had wrought a reawakening of thought throughout all Europe and the
civilised world Lombroso tried to explain _according to the letter_
what could properly be explained only according to the spirit; that is
to say, in accordance with a very broad principle (evolution and the
successive formation of species) which had been divined but not yet
demonstrated.
We ought to have recourse, in interpreting congenital (degenerative)
malformations to explanations analogous to those in the case of
acquired deformations, _i.e._, to pathological explanations.
We find ourselves in all these cases in the presence of pathological
phenomena affecting either the _species or the individual_. On the
strength of analogies shown by certain malformations, the tendency
to-day is to consider them as "_arrests of development_" or phenomena
of _infantilism_, such, for example, as macrocephaly, macroscelia,
nipples or shoulders placed too high, nose tending to flatness,
handle-shaped ears, etc.--a whole series of stigmata which go by the
name of _stigmata of relative retrogression_.
Meanwhile there are other malformations which merely deviate from
the normal form (Morselli's "simple deviation"), and they may
deviate either in the way of an excess (hyperplasia), or of a
deficiency (hypoplasia), as, for example, macroglossia, microdontia,
macro- and microphthalmia, etc.; or they may deviate in a true
and actual sense (paraplasms), as, for example, in the various
asymmetries (plagiocephaly, plagioprosopy, etc.). This whole group
of above-mentioned stigmata, which seem to have a congenital origin,
or, rather, to be connected in a general way with growth itself, are
called _malformations_, to distinguish them from _deformations_, which
evidently have an acquired origin, especially from pathological causes,
such, for instance, as rachitis and forms of paralysis which arrest the
development of a limb, etc., resulting in functional and morphological
asymmetry.
DISTRIBUTION OF MALFORMATIONS
Malformations (associated, as we have said, with individual
development) may be found in all individuals who, through various
causes (degeneration, disease, denutrition, defects of adaptment), have
undergone any alteration in development. And, since we have not yet
acquired a recognised standard of _morality_ _of generation_, and the
social environment, including the school, weighs heavily upon humanity
in the plastic state, who is there without malformation? Complete
normality is a _desideratum_, an ideal toward which we are progressing,
and, we might add, it is the battle-flag of the teacher.
Accordingly, all men have malformations. It is interesting to see how
they are affected by variations in age and social condition, and how
they are distributed among normal persons and degenerates, in order
to measure the extent of their contribution to the diagnosis between
normal and abnormal man.
[Illustration: FIG. 138.--Percentage of stigmata among the peasantry,
the labouring class and the wealthy class, for children and adults.]
On the basis of notes taken from an important work by Rossi,[48] I have
drawn up the following table, relating to malformations based upon a
comparative study of children and adults, grouped under three different
social conditions--peasants, city labourers and persons of the wealthy
class.
At the further extremity of the horizontal lines will be found the
figures recording the number of times that any one anomaly occurs in a
hundred instances. The other indications are explained in the figure
itself.
From this it is apparent that anomalies of the cranium are much more
rare than those of the face, both in children and in adults.
But in children the anomalies of the cranium (and this includes
the cases of plagiocephaly), are much more frequent than in adults
in all social classes; this shows that in the course of growth the
malformations of the cranium have to a great extent disappeared.
In regard to the face, on the contrary, or, at least, in regard to
certain malformations of the face, the opposite holds good; the
mandible and the zygomata, or, in general, that part of the face which
grows rapidly during the period of puberty, show more anomalies in the
case of adults than in the case of children.
This shows us that a face which is still beautiful in childhood may
acquire malformations in successive periods of growth. In simpler
words, the facts may be expressed as follows: that the cranium
_corrects_ itself and the face _spoils_ itself in the course of growth.
But in the case of facial asymmetries the same thing occurs that we
have already seen in regard to plagiocephaly; it is more frequent in
children, hence asymmetries are infantile stigmata.
[Illustration: FIG. 139.--Two small examples of Morel's and
Wildermuth's ear.]
Some important characteristics are to be noted regarding the
handle-shaped ear; all children have ears proportionally larger than
those of adults and the _handle-shaped_ form is very frequent in normal
children, regardless of the social condition to which they belong.
This malformation _corrects_ _itself_ in the course of growth, being
far less frequent in adults of the wealthy class and even among the
labouring classes; but among the peasantry it remains permanently,
almost as though it were a _class stigma_. Although the mechanical
theories are in disrepute as an interpretation of morphological
phenomena, nevertheless it is worth while to note the singular
frequency of this stigma in peasants, in connection with the habit of
straining the ear to catch the faintest sounds, distant voices, echoes,
etc., for which the _senses_ of peasants are extremely acute.
The greater frequency of prominent superciliary arches in adult
peasants and labourers may also be considered in relation to a
defective cerebral development, connected, perhaps, with illiteracy,
etc.; furthermore, the superciliary arches, together with a more
than normal development of the jaw bones, are stigmata which usually
occur together as determining factors of an _inferior_ _morphological
type_. The fact also that an excessive development of the mandible,
unlike other malformations, is found with the same frequency among
adults of the peasantry and the labouring class, gives to this anomaly
the significance of a _stigma of the poorer_ _classes_. It should
be remembered that children of inferior intelligence have a deeper
mandible.
What is quite interesting to know, in addition to the frequency of
stigmata at various ages and in the various social conditions, is
the _number_ of them that may coexist in the same individual. It was
already asserted by Lombroso that a single undoubted malformation was
not enough to prove degeneracy, but that it depended upon the number of
stigmata existing simultaneously in the same individual. Now, confining
our attention to _normal individuals_, we find, according to Rossi,
that the individual number is less among the well-to-do than among the
poor; and that it is less among the peasantry than among the working
class. The working class in the cities are accordingly in the worst
condition of physical development. Furthermore, children always show a
greater number of individual malformations than adults.
INDIVIDUAL NUMBER OF MORPHOLOGICAL ANOMALIES
+---------+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| | Adults: to every 100 | Children: to every 100 |
|Number of| individuals | individuals |
+anomalies+---------+--------+----------+---------+--------+----------+
| |Labourers|Peasants|Well-to-do|Labourers|Peasants|Well-to-do|
+---------+---------+--------+----------+---------+--------+----------+
| ... | 4 | 18 | 14 | ... | ... | 12 |
+---------+---------+--------+----------+---------+--------+----------+
| 1-2 | 56 | 36 | 68 | 18 | 16 | 44 |
+---------+---------+--------+----------+---------+--------+----------+
| 3-4 | 31 | 26 | 18 | 52 | 68 | 38 |
+---------+---------+--------+----------+---------+--------+----------+
| 5-6 | 9 | ... | ... | 27 | 13 | 6 |
+---------+---------+--------+----------+---------+--------+----------+
From which it appears that only 4 per cent. of the labouring class are
without malformations, while the peasantry and the well-to-do have from
18 to 14 per cent. Among normal adults there is a preponderance of
persons having 1-2 stigmata; while those having 3-4 stigmata are more
frequent than those without any at all.
Excepting for a few labourers, there are no normal persons with 5-6
malformations; in fact, this is the number of coexisting malformations
that is held to be the _test of degeneration_, the sign of an abnormal
morphological individuality.
Among children, on the contrary, this individual number of
malformations (5-6) occurs, _even in the wealthy classes_, so that the
child and the adult cannot be judged by the same standards.
The prevailing number of stigmata among children is 3-4. Therefore,
in the course of growth, many of these malformations are eliminated.
It should be noted that children without malformations are found only
among the prosperous classes and in a rather small percentage (12 per
cent.).
Accordingly, social conditions bring about a difference not only in
robustness, stature, etc., but also in the degree of beauty which the
individual is likely to attain. The social ideal of the establishment
of justice for all mankind is consequently at the same time a _moral_
and _æsthetic_ ideal.
Another parallel that it is interesting to draw is that between the
most unfortunate social class (the working class) and the degenerates.
We have seen that the working class has the highest individual number
of stigmata. Rossi compares them with two other categories of persons
who are strongly suspected of being degenerates, or who at least
must include a notable proportion of degenerates among their number,
namely, _beggars_, as regards the adults, and _orphans_, as regards the
children.
These classes differ in the general frequency of malformations; in
fact, the chronic anomalies, taken collectively, give 17 per cent. for
the labouring class and 25 per cent. for beggars. But the difference
becomes strikingly apparent when we come to consider the _individual
number_ of stigmata.
+---------+---------------------+-------------------+
|Anomalies|Labourers (per cent.)|Beggars (per cent.)|
+---------+---------------------+-------------------+
| 3-4 | 31 | 41 |
+---------+---------------------+-------------------+
| 5-6 | 9 | 21.3 |
+---------+---------------------+-------------------+
And still greater is the difference between the children of labourers
and the orphan children.
FREQUENCY OF ANOMALIES IN CHILDREN (PERCENTAGE)
Anomalies Labouring class, Orphans, degeneration
pauperism
Cranial anomalies in general 32 39
Forehead very low 16 20.8
Alveolar prognathism 4 10
Enlarged mandible 20 25
Plagiocephaly 16 45.8
Prominent cheek-bones 16 41.6
Facial asymmetry 28 35.4
Anomalies of teeth 24 37.5
We see therefore that _degeneration_ exerts a most notable influence
upon morphological anomalies; it is far more serious than external
(social) conditions.
Dr. Ales Hrdlicka, studying the distribution of malformations and
deformations among poor children who were inmates of a large New
York orphan asylum (634 males and 274 females) distinguishes the
morphological anomalies into three categories: Those that are
congenital (degeneration); those acquired through pathological causes
(diseases), and those acquired through the circumstances of social
adaptment, or, as the author expresses it, through _habit_. And to
these he adds still another category of stigmata the causes of which
remain uncertain.
If we examine the following extremely interesting table, we see at once
that in the case of children the anomalies of form are associated with
_degeneration_ and with _disease_, because the anomalies _acquired_
individually by the child as the result of personal habits are
comparatively so few in number as to be quite negligible, and all of
them are exclusively in reference to the trunk; in other words, a
result of the position assumed on school benches.
As between degeneration and disease, the proportion of anomalies caused
by the former is considerably more than double. Hence, the great
majority of malformations have their origin, so to speak, _outside of
the individual_, the responsibility resting on the parents.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Organs | Anomalies
in +-------------------------------+-------------------------------
regard to | Males | Females
which +-------+-------+--------+------+-------+-------+--------+------
the |Congen-|Patho- |Acquired|Cause |Congen-|Patho- |Acquired|Cause
anomalies | ital |logical|through |uncer-| ital |logical|through |uncer-
occur | | |habit | tain | | |habit | tain
------------+-------+-------+--------+------+-------+-------+--------+------
Head | | 74 | | 15 | | 26 | | 10
Periosteum | | | | | 1 | | |
Hair | 26 | 2 | | 1 | 17 | | |
Forehead | 15 | 25 | | 1 | 1 | 8 | | 1
Face | 51 | 68 | | 10 | 11 | 17 | | 4
Eyes | | | | 15 | | | | 6
Ears | 221 | | | | 88 | | |
Teeth | 67 | 20 | | 37 | 19 | 4 | | 27
Gums | 51 | 7 | | 104 | 41 | 3 | | 23
Palate | 88 | 59 | | 81 | 30 | 40 | | 44
Uvula | 14 | | | 112 | 6 | | | 54
Body (bust) | 5 | 54 | 72 | 2 | 3 | 18 | 9 | 1
Limbs | 60 | 14 | | 11 | 39 | 4 | | 3
Genital | 275 | 1 | | 1 | | | |
organs | | | | | | | |
------------+-------+-------+--------+------+-------+-------+--------+------
Totals | 873 | 324 | 72 | 390 | 256 | 120 | 9 | 173
Percentage| 40 | 10 | 4 | 18 | 45 | 21 | 1 | 30
The greatest number of anomalies due to degeneration occur in
connection with the _ear_, and the _genital organs_, and next in order
come those of the _palate_, the _teeth_ and the _limbs_. The maximum
number of anomalies due to _pathological causes_ are in connection
with the _head_, and principally with the _face_; after that, with the
_palate_, and then with the _bust_.
The anomalies most difficult to diagnose seem to be those relating to
the gums, the palate and the uvula, in regard to which it is not easy
to determine whether they are due to degeneration or to disease.
In order that we may have a clear understanding regarding
_malformations_, it is well to insist upon still another point:
Malformation does not signify _deviation_ from a type of ideal
beauty, but from _normality_.
Now, there are normal forms which are very far from beautiful
and which are associated with race. For instance, prognathism,
ultra-dolichocephaly, a certain degree of flat-foot, prominent
cheek-bones, the Mongolian eye, etc., are all of them
characteristics which are regarded by us as the opposite of
beautiful, but they are normal in certain races (therefore
practical experience is indispensable). These principles which,
when thus announced, are perfectly clear, must be extended far
enough to include that sum total of individuals whom we are in
the habit of calling _our race_. That we are hybrids, still
showing more or less trace of the racial stocks which originally
concurred in our formation, is well known, but not clearly enough.
The _primitive races_ are more or less evident in different
centres of population; for instance, in the large and promiscuous
cities, hybridism tends more or less completely, to _mask_ the
_types_ of race, producing individual uniformity through an
intermixture of characteristics that renders all the people very
much alike (civilised races). These are the individuals who form
the majority of the population, and whom we are in the habit of
regarding as being _normally formed_. But when we get away from
the big centres it may happen, and indeed does happen, that the
primitive racial forms or types become more apparent; thus, for
example, I found in Latium almost pure racial types at Castelli
Romani (dolichocephalics, brunette type, short stature), and at
Orte (brachycephalics, blond type, tall stature); the nuclei of
population at Castelli were especially pure. Now, as a result of
a highly particularised series of observations I found _normal
forms that were not_ _beautiful_ in each of these races; thus,
for example, in the brunette race, while the face is extremely
beautiful and delicate, the hands are coarse, the feet show a
tendency toward flat-foot, the breasts are pear-shaped, pendent and
abundantly hairy; in the blond type, on the contrary, while the
facial lineaments are coarse and quite imperfect, the hands, feet
and breasts are marvellously beautiful.
Accordingly, the marks of beauty are distributed in nature among
the _different_ _races_; there is no race in existence that is
wholly beautiful, just as there is no individual in existence who
is perfect in all his parts.
Furthermore, since there is for every separate characteristic a
long series of individual variations, both _above_ and _below_ (see
chapters on _Biometry_ and _Statistical Methodology_), it is very
easy to assume that we are on the track of a malformation, when it
is really a matter of racial characteristic. And this is all the
more likely to constitute a source of error, because the school of
Lombroso promulgated the morphological doctrine that a degenerate
sometimes shows an _exaggeration_ of ethnical characteristics.
Thus, for example, we meet with ultra-brachycephalics and
ultra-dolichocephalics among the criminal classes.
Let us suppose that a teacher who has made a study of anthropology
receives an appointment in one or another of the Castelli Romani.
Among the _normal_ individuals studied by me, certain ones showed a
cephalic index _of_ 70. Now, a teacher accustomed to _examine_ the
crania of city children and to find that the limits range more or
less closely around mesaticephaly, would be led to assume that he
was in the presence of an _abnormal_ individual.
Now, in the places where morphological characteristics of race
are most persistent, the _social forms_ are primitive, and so
also are the sentiments, the customs and the _ethical level_,
because _purity of race_ means an absence of hybridism, _i.e._,
an absence of intimate communication with human society evolving
in the flood-tide of civilisation. Consequently, in addition to
the above-mentioned characteristic (ultra-dolichocephaly), the
individual would probably show an intellectual inferiority, an
inferiority of the ethical tense, etc., and this would serve
to strengthen the teacher's first impression. But the normal
_limits of growth_ for a given age, the absence of real and actual
malformations (for instance, in this case there is probability of
facial beauty, etc.), would cause him very quickly to correct his
first judgment with a more thoughtful diagnosis. Therefore a study
of local ethnical characteristics would be very useful as a basis
for pedagogical anthropology, as I have tried to show in one of my
works (_Importanza della etnologia_ _regionale nell'antropologia
pedagogica_, "The importance of regional ethnology in pedagogical
anthropology").
And this also holds good for the interpretation of true
malformations.
We have hitherto been guided in our observation of so-called
stigmata by analytical criteria, that is, we have been content with
determining the single or manifold malformations in the individual
without troubling ourselves to determine their _morphological
genesis_ or their _genesis of combination_.
For example, the _ogival palate_ is a well-known anomaly of form,
but in all probability it will occur in an individual whose family
has the _high and narrow_ _palate_ that is met with, for instance,
as the normal type among the dolichocephalics of Latium; the same
may be said in regard to flat-foot, etc. Multifold diastemata and
macrodontia will, on the contrary, be more easily met with in
families whose palate is wide and low (brachycephalics). And just
as certain normal forms or characteristics are found in combination
in a single individual (for instance, brachycephaly, fair hair,
tall stature, etc.), so it is also in the case of stigmata, which
will be found occurring together in one individual, not _by_
_chance_, but according to the laws of morphological combination,
and probably as an _exaggeration_ of (unlovely) characteristics
which belong, as normal forms, to the family or race.
There are already a number of authorities on neuropathology, De
Sanctis among others, who have noted that there is an _ugly family
type_ which sometimes reproduces itself in a sickly member of the
family, in such a way as to exaggerate pathologically the unlovely
but normal characteristics of the other members, and furthermore,
that an exaggeration of unlovely characteristics may increase from
generation to generation, accompanied by a disintegration of the
psychic personality.
Consequently, a knowledge of the morphological characteristics
which in all probability belong to the races from which the
subjects to be examined are derived, has a number of important
aspects. The literature of anthropology is certainly not
rich in _racial_ studies, consequently, I feel that it will
not be unprofitable to summarise in the following table the
characteristics that distinguish the two racial types encountered
by me among the female population of Latium.
TABLE OF THE DIFFERENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TWO
RACIAL TYPES
_Brunette Dolichocephalics and Blond Brachycephalics_
---------------+---------------------------+--------------------------
Organs to |Dolichocephalic, brunette |Brachycephalic, blond type
which the |type of low stature |of tall stature
characteristics| |
refer | |
---------------+---------------------------+--------------------------
Visage. |Elongated ellipsoidal or |Rounded, broad; coarse
|ovoidal; fine, delicate |features; contour
|lineaments, rounded |frequently angular,
|curves, softly modeled. |especially around the
| |cheek-bones.
| |
Eyes. |Large, usually |Not so large, the form
|almond-shaped; |frequently tending to the
|pigmentation brown, |oblique; the contours of
|shading from black to |the inner angle of the
|chestnut. |eye less clear-cut, owing
| |to the plica epicantica.
| |Pigmentation light gray,
| |blue.
| |
Nose. |Very leptorrhine; nostrils |Leptorrhine, tending
|delicate and mobile. |toward mesorrhine;
| |sometimes the nose is
| |fleshy, nostrils thick and
| |slightly movable only.
| |
Mouth. |Labial aperture small, |Labial aperture wide, lips
|lips finely modeled and |frequently fleshy, and not
|very red |well modeled.
| |
Teeth. |Small, with curved |Teeth large and flat,
|surface, gleaming, almost |enamel dull; difference
|as wide as long, not |between incisors, canines,
|greatly dissimilar, "like |etc., sharply marked.
|equal pearls." |
| |
Palate. |Very high and narrow |Flat and wide.
|(ogival). |
| |
Profile. |Proopic. |Platyopic.
| |
Ear. |Finely modeled, small, |Often irregular, large,
|delicate. |thick.
| |
Frontal line |Very distinct; forehead |Indistinct; forehead
of roots of |small. |protuberant.
hair. | |
| |
Neck. |Long and slender, flexible.|Short, more or less stocky.
| |
Thorax. |Flattened in |Projecting forward.
|antero-posterior direction.|
| |
Breasts. |Position low, form tending |Position high, breasts
|to pear-shape; nipples |round; nipple prominent,
|slightly raised, aureole |aureole small and
|broad; often hairy between |rose-colored; always
|the breasts. |hairless.
| |
Pelvis and |High and narrow; the |Low and broad; the abdomen
abdomen. |abdomen becomes prominent |does not become prominent.
|toward the thirtieth year, |
|even in unmarried women. |
| |
Lumbar curve. |Slightly pronounced; |Quite pronounced; position
|position of buttocks low. |of buttocks high.
| |
Limbs. |Distal portion slightly |Distal portion slightly
|shorter (as compared |longer (as compared with
|with the proximal) limbs |the proximal); limbs well
|slender. |endowed with muscles.
| |
Hands. |Coarse; palm long and |Delicate, palm broad,
|narrow; fingers short. |fingers long.
| |
Fingers. |Short, thick, with |Long, tapering; nails with
|flattened extremities; |deep placed quicks, rosy
|nails flat, not very pink |and shinning.
|nor very transparent. |
| |
Palmar and |Coarse; frequently with |Very fine, rosy and with
digital papillæ|geometric figures on the |open designs.
|finger tips; pallid. |
| |
Feet. |Big; form tending to |Small, much arched.
|flatness. |
| |
Body as a |Slender; slight |Beautiful; strong muscle.
whole. |muscularity. Tendency |No tendency toward too
|toward stoutness in old |much flesh. Furthermore,
|age with deformation of |the body preserves its
|the body. |contours.
| |
Complexion. |Brunette and dark. |White.
| |
Color of hair. |Black to chestnut. |Blond.
| |
Form of hair. |Short, always wavy |Long, straight, section
|or curly, fine with |slightly elliptical and
|ellipsoidal section. |sometimes almost round.
| |
Hair on body. |Growth of hair sometimes |The surface of the body is
|found on thorax and on the |hairless.
|legs. |
---------------+---------------------------+--------------------------
=The Origin of Malformations during Development.=--Malformations are a
morphological index, and we have already shown that there is a relation
between the physical and the psychical personality. A defective
physical development tells us that the psychic personality must also
have its defects (especially in regard to the intelligence).
Not only degenerates, but even we normal beings, in the conflict of
social life, and because of our congenital weaknesses, have felt
that we were losing, or that we were failing to acquire the rich
possibilities latent in our consciousness, and that vainly formed
the height of our ambition. And when this occurred, the body also
lost something of the beauty which it might have attained, or rather,
it lacked the power to develop it. In the words of Rousseau, "Our
intellectual gifts, our vices, our virtues, and consequently our
characters, are all dependent upon our organism."
Nevertheless, this interrelation must be understood in a very wide
sense, and is modified according to the period of embryonal or
extrauterine life at which a lesion or a radical disturbance in
development chances to occur. In a treatise entitled _The Problems_ _of
Degeneration_, in which the most modern ideas regarding degeneration
are summed up, and new standards of social morality advocated, Brugia
gives a most graphic diagram, which I take the liberty of reproducing.
[Illustration:
fertilized ovum
embryo
foetus and new-born child
child]
From the little black point to the big circle are represented the
different stages of embryonal and foetal development, until we reach
the child. In A we have the fertilized ovum. Here it may be said that
the new individual does not yet exist; we are at a transition point
between two adults (the parents) and a new organism, which is _about to
develop_. Now comes the embryo, which may be called the new individual
in a _potential_ state; then the foetus, in which the human form is at
last attained; and lastly the child, which will proceed onward toward
the physical and spiritual conquests of human life. But so long as an
individual has not completely developed, deviations may occur in his
development; but these will be just so much the graver, in proportion
as the individual is in a more plastic state.
We should reserve the term _degeneration_, real and actual, to
that which presupposes an alteration at A, _i.e._, at the time of
conception. An alteration all the graver if it antedates A, that is to
say, if it preexisted in the ovum and in the fertilizing spermatozoon,
_i.e._, in the parents. In this case, there is no use in talking of
a direct educative and prophylactic intervention on behalf of the
individual resulting from this conception; the intervention must be
directed toward all adult individuals who have attained the power of
procreation. And in this consists the greatest moral problem of our
times--sexual education and the sentiment of responsibility toward
the species. All mankind ought to feel the _responsibility_ toward
the posterity which they are preparing to procreate and they ought
to lead a life that is hygienic, sober, virtuous, and serene, such
as is calculated to preserve intact the treasures of the immortality
of the species. There exist whole families of degenerates, whose
offspring are precondemned to swell the ranks of moral monsters. These
individuals, who result from a _wrongful conception_, carry within them
malformations of the kind known as degenerative, and together with them
alterations of the moral sense that are characteristic of degenerates,
that is to say, they will be unbalanced (through inheritance) in their
entire personality.
Something similar will happen if such a lesion befalls the embryo,
_i.e._, while the individual is still in the potential state (lacking
human form). In the foetus, on the contrary, _i.e._, the individual who
has attained the human form but is still in the course of intrauterine
development, any possible lesion, and more especially those due to
pathological causes, while they cannot alter the entire personality,
may injure that which is already formed, and in so violent a manner
as to produce a _physical_ _monster_, whose deformities may even be
incompatible with life (_e.g._, cleft spine or palate, hydrocephaly,
Little's disease, which is a form of paralysis of foetal origin, and
all the teratological (_i.e._, monstrous) alterations). That is to say,
in going from A to C we pass from _malformations_ to _deformations_;
from simple physical alterations of an æsthetic nature to physical
monstrosities sometimes incompatible with life itself; while in regard
to the psychic life, we find that the remoter lesions (in A) result for
the most part in anomalies of the moral sense, while those occurring
later (B, C) result for the most part in anomalies of the intellect.
So that at one extreme we may have moral monsters, with malformations
whose significance can be revealed only through observation guided by
science and at the other extreme, physical monsters, whose moral sense
is altered only slightly or not at all. Those who suffer injury at A
may be intelligent, and employ their intelligence to the malevolent
ends inspired by moral madness; those who suffer injury at C or D are
harmless monsters, often idiots, or even foredoomed to die. The peril
to society steadily diminishes from A to C, while the peril to the
individual steadily augments.
Over all these periods so full of peril to human development and so
highly important for the future of the species, we may place one single
word:
=Woman.=--Throughout the period that is most decisive for its future,
humanity is wholly _dependent upon woman_. Upon her rests not only the
responsibility of preserving the integrity of the germ, but also that
of the embryonal and foetal development of man.
The respect and protection of woman and of maternity should be raised
to the position of an inalienable social duty and should become one of
the principles of human morality.
To-day we are altogether lacking in a sense of moral obligation toward
the species, and hence lacking in a moral sense such as would lead
to respect for woman and maternity--so much so, indeed, that we have
invented a form of _modesty_ which consists in concealing maternity,
in not speaking of maternity! And yet at the same time there are sins
against the species that go unpunished, and offenses to the dignity of
woman that are tolerated and protected by law!
But even after the child is born and has reached the period of
lactation, we should still write across it the words _Woman_ and
_Mother_. The education and the responsibility of woman and of society
must be modified, if we are to assure the triumph of the species. And
the teachers who receive the child into the school, after its transit
through society (in the form of its parents' germs) and through the
mother, cannot fail to be interested in raising the social standards
of education and morality. Like a priesthood of the new humanity, they
should feel it their duty to be _practitioners_ of all those virtues
which assure the survival of the human species.
_Moral and Pedagogic Problems within the School._--Children when they
first come to school have a personality already outlined. From the
unmoral, the sickly, the intellectually defective to the robust and
healthy children, the intelligent, and those in whom are hidden the
glorious germs of genius; from those who sigh over the discomforts of
wretchedness and poverty to those who thoughtlessly enjoy the luxuries
of life; from the lonely hearted orphan to the child pampered by the
jealous love of mother and grandmother:--they all meet together in the
same school.
It is quite certain that neither the spark of genius nor the blackness
of crime originated in the school or in the pedagogic method! More
than that, it is exceedingly probable that the extreme opposite types
passed unnoticed, or nearly so, in that environment whose duty it is
to prepare the new generations for social adaptation. From this degree
of blindness and unconsciousness the school will certainly be rescued
by means of the scientific trend which pedagogy is to-day acquiring
through the _study of the pupil_. That the teacher must assume the
new task of _repairing_ what is wrong with the child, through the aid
of the physician, and of protecting the normal child from the dangers
of enfeeblement and deformation that constantly overhang him, thus
laying the foundations for a splendid human race, _free to attain_ its
foreordained development--all this we have already pointed out, and
space does not permit us to expand the argument further.
But, in conclusion, there is one more point over which I wish to pause.
If the Lombrosian theory rests upon a basis of truth, what attitude
should we pedagogists take on the question of moral education? We
are impotent in the face of the fact of the interrelation between
physical and moral deformity. Is it then no longer a sin to do evil
and no longer a merit to do good? No. But we have only to alter the
_interpretation_ of the facts, and the result is a high moral progress
pointing a new path in pedagogy. There are, for example, certain
individuals who feel themselves irresistibly attracted toward evil,
who become inebriated with blood; there are others, on the contrary,
who faint at the mere sight of blood and have a horror of evil. There
are some who feel themselves naturally impelled to do good, and they
do it in order to satisfy a personal desire (many philanthropists)
thus deriving that pleasure which springs from the satisfaction of any
natural need. In our eyes, all these individuals who act instinctively,
though in opposite ways, deserve neither praise nor blame; they were
born that way; one of them is physiologically a proletarian, the other
is a capitalist of normal human ability. It is a question of birth.
When the educator praised the one and punished the other, he was
sanctioning the necessary effects of causes that were unknown to him:
"But still, whence cometh the intelligence
Of the first notions man is ignorant,
And the affection of the first allurements
Which are in you as instinct in the bee
To make its honey; and this first desire
Merit of praise or blame containeth not."
(DANTE, _Longfellow's Translation_.)
The instinctive malefactor is not to blame, the blame should rest
rather upon his parents who gave him a bad heredity; but these parents
were in their turn victims of the social causes of degeneration.
The same thing may be said if a pathological cause comes up for
consideration in relation, for instance, to certain anomalies of
character.
Analogously, he who is born good and instinctively does good deeds,
deriving pleasure from them, deserves no praise. There is no vainer
sight than is afforded by a person of this sort, living complacently in
the contemplation of himself, praised by everyone, and to all practical
intent, held up as a contrast to the evil actions of the degenerate
and the diseased who act from instinct no more nor less than he does
himself. The man who is born physiologically a capitalist assumes
high moral obligations; he ought to discipline his nature as a normal
man in order to make it serve the general good. And this is not to be
accomplished through an _instinct_ to do good, which acts at haphazard,
but through the _deliberate_ _will_ to do good, even if the requisite
actions bring no immediate satisfaction, but even involve a sacrifice.
Society will be ameliorated and rendered moral through the harmonious
efforts of good men, trained for the social welfare. Man will become
good only when his goodness costs him a voluntary effort.
Hence it will be necessary not to limit ourselves, as has been done
in the past, to admiring the man who is born good, but to educate him
so as to render him thoughtful, strong and useful; not to condemn the
sinner, but to redeem him through education and through a sense of
fellowship in the common fault, which is the scientific form of pardon.
The degenerate, who succeeds in conquering his sinful instinct and in
ceasing to do harm, the normal man who renders himself morally sublime
by dedicating his splendid physiological inheritance to the collective
good, will be equally meritorious. But what a moral abyss gapes
open to divide them! Because it is a short stride at best that the
physiological proletariat can take, while for the soul of the normal
man an untrammelled pathway lies open toward perfection.
Accordingly the new task of the teacher of the future is a multifold
one. He is the artificer of human beauty, the new modeler of created
things, just as the sublime chisel of Greek art was the modeler of
marbles. And he prepares for greater utilisation the physiological
and intellectual forces of the new man, like a Greek deity scattering
broadcast his prolific riches.
But above all he prepares the souls for the sublime sentiment which
awaits the humanity of the future, glorying in the attainment of peace,
and then indeed he becomes almost a redeemer of mankind.
FOOTNOTES:
[48] ROSSI, _Anthropological Anomalies in their relations to social
conditions and to degeneration_.
CHAPTER VII
TECHNICAL PART
In a book the technical part can serve only to point the way, because
the acquirement of technique demands _practical experience_.
The technique of anthropology consists, essentially, of two principal
branches: 1. the gathering of anthropological data by means of
measurements (anthropometry) and by inspection (anthroposcopy); 2. the
formulation of laws based on these anthropological data.
Anthropometry requires a knowledge: a. of anthropometric instruments;
b. of the anatomical points of contact to which the instruments must be
applied.
For beginners it will be found helpful to mark upon the subject the
anthropometric points of contact by means of a dermographic pencil.
In anthropology so large a number of measurements are taken, both from
life and from skeletons, that a minute description of them all would
demand a separate treatise. We shall limit ourselves to indicating such
measurements as it has been found of _practical_ _utility_ to take in
school.
THE FORM
In the theoretic part of this work we emphasized the word _form_,
representing the body as a whole and embodying the conception of
relationship between the proportions of the body, tending to determine
the morphological individuality.
From the normal point of view the two individualities which are most
interesting and worthy of comparison are those of the _new-born
child_ and the _adult_ (see Fig. 140 and its eloquent testimony). In
these two individualities the greatest possible prominence is given
to those differences of proportion between bust and limb on which
all the various measurements of the form depend: the _standing and
sitting stature_; _the total spread of the arms_; the _weight_; the
_circumference of the thorax_ (see "Theoretic Lessons on the Form").
With the theory recalled to mind we may now pass on to the _practical
procedure for obtaining these various_ _measures_. Among them the most
important is the _stature_, whose cycle is represented in Fig. 141. The
theoretic section of this book devotes special attention to the stature
in a separate chapter following that on the Form. It is well to have
in mind the general principals before taking up the technique of the
separate measurements.
_Stature._--The stature is the distance intervening between the plane
on which the individual stands in an erect position and the top of his
head.
[Illustration: FIG. 140.--_New-born child_ and _adult man_ reduced to
the same height and preserving their relative bodily proportions. The
head of the new-born child is twice the height of that of the adult and
extends downward to the level of the latters's nipples. The pubes of
the adult correspond to the navel of the new-born child; and the pubes
of the child to the middle of the adult's thigh.]
_Technical Procedure._--It is necessary to know how to place the
subject in an erect position, heels together and toes turned out,
shoulders square, arms pendent, head orientated, _i.e._, occipital
point touching the wall, gaze horizontal.
In measuring the individual stature it is customary to use an
instrument called an anthropometer (Fig. 142).
It consists of a horizontal board on which the subject stands, a
stationary vertical rod marked with the metric scale against which the
subject rests his back, and another small movable rod perpendicular to
the first and projecting forward from it; this is lowered until it is
tangent to the apex of the cranium; and the scale upon the upright rod
gives the number corresponding to the stature.
[Illustration: FIG. 141.--Diagram representing the cycle of stature of
man (unbroken line) and woman (dotted line), from birth to the end of
life.]
Certain anthropologists are now trying to perfect the anthropometer
(Mosso's school). And, indeed, how is it possible to bring the
entire person posteriorly in contact with the vertical rod of the
anthropometer? The rod is straight while the body follows the curves
of the vertebral column and the gluteus muscles. Accordingly,
Professor Monti, an assistant to Professor Mosso, has proposed a new
anthropometer which, in place of the single rod at the back, has a pair
of rods, so that the more prominent portions of the body may occupy
the intermediate space; a similar anthropometer was already in use for
measuring kyphotics.
[Illustration: FIG. 142.--Anthropometer.]
[Illustration: FIG. 143.--A square.]
At the present day there are exceedingly complicated and accurate
anthropometers which comprise, in addition, instruments for obtaining
various other measurements, such as the thoracic and cephalic
perimeters, etc. But these are very costly and not practical for use
in schools. Their use is confined chiefly to medical clinics, as,
for example, Viola's anthropometer, which is used in Professor De
Giovanni's clinic.
Broca recommends to travelers an anthropometer consisting of a
graduated rod with a movable index attached. By means of this a series
of distances from the ground can be measured, and consequently various
partial heights of the body, from the ground to the top of the head,
from the ground to the chin, to the pubis, to the knee, etc., but grave
errors may be committed and its use is not advisable so long as we have
within reach a universal anthropometer.
The universal anthropometer consists essentially of two planes
perpendicular to each other; now we may say that in every room,
in the meeting of two planes, the floor and the wall, we have an
anthropometer. There is no reason why we should not make use of this
simple means! Placing the child in an erect position with the body
touching the wall throughout its whole length, we place a perfectly
horizontal rod tangent to the top of the head, we make a mark upon the
wall, and then with a millimetric measure we take the distance between
the mark and the floor, and this gives us the stature. Two difficulties
are met with, first, that of holding the rod horizontally on the top of
the head, and secondly, that of measuring the distance in a perfectly
vertical line. In the first difficulty a carpenter's square may help us
or, if there is a school of manual training within convenient reach it
is easy to have a little instrument constructed (Fig. 143) consisting
of two planes perpendicular to each other, one of which should be
held tangent to the head while the other is pressed against the wall
(carpenter's square).
As regards the vertical measurement, a plumb line may be used, but
it is more practical to trace upon the wall that we mean to use for
such measurements, a design consisting of a vertical line on which a
mark may be made at the height of one metre from the floor in order to
simplify the task of measuring.
It is better if the millimetric tape is made of metal, so that it will
not vary in length; but even a tailor's measure of waxed tape may
answer the purpose if it is new and has been tested with a metallic
measure or an accurate metre rule.
The height of the stature is taken _without the shoes_, and it is
necessary to state at what hour of the day the measurement is made,
because in the morning we are taller (though by only a few millimetres)
than we are in the evening. The stature may also be taken in a
recumbent position (length of body), and in this case will be longer by
about one centimetre.
Consequently in giving the measure of stature it is necessary to state
in what position the subject was placed, by what method the measurement
was taken (whether with an anthropometer or not) and at what hour of
the day the measurement was made.
It is not necessary to say that the subject was required to remove his
shoes, since that is taken for granted.
_Sitting Stature._--Besides the stature taken on foot, the sitting
stature (height of bust) is also taken by an analogous process. It
is the distance between the plane on which the individual is seated
and the vertex of his head. The subject should be seated upon a wooden
bench having a horizontal plane and should place his back in contact
with the wall; just as in the case of the preceding measure the shoes
had to be removed, in the present case the clothing is discarded,
leaving only the light underwear (Fig. 144). With the aid of the square
we find the point corresponding to the vertex of the head and with the
millimetric measure we obtain the distance on the wall between this
point and the plane of the bench.
[Illustration: FIG. 144--(1) Sitting stature. (2) Standing stature.
(Method of taking measurements with the Anthropometer.)]
_Index of Stature._--We know that these two measures are extremely
important for ascertaining the type of stature, _i.e._, _macroscelia_
and _brachyscelia_, determined by the proportion between the sitting
stature and the total stature reduced to a scale of 100, that is, the
relation of the bust to the total height of the individual. Let us
remember in this connection that the bust should be a 52d or 53d part
of the total stature and that below 52 down to 50, it is macroscelous,
and that above 53, up to 55, it is brachyscelous.
Having obtained the two numbers corresponding to the two statures,
_e.g._, stature 1.60 m., bust 0.85 m., how are we to find out the
percentual relation between the two measurements? First, we form an
equation: 85:160 = _x_:100.
from which we obtain _x_ = (100×85)/160 = 53
This stature is of the normal average type, that is, it is
mesatiscelous; but the mesatiscelia is high (in comparison with the
other measurement that is also mesatiscelous, namely, 52), in other
words, it is _brachy-mesatiscelous_.
Note the formula which gives us the value of _x_. If we substitute
general symbols in place of the concrete values, we may say that _x_
is equal to one hundred times the lesser measurement (_m_) divided
by the greater measurement (_M_). If, in place of _x_, we substitute
_I_, signifying index, we may draw up the following general formula of
indices:
_I_ = (100×_m_)/_M_
This formula of relations between measurements is of wide application
in anthropology and is fundamental. Indices of every measurement
are sought for. The one given above is the index of stature, and it
determines the _type_ of stature. All the other indices are calculated
by similar procedure.
[Illustration: FIG. 145.--Method of measuring the total spread of arms.]
_Total Spread of the Arms._--This measurement is taken quite simply.
The subject must place himself with his arms outstretched in a
horizontal direction and on a level with his shoulders. The measurement
corresponds to the distance intervening in a horizontal line from
the tip of one middle finger to the other (FIG. 145). A specially
constructed anthropometer may be used for this measurement. It has
a long horizontal rod adjustable perpendicularly, so that it may be
placed on a level with the shoulders of the subject to be measured.
This rod forms a cross with the other vertical rod with which the
subject should be in contact. The arms are then extended along the
cross rod which is marked with a millimetric scale. But this greatly
complicates the anthropometer, and hardly any anthropometer possesses
this attachment. This measure may be successfully taken with the
very simple aid of the wall. The only difficulty offered is that of
securing a perfectly horizontal position for the arms. For this purpose
horizontal lines, which either happen by chance to be upon the wall or
which may be drawn on purpose, will be of assistance. In order to have
guiding lines suited to different statures, several horizontal lines
may be drawn intersecting the vertical line already traced for guidance
of the millimetric tape measure used in taking the stature.
_Thoracic Perimeter._--The thoracic perimeter is taken on the nude
thorax, in an erect position and with the arms hanging beside the bust,
by applying the millimetric measure in such a way that its upper margin
passes just below the nipples. The tape measure should completely
encircle the thorax in a horizontal plane passing through the mammary
papillæ. Since the thorax is in constant motion, we must observe the
oscillations of the tape measure and obtain the average; or else we
may take the measurements during the state of expiration (repose). In
giving the figure it is necessary to specify the procedure followed.
_Vital Index. Index of Life._--Index of life is the name given to the
proportion between the stature and the thoracic perimeter. It ought to
be equal to 50, _i.e._, _Tp_ = _S_/2
_Vi_ = (100×_Tp_)/_S_ = 50 (normal).
_Weight._--The weight of an individual is taken by means of ordinary
_scales_. In order to obtain the weight of the nude person, the
clothing may be weighed separately and their weight subtracted from the
total weight of the clothed person. The weight should be taken before
eating, in order that unassimilated alimentary substances may not alter
the real weight of the subject. If this method cannot be rigorously
followed out, it should be specified how much clothing the subject
retained, whether he had eaten, etc.
_Ponderal Index._--Stature and weight are the most synthetic and
comprehensive measurements of the form. But we need a clear proportion
between these two measures to tell us whether an individual weighs more
or less _relatively_ to his _stature_. It may happen, for instance,
that a stout person of short stature actually weighs less than another
person who is tall and thin; but relatively to his stature he may
on the contrary be heavier, that is, he may have a higher _ponderal
index_. A robust and plump child will weigh in an absolute sense less
than an adult who is extremely thin and emaciated; but relatively
to the mass of his body he weighs more. Now this relative weight or
index of weight (ponderal index) gives us precisely this idea of
_embonpoint_, of the more or less flourishing state of nutrition in
which an individual happens to be. But linear measurements such as the
stature cannot be compared with volumetric measurements, such as the
weight. Hence it is necessary to reduce the volumetric measure--the
weight--to a linear measure, which is done by extracting the cube root
from the number representing the weight. Then the root of the weight
may be compared to the stature reduced to a scale of 100. By forming
a general proportion, in which _W_ represents the weight of a given
individual, and _S_ the corresponding figure of his stature, we obtain:
_S_:[*cube root](_W_)::100:_x_
(where _x_ represents the ponderal index)
hence _Pi_ = (100×[*cube root](_W_))/_S_
The application of this formula would necessitate some rather
complicated calculations, which it would be inconvenient to have to
repeat for a large number of subjects.
But there are tables of calculations already compiled, which are due to
Livi, and which are given, together with other tables, in Livi's own
work, _Anthropometry_ (Hoepli). These are numerical tables, to be read
in the same manner as tables of logarithms. At the top, in a horizontal
direction, the stature is given in centimetres, while in the vertical
column the weight is given in kilograms. The calculation of all the
ponderal indices has been worked out, in relation to every possible
stature and weight. If we look up the ponderal index corresponding to
the figures already cited in illustration (see p. 182), we find that
for the adult the _Pi_ = 23.6, and for the child the _Pi_ = 27.4;
_i.e._, considered relatively the child weighs more in the given case.
This is the true and accurate technical method of finding the relative
proportion between weight and stature.
Accordingly, we have now learned to take all the measurements relative
to the form, to calculate from them the more important indices (or
proportions), such as the index of stature, the index of life, and the
ponderal index. We have also learned to understand and to consult the
tables of anthropological calculations.
THE CRANIUM
_The Head and Cranium._--Let us bear in mind the fact that the word
_head_ is used in speaking of a living person, and _cranium_, of a
skeleton.
The science which makes a study of the cranium is called craniology.
The cranium and the head may be studied either by observing the
external form--_cranioscopy_ or _cephaloscopy_; or else by taking
measurements--_craniometry_ or _cephalometry_. Craniology makes use
equally of cranioscopy and of craniometry: in fact, if cranioscopy
alone were used, certain anomalies might escape attention, because we
can recognise them only by measuring the head; and conversely, if we
confined ourselves to craniometric researches, we might miss certain
anomalies of form, which we become aware of only by attentively
observing the cranium. Frequently craniometry serves to verify
cranioscopy. For example, a cranium may appear to the eye too large
or too small, but certainly if we measure the cranial circumference
with a tape-measure we shall have an accurate decision of a case which
may well be a simple optical illusion. Indeed, we all know how easy
it is to give an erroneous judgment, relying only on our senses; for
the personal equation enters very largely into judgments of this sort.
For instance, a person of low stature easily judges that other men are
tall, and _vice versa_. To the eye of the Italian or the Frenchman,
the hair of young English girls is a pale blond; to the Scandinavians
of the North it is a warm blond. If two men possessed of different
æsthetic tastes and in different frames of mind wish to describe one
and the same garden they will give two widely different descriptions
which will reveal far more of their individual impressions and moods
than of the actual characteristics of the garden described. It is
easy to understand how important it is in scientific descriptions
to exclude completely the influence of the observer's personality.
In the cranioscopic study of a cranium, for instance, the precise
characteristics of that cranium are what must be found and nothing else
whatever, no matter who the student is nor in what part of the world
he is working. But in order to achieve this result it is not enough to
take observations; it is also necessary to know how to observe, and in
observing to follow a scientific method.
_Cranioscopy._--Cranioscopic methods require that the skull shall
be observed from several sides. Blumenbach, who studied crania by
observing them from the vertex, divided them into ovoid, rhomboid,
etc., while Camper, on the other hand, studying them in profile,
classified them as flat, elongated, etc., and the conclusions of the
two scientists were irreconcilable.
[Illustration: FIG. 146.--Facial norm.]
[Illustration: FIG. 147.--Occipital norm.]
[Illustration: FIG. 148.--Lateral norm.]
The cranium must be observed from above, from the front, in profile
and from the occipital part; and in such a manner that the observer's
glance shall fall perpendicularly upon whichever cranial side is under
observation. Hence it is said that the observation is made according
to the norm, _i.e._, according to the perpendicular, and there are
four _norms_ in cranioscopy--_vertical_, _frontal_, _lateral_, and
_occipital_. In this way we may be sure that no anomaly of form will
escape the eye.
There are innumerable anomalies of form. We will indicate only the
principal ones. In order to detect all the anomalies that may occur in
a cranium it is necessary to observe it according to all the norms,
each one of which may reveal a different set of anomalies.
A. _Vertical Norm._--The word _norm_, as we have already said, has here
the signification of perpendicular. To look at a cranium according to
the vertical norm means to let our glance fall perpendicularly upon
the vertex of the cranium. We may do this in one of two ways, either
by raising our head above that of the subject of inspection, in such a
way that our glance falls vertically upon it, or by bending back the
head of the person to be observed until the crown of his head becomes
perpendicular to our gaze. This norm is taken by placing oneself behind
the person to be observed, who, if an adult, should be seated while
the observer remains standing; and by taking the head to be examined
between the two hands in such a way that the extended thumbs and
index-fingers form a horizontal circlet around the cranial walls.
This is the most important of the norms, not only because it reveals
the most important normal forms already described in the text, but also
the greater number of anomalies such as are indicated below.
1. _Crania with Rectilinear Perimeter._--It may happen that the
line bounding the cranial vault is not curved but formed of
broken straight lines from which various geometrical figures
result, producing crania known as trigonocephalic, pentagonoid,
parallelopipedoid, etc.
The most important among these and among all the abnormal forms is
the trigonocephalic cranium, having the base of the triangle toward
the occiput and the vertex toward the forehead. The result of such
formation is that the frontal region is restricted, a circumstance
of obvious gravity. The infantile cranium is normally pentagonoid;
the persistence of this form in the adult is a sign of arrested
development, but not serious. Sergi does not admit this form among
the anomalies when the nodules are but slightly emphasised.
2. _Asymmetrical and Plagiocephalic Crania._--The sagittal plane
divides the cranium into two unequal halves. The asymmetry may be
either frontal, in which case one frontal nodule is more prominent
than the other--anterior plagiocephaly, or else parietal, in
which case one of the parietal nodules is more prominent than the
other--posterior plagiocephaly.
These are the two forms of simple plagiocephaly. It may happen that
there is simultaneously an anterior and posterior asymmetry, and in
such a case it generally happens that if the more prominent frontal
nodule is on the right, the more prominent parietal nodule is on
the left, so that the two more prominent nodules correspond in a
diagonal sense. This is compound plagiocephaly.
Plagiocephaly is extremely common; if very apparent, it constitutes
a grave defect, but not if only slight. For that matter, it would
be difficult to find a cranium rigorously symmetrical, even among
normal persons.
3. _Crania with curved and symmetrical lines_, but in which the
perimeter consists not of a single ellipsoidal curve, but of two
curves.
a. _Clinocephalic Cranium._--The coronal suture has a girdle-like
furrow, in such fashion that there result an anterior and a
posterior curve which together form a sort of figure 8. This
anomaly may be perceived also from the lateral norm.
b. _Cymbocephalic Cranium._--- There is a girdle-like furrow along
the sagittal line, so that the cranium has the appearance of being
divided into two pockets, one on the right hand and the other on
the left.
B. _Lateral Norm._--The observer must stand at the side of the subject
to be observed and look at him perpendicularly to the profile.
We remain standing while we look if the subject is an adult and is
standing up, but we sit down if the subject is a child and is standing;
and we determine the vertical position by moving the subject's head as
the occasion requires.
I note, as seen from this norm, two anomalies in which the
ellipsoidal uniformity outlining the profile of the cranium is
altered.
a. _Oxycephalic Cranium._--The line of the profile is noticeably
raised at the bregma, from which the anterior part of the cranium
continues to rise, almost in the direction of the forehead, instead
of curving backward. In its entirety this anomalous cranium has the
form of a "sugar loaf."
b. _Acrocephalic Cranium._--The line of the profile, on the
contrary, is not raised until near the lambda.
C. _Occipital Norm._--The observer places himself behind the subject
and gazes perpendicularly at the occipital point.
D. _Frontal Norm._--The observer stands in front of the subject and
gazes at him on a level with the forehead.
I may point out only one very important anomaly seen from this norm.
a. _Scaphocephalic Cranium._--The lateral parts of the cranium are
flattened to such a degree that the vault is extremely narrow
along the sagittal line (see Figs. 51 and 52).
_Craniometry._--The _volume_ of the cranium is of high importance
because it bears a relation to that of the brain. In the studies which
have been made relative to the correspondence between physical and
intellectual development, the measurement of the cranial volume comes
first in order.
In measuring the cranium it is necessary to use:
a. _the millimetric tape measure_, b. _the craniometric calipers_, c.
_the compass with sliding branches_, d. _the double square_. In order
to facilitate the task of measuring and to secure uniformity it is
necessary first to locate the craniometric points to which it will
be necessary to apply the instrument. These craniometric points are
easily located on the cranium, where a great number of them have been
studied. In the case of a living person, on the contrary, these points
are reduced to a small number because of the difficulty of accurately
locating them.
The points on the vault of the cranium, along the sagittal line, are:
1. The _nasion_ (point of union of the nasal and frontal bones).
2. The _ophryon_ (middle point of the line tangent to the two
superciliary arches, a line corresponding to the horizontal drawn
transversely across the forehead and passing through the two points on
the temporal lines which are nearest to the median line. This point
lies in an important region of the forehead, situated between the two
eyebrows--the glabella. The central point of the middle region of the
forehead above the glabella is called the _metopion_).
3. The _bregma_ (point of juncture between the coronal and sagittal
suture).
4. The _vertex_.
5. The _lambda_ (point of juncture between the sagittal suture and the
occipital or lambdoid suture).
6. The _occipital point_.
7. The _inion_ (situated at a level midway between the occipital point
and the occipital foramen).
Laterally we have these other craniometric points:
1. The _external orbital apophysis_ (formed from the frontal bone).
2. The _supra-auricular_ point.
3. The _auricular point_ (corresponding to a little depression which
may be felt just below the tragus and in correspondence with the
zygomatic arches).
4. The minimum _frontal point_ (a bony angle which may be felt about
1 centimetre above the external orbital apophysis, along the temporal
line).
On a living person the following points can easily be located:
Along the sagittal line:
1. The _nasion_.
2. The _ophryon_.
3. The _vertex_.
4. The _occipital point_.
Laterally:
1. The _external orbital apophysis_.
2. The _supra-auricular point_.
3. The _auricular point_.
4. The _minimum frontal point_.
Now, with these points as guides it becomes practical to measure the
various curves and diameters of the cranium. The curves are measured by
means of the millimetric tape; the diameters by means of the calipers.
There are various curves; we shall confine ourselves to considering
only the following:
The _maximum circumference_, which is obtained by passing the tape
across the ophryon, the occipital points and the supra-auricular
points, beginning to apply it at the ophryon. Its measure varies from
520 to 540 mm. in man and from 490 to 510 mm. in woman, if taken from
the skull. In the case of a living person 20 mm. should be added.
If we find a circumference greater than normal, we are beginning to
enter upon the anomaly which goes by the name of _macrocephaly_. If, on
the other hand, the maximum circumference is notably smaller, we are
entering upon the anomaly of _microcephaly_.
_Measurement of Diameters.--Maximum Antero-posterior Diameter._--With
the left hand place one branch of the calipers upon the glabella; the
other extreme point is to be sought tentatively along a vertical line
dividing the occiput in two halves. Partially close the calipers by
means of the screw and then make trial by raising and lowering the
posterior branch. It ought to move with a slight friction.
This is the classic diameter which measures the maximum length of the
cranium and which, as we have seen, it is customary to compare with
the width in order to obtain the cephalic index. In the adult man it
normally oscillates between 170 and 180 mm.
[Illustration: FIG. 149.--Inspecting cranium (lateral and vertical
norms).]
_Maximum Transverse Diameter._--This measures the width of the
cranium. The investigator places himself in front of the subject in
order to keep the compass quite horizontal through the guidance of
the eyes. The maximum distance is found by experimenting. It normally
corresponds very nearly to the supra-auricular points. In children
this diameter is frequently situated higher up toward the parietal
nodules; in men of tall stature, in whom the cranial vault is generally
slightly developed, this diameter may be found, on the contrary, lower
down, near the mastoid apophyses. If this diameter occurs similarly
low down in children, a notable growth in stature may be prophesied
(Manouvrier); and if inquiry is made it will be found that the parents
are very tall. This diameter measures, in the adult, from 140 to 150 mm.
_Vertical Diameter._--This measures the height of the cranium from
the occipital foramen to the bregma. This diameter cannot be measured
directly excepting on a skull; in the case of a living person its
projection is taken, which, though far from accurate, is given by the
distance between the vertex and the external auditory meatus.
It is necessary to use the double square. The horizontal branch is
placed tangent to the vertex, its direction should be perceptibly
parallel to the transverse orbital line, the graduated vertical branch
should pass over the auricular foramen. The required number may be
read, corresponding to the point of the tragus.
The height of the cranium is exceedingly important; its variations
produce variations in the physiognomy.
In the first period of childhood, the cranium is very low in comparison
to its width; this is also true of dwarfs. In these cases the width of
the cranial vault is large in comparison to that of the base; a low
cranium bulging above is distinctive of babies and dwarfs.
In the adult this diameter measures from 130 to 140 mm.
Among the other measurements which an taken on the cranium, the
following may be cited:
The _antero-posterior metopic diameter_: from the metopic to
the occipital point. In children it is sometimes the maximum
longitudinal diameter.
The _ophryo-iniac diameter_ from the ophryon to the inion.
The _minimum frontal diameter_: between the two minimum frontal
points.
The _maximum frontal diameter_: between the two external orbital
apophyses.
The _bistephanic diameter_: between the two stephanic points.
The _bitemporal diameter_: this is the greatest width of the
cranium between the verticals passing through the base of the
tragus.
The _biauricular diameter_: the craniometrical points are in front
of, and a little below, but very near to the upper insertion of the
auricle. They are little depressions that can be felt, as we have
already said, by applying the finger along the upper edge of the
root of the zygomatic arch.
_Height of forehead_: from the ophryon to the roots of the hair.
Circumferences and Curves:
_Anterior Semicircle._--The tape is applied from one
supra-auricular point to the other, passing through the ophryon;
it corresponds to the anterior part of the maximum circumference.
Manouvrier measures it in correspondence to the verticals erected
from the tragus.
_Posterior Semicircle._--This is obtained by subtracting the
anterior semicircle from the whole circumference.
_Vertical Curve of the Head._--The tape passes through a plane
that is vertical to the orientated head, starting from the
supra-auricular points or from the tragus, according to different
authorities.
_Cephalic Index._--This is the proportion between the _maximum_
_transverse_ and _longitudinal_ diameters. It is obtained by applying
the familiar formula:
_Ci_ = (100×_d_)/(_D_)
in which _d_ represents the transverse diameter and _D_ the
longitudinal. The index represents the percentual relation between the
two diameters, and is obtained from the formula by reducing the greater
diameter to a scale of 100, as follows:
_D_:100 = _d_:_X_, _whence_ _X_ = 100×_d_/_D_
Instead of working out the calculations, we may find the required index
in the tables already compiled.
_Volume._--The volume of the cranium cannot be taken directly, except
in the case of a skull. After the various osseous foramina have been
closed, the cranial cavity is filled through the occipital foramen with
any one of a number of substances (millet, shot, water, etc.), which is
afterward measured. The method of taking this measurement is practised
on a facsimile of a cranium already calculated, and usually made of
metal.
But in the case of a living person the direct calculation of the
volume is impossible. Nevertheless various empirical methods have
been sought for obtaining this measurement, even though imperfect and
approximate. Recently renewed use has been made, especially in France,
of an approximate calculation made by means of Broca's cubic index.
The volume of the cranium is equal to half the product of the three
diameters, divided by an index which varies according to age.
This index is as follows:
/ men 1.20
Adults from 25 years upward. \ women 1.15
/ men 1.15
Young persons from 25 to 20 years. \ women 1.10
/ men 1.10
Young persons from 20 to 16 years. \ women 1.08
/ 15-10 years 1.07
Children of both sexes. { 10-5 years 1.06
\5 years and below 1.05
An index of cranial development is afforded by the maximum
circumference. The average volume of the normal adult cranium is about
1,500 cubic centimetres: _mesocephalic cranium_.
When the cranium is much inferior in volume, it is called
_microcephalic_ (from 1,200 down to 700 cubic centimetres). When
on the contrary it is much superior (from 1,900 up to 2,200 cubic
centimetres), it is called _macrocephalic_ or _megalocephalic_.
For the face, the following craniometric points should be noted:
Along a longitudinal line:
1. The _nasion_ (point of meeting of the nasal and frontal bones).
2. Subnasal point (meeting of nasal septum with upper maxilla).
3. _Upper alveolar point_ (between the two upper incisors at their
point of insertion).
4. _Lower alveolar point_ (point corresponding to the above, in the
lower maxilla).
5. _Mental point_ (middle point of the chin).
The following craniometric points are situated laterally.
6. _Auricular point_ (corresponding to the auricular foramen; in living
persons it is situated on the tragus).
7. _Malar point_ (on the malar bones).
8. _Zygomatic point_ (corresponding to the zygomatic arches).
9. Gonion or goniac point (angle of mandible).
The face also may be studied by inspection--_prosoposcopy_; and by
measurement--_prosopometry_.
_Prosoposcopy._--We proceed to inspection according to two norms: A.
facial norm; B. lateral norm or norm of profile.
A. _Facial Norm._--If it is a question of a living person, we make
complete inspection of the visage, from the roots of the hair to the
chin. First of all we direct attention to the forehead, which will
give us an index of the development of the anterior region of the
brain; next, we observe whether a plane passing longitudinally through
the median line would divide the face into two equal halves (facial
symmetry).
From an æsthetic point of view, the three following vertical distances
ought to correspond in length:
_Height of forehead_ (from the roots of the hair to the nasion).
_Length of nose_ (from the nasion to the subnasal point).
_Labio-mental height_ (from the subnasal point to the point of the
chin). And in regard to width the three following horizontal distances
ought, according to the æsthetic laws of art, _very nearly_ to
correspond (especially in the female face):
_Width of forehead_, between the two external orbital points.
_Bimalar width_, between the two malar points.
_Bigoniac width_, between the two gonia.
It should be remembered that the standards of _beauty_ do not
necessarily coincide with those of _normality_.
B. _Lateral Norm._--In observing the face according to this norm, three
facts should be chiefly noted:
1. The relative volumetric development between facial and cerebral
cranium.
2. The direction of the forehead, which, in the normal profile, ought
to be vertical.
3. Whether the facial profile protrudes or not beyond the extreme
anterior limit of the forehead.
_Prosopometry._---Many forms of measurements are taken on the skeleton
of the face and many total and partial indices are obtained, such, for
instance, as the facial index, the orbital index, the nasal index, etc.
Measurements of diameters and angles are also taken on the face of the
living subject and indices are obtained.
We, however, shall limit ourselves to indicating only those
measurements which are taken most frequently in our special field of
application.
The diameters and the height of the face are obtained by the
_craniometric calipers_ and _Mathieu's compass with sliding branches_;
the facial angle is measured in projection by means of the _double_
_square_; and directly, by the _goniometer_.
One mode of measuring the facial angle in projection is that of drawing
the facial profile with the help of special instruments; or else of
taking a photograph in perfect profile and tracing and measuring the
facial angle on the picture.
_Principal Linear Measurements:_
=Total length of visage:= from line of hair root to point of chin.
=Total length of face:= from the nasion to the point of the chin.
_Length of the nose:_ from the nasion to the subnasal point.
_Height of mandible:_ from the upper edge of the lower incisors to the
lower edge of mandible.
_Subnase-mental height:_ from the subnasal point to the point of the
chin.
=Bizygomatic diameter:= between the two bizygomatic arches.
_Bimalar diameter:_ between the two malar points.
=Bigoniac diameter:= between the two gonia.
_Biorbital diameter:_ between the two external borders of the orbits.
_Gonio-mental distance:_ from the goniac point to the point of the chin.
_Auriculo-frontal radius:_ from the tragus or from the auricular point
to the ophryon.
_Auriculo-subnasal radius._
_Auriculo-mental radius._
(The last four measurements, if compared right and left, give an index
of facial _symmetry_; the radii when compared together serve as an
indirect measure of prognathism.)
_Width of nose_ between the external borders of the nostrils (the
branches of Mathieu's compass are placed tangent to the nostrils).
(The index of the nose is obtained from the length and breadth, by
applying the well-known formula of indices; the nose thereupon receives
various names--leptorrhine, mesorrhine, platyrrhine).
_Width of orbit:_ from the inner extremity of the ocular _rima_
(eye-slit) to the external border of the orbit.
_Width of the ocular rima:_ between the two extremities of the _rima_.
_Width of the labial rima:_ between the two extremities of the _rima_.
_Length of the ear:_ from the highest upper edge of the auricle to the
lower extremity of the lobule.
_Index of the ear:_ this is obtained, by the well-known formula, from
the length and breadth. The normal index is 50; the types of ear above
50 are _low_ types.
Anthropologists obtain the facial index from the skeleton, especially
for the purpose of determining the proportion of the face in human
remains found in the geological strata. In such crania the mandible is
wanting, and the teeth are wanting. Consequently, there are several
ways of computing the facial index, because, while the transverse or
bizygomatic diameter, which is considered as the lesser diameter,
always remains constant, the longitudinal, which is considered as the
greater, varies. The longitudinal diameter is calculated sometimes from
the ophryon to the chin, at others from the ophryon to the point of
insertion of the two upper middle incisors. In the first case it is now
less, and again greater than the bizygomatic diameter; in the second
case, it is always less, and the resulting facial index is notably
greater than 100.
The most usual formula for the facial index is the following:
_Fi_ = (bizygomatic diameter×100)/(ophryo-mental diameter)
on the basis of which Pruner Bey gives the following mean averages
according to race, for the general facial index:
Arabs 96.7
Chinese 101.7
Hottentots 105.7
Tasmanians 109.9
Laplanders 124.7
This index is not exact and constant, like that for the cranium;
in fact, in case a person loses his teeth the index is altered.
At the present day, especially in the French school, the anterior
or total facial index is taken into consideration, in which the
vertical diameter is measured from the vertex of the head to the chin
(Collignon), and, consequently, the index is always less than 100. The
following is the nomenclature that results for the anterior facial
index:
Leptoprosopics 62 and below
Mesoprosopics from 62 to 66
Chameprosopics 66 and above
If we take for the measure of _length_ that of the _visage_, _i.e._,
the distance between the middle point of the frontal line of roots of
the hair and the chin, we obtain indices that are higher by 5 than
those of the French school, namely:
Leptoprosopics 67 and below
Mesoprosopics from 67 to 71
Chameprosopics 71 and above
In many cases this index differs in the individual by as much as 10
from the cranial index, as I proved in my work on the population of
Latium. Consequently, anyone who has a cranial index of 81 ought to
have a _visage index_ of 71, etc.
Contrary to what happens in the case of the cranium, the index of
the face varies according to the age, the face being very short in
childhood, and much longer in the adult.
_Angles._--The angles distinguished by anthropologists are so numerous
that it is impossible for us to take them all under consideration.
In the case of a living person, the angles may be measured directly
with the aid of Broca's _goniometer_; the transverse branch passes
across the subnasal point; the two antero-posterior branches are
inserted, with the buttons with which they terminate, into the external
auricular canals; the vertical branch, swinging on a hinge, is adjusted
in such a way that the little rod which it carries at the end rests
upon the ophryon.
This complicated instrument resembles an instrument of torture and
could not be applied to children; furthermore, it is difficult to
adjust, and consequently the angles that it gives are inexact: every
muscular contraction causes the angle to vary. For this reason the
goniometer is impracticable.
If, by means of an instrument we trace the projection of the facial
profile, the facial angle may be taken on such a drawing; it may also
be traced and calculated on a photograph taken in profile.
Broca's angle is that included between the auricular foramen, the
subnasal point and the ophryon.
Camper's angle is that included between the auricular foramen, the
point of insertion of the upper incisors and the metopic point.
We, on the contrary, in _judging_ of the facial angle, or rather of the
existence and degree of prognathism, have resorted to _inspection_,
aided by certain facial lines, namely (Fig. 104):
_a._ _Vertical Facial Line._--If the subject holds his head level,
with the occipital point in contact with a vertical rod, and his gaze
fixed straight before him, then what we call the vertical line is
the line perpendicular to the horizontal direction of the gaze, and
tangent to the extreme anterior limit of the brain. This line, in the
perfect human face, is perpendicular to the horizontal line uniting the
auricular point with the subnasal point, and hence forms a right angle
with it.
_b._ _Line of Facial Profile._--This is the line uniting the nasal
point with the subnasal point. This line is never vertical, and
therefore cannot form a right angle with the auriculo-subnasal line,
but forms an angle that approximates more or less nearly to a right
angle (85°): this is the _facial angle_.
Transversely there is only one line for us to consider, and it has
already been noted:
_c._ The _auriculo-subnasal line_, or _line of orientation_.
_Facial Norm._--Our attention should be directed, as we have already
said:
1. _To the forehead._
This, if anomalous, may be:
Broad (if greater than 133 mm.).
Narrow (if less than 100 mm.).
High (if over 60 mm.).
Low (if under 50 mm.).
2. _To the Symmetry of the Face._--If the face is notably asymmetrical,
in respect to a plane dividing it longitudinally, the fact is at once
perceptible. But a slight asymmetry may fail to be detected either by
measurements (trago-mental diameters) or by inspection. Consequently,
it will be well to follow certain practical rules in making this
observation.
Observe first of all the median line of the face: the bridge of the
nose, the nasal septum, the upper labial furrow and the point of the
chin ought all to lie in the same vertical line; very often a slight
deviation of the nasal septum above the upper labial furrow will
betray the asymmetry; furthermore, the two naso-labial _plicæ_ or
folds should be noted, for they ought to be symmetrical in _direction_
and in _depth_; lastly, we must observe the symmetry of the zygomatic
prominences. We shall often discover three concurrent facts: a slight
deviation in the median line of the face usually corresponding to the
nasal septum; a greater depth of one of the naso-labial plicæ; and a
greater prominence of the zygoma and the cheek on the same side.
Our attention should next be turned to the correspondence required by
æsthetics between the following three diameters:
Minimum frontal.
Bizygomatic.
Bigoniac.
A very notable difference between these distances may also lead to the
discovery of anomalies.
Sometimes we may discover, even by inspection alone, a notable
narrowness of the frontal diameter, as compared with the other two.
The _bizygomatic_ diameter may show an exaggerated development, and
this is frequently accompanied by a hollowness in the temporal and
upper maxillary regions and by a beak-like prognathism (prominence
of the middle portion of the upper maxilla); at other times this
degenerative sign calls our attention to the mongoloid type.
The _bigoniac_ diameter may also show an exaggerated development due
to the enormous volume of the mandible (criminaloid type--Lombroso's
assassin type). It is necessary to supplement our observation with
the measurement of these three diameters, because it may very often
appear to the eye that the minimum frontal diameter is below the
normal, merely by comparison with the other two diameters which are
overdeveloped; while when measured, it may turn out to be normal. Or,
conversely, the other diameters, the bizygomatic or bigoniac, although
actually normal, may appear overdeveloped, because of the shortness of
the minimum frontal diameter (see "Faces of Inferior Type.")
Meanwhile we must not forget that the following are signs of grave
degeneration:
_a._ The minimum frontal diameter less than 100 mm. (the gravity of
this is increased if at the same time the other two diameters are found
as described in _b_).
_b._ The other two diameters greater than 110 mm. (Lombroso's born
delinquents, assassin type).
_Lateral Norm, or Norm of Profile._--Our attention ought to be
directed, as we have already said:
1. To the direction of the forehead. If abnormal, this may be:
_a._ Receding;
_b._ _Bombé_.
The receding forehead is an indication of an incomplete or defective
development of the frontal lobe of the brain; we find the forehead
notably receding in the microcephalic type.
The _bombé_ forehead is characteristic of hydrocephaly, but may occur
also in the scaphoid cranium. When the forehead is bombé, the facial
angle becomes equal to or greater than a right angle, because the
face recedes beneath the extreme anterior boundary of the brain;
in this case we have the opposite case to prothognathism, namely,
_orthognathism_.
2. Our attention should next be directed to the facial profile, in
order to observe the form and degree of _prognathism_.
The authorities distinguish three principal forms of prognathism:
_a._ _Prognathism_ properly so-called: prominence of the upper maxilla
as a whole.
_b._ _Prophatnia._--Prominence of the alveoli.
_c._ _Progeneism._--Prominence of the mandible--the lower dental arch
projects in front of the upper.
MEASUREMENTS OF THE THORAX
Principal anthropometric points: _acromial_ point; _sternal fossa_;
_xiphoid_ point; _mammillary_ points.
=Measurements.=--_Thoracic Circumference._--Already described among the
measurements of the form.
Recording instruments are now made that are exceedingly complicated and
quite costly, that register the movements of respiration; they are used
in medical clinics, but would be of little practical use in our schools.
_Axillary and Submammary Circumference._--Taken as above, but at
different levels.
_Biacromial Diameter._--This is taken by means of special calipers
called a _thoracimeter_ or _pelvimeter_, because it is used to obtain
the big measurements of the body (thorax and pelvis). The two buttons
at the ends of the branches are applied to the acromial points, while
the measurer occupies a position in front of the subject to be measured.
_Transverse Thoracic Diameter._--The buttons of the thoracimeter are
applied on a level with the mammary papillæ, along the axillary lines
(vertical lines descending from the centre of the arm-pits).
_Antero-posterior Thoracic Diameter._--This is also taken at the level
of the nipples: the branches are applied anteriorly on the sternum and
posteriorly on the vertebral channel.
These two diameters serve to furnish the thoracic index:
Ti = (100×_d_ (antero-posterior))/(D (transverse))
_Spirometer._--The subject takes a maximum inspiration and retains his
breath until he has exactly fitted his mouth to the apparatus; then he
emits all his breath in a forced expiration. This causes the index to
rise, and the amount may be read upon it.
_Sternal Length._--From the xiphoid point to the sternal fossa.
_Bimammillary Diameter._--Distance between the two nipples.
=Abdomen.=--It would be really difficult to take measurements of the
abdomen in the school. The principal anthropometric points to remember
are the _umbilical_ point, the two _antero-superior_ _iliac_ points,
the _pubis_.
The distances which it would be useful to take are the following:
_xipho-umbilical_ and _umbilico-pubic_ distances, which give an idea of
the upper development (liver) and lower development (intestines) of the
abdomen, and the _biacromial_ diameter which measures the width of the
pelvis.
[Illustration: FIG. 150.]
_Limbs._--In the case of the limbs also it is by no means easy or
practicable to take many measurements. Consequently it should be
sufficient to indicate that there are a great number of different
measurements for every different segment of the limbs.
There are two principal instruments needed for this: a large compass
with adjustable branches, for the long segments, and a small compass
for the short segments. With the large compass we measure the length of
the upper arm and forearm, the length of the thigh and shin, the length
of the foot. With the small compass we measure the total length of the
hand, its width, the length of the fingers and of the digital segments,
etc.
The circumference of the limbs is taken with the ordinary metallic tape.
In order to fulfil the present-day scope of pedagogic anthropology, it
is sufficient to take only a few measurements (the form and the head),
but it is necessary to take them with great accuracy, and above all,
to _verify_ one's personal ability as a measurer, so that everyone
who wishes to try the experiment may have a reliable method of testing
himself. To this end it is necessary to know how to calculate one's own
special _personal error_.
=THE PERSONAL ERROR=
In anthropometry, a knowledge of the anthropometric points, the
instruments to apply to them, their use and their interpretation, is
not sufficient. There is need of prolonged experience in accordance
with the accepted method and under a practical guide.
As a matter of fact, the degree of accuracy with which a measurement is
taken is always relative, no matter who takes it, but in the case of a
person who has had no practice this relativity may present so wide a
margin as to be practically useless.
To obtain an approximate figure of a measurement means nothing, unless
the figure is supplemented not only by a statement as to which of
the _accepted methods_ was used in taking it, but also by a minute
description of the manner in which this method was carried out.
It is necessary to bear in mind:
1. That the ability to find the anthropometric points implies a certain
knowledge of anatomy; it is a practical research, to be made under the
guidance of a teacher, while the actual finding of the points as well
as the taking of the measurements, should be left to the learner.
2. That the manner of applying the instruments is not without effect
upon the resulting figure: for example, if the compass is held
horizontally in measuring the frontal diameter, the result is different
from what it would be if the instrument were held vertically. If the
compass is held by the extremities of the branches, the diameter is
slightly different from what it would be if the compass was held by the
handle. Accordingly, it is necessary to describe minutely how we are
accustomed to hold the instruments.
3. That the resulting figure differs according to whether or not the
screw has been turned, or whether it has been read _in position_, or by
approaching the instrument to the eye.
4. That when an instrument is old, it registers different results from
those it gave when new; consequently, it is necessary to _verify it_,
before proceeding to take a series of measurements. Hence it is proper
to state not only precisely what instrument is used, but also that the
precaution has been taken to verify it.
But what is still more important is to find out one's own _personal_
_data_.
If the same measurement is taken twice under precisely similar
conditions, the same figure is hardly ever obtained both times;
everyone, even the most experienced, has his own _personal_ _error_. By
practice the amount of this error may be steadily lowered, but cannot
be eliminated. Constant figures are an evidence of dishonesty, of mere
_copying_; they are almost certainly not authentic.
It is important to know one's own _average error_.
It is calculated as follows:
Let us suppose that successive attempts have resulted in the following
figures relative to the same measurement:
9, 10, 11, 12, 8
The mean average of these numbers is
(9+10+11+12+8)/5 = 10
Let us see how the values obtained differ in respect to 10:
9 10 11 12 8
10
-1, 0, +1, +2, -2 = differences from the mean average figure. We now
take the average of these differences, disregarding the plus and minus
signs:
(1+0+1+2+2)/5 = 6/5 = 1.2 = mean average error
The personal mean error is a datum that it is necessary to know in
order to give value to any measurements that we may wish to give forth.
In taking the various test measurements for the purpose of calculating
one's personal error, it is well to use the precaution of not taking
them twice at the same sitting, but after an interval of time, not
only so that all marks will have disappeared that may have been left
upon the skin by the instrument in the act of measuring, but also that
the preceding figure will have faded from our memory. Accordingly, the
measurements should be repeated on successive days and if possible
under the same conditions of _time_ and _place_.
It is well to make a careful choice of the time and place, because
these also have their effect upon the figures.
It will be observed that if the measurements are made in a
well-appointed place, with a steady light, without noises, in short,
without disturbing causes, the personal error is much more easily
decreased, i.e., the measurements are more exact, because the measurer
can better concentrate his attention.
Even the hour of the day has an influence upon the figures. It is
known that none of us has the same ability to perform our various
tasks at all the different hours of the day; for instance, it is not a
matter of indifference whether we ask the pupils in a school to solve
a problem at one hour of the day rather than at another. This is true
of all occupations, and hence also of anthropometry; there are certain
hours of the day at which fewer errors in measurement will be made,
independently of the state of fatigue.
Consequently, it is well to know this individual datum, and to tell at
what hour and in what environment the measures have been taken.
The figures are of more value if they have been compared with the
results of other observers; it is necessary, after we have found our
own average error, to select, for the purpose of verifying our results,
some other observer, of similar experience to our own, and whose
personal error is also known.
Here it is necessary to take into consideration still another
factor--one's personal susceptibility to suggestion. If we have
confidence in the person through whom we verify our figures, we are
inclined to obtain figures equal to his own. We have only to compare
our earlier figures with those since we began to use him as a test,
in order to see _whether_, and _to what extent_ we are influenced by
suggestion. Hence, to obviate this danger it is necessary to obtain our
respective figures without communicating them to each other.
It will also be necessary to take precautions not to be influenced
by suggestion under any other circumstances. For instance, we are in
hopes, while taking a series of measurements of school children, that
we shall be able to prove that the heads of the more intelligent are
larger than those of the less intelligent. In order that the figures
shall be free from alterations due to suggestion, it is necessary that
the measurer, while actually taking the measurements, shall be unaware
which children are better and which are worse, from the intellectual
point of view.
The personal error cannot be calculated in regard to a single
measurement and then applied to all the others, but it must be worked
out anew for every separate measurement; it oscillates variously, as a
matter of fact, in relation to the longer and shorter diameters, the
cranial measurements, and the measurements of the trunk and the limbs.
We are sufficiently skilled to take measurements when we have attained
for measurements of cranial diameters a mean error of from 1 to 2 mm.,
for the vertical cranial diameter one of 4 mm., and for the stature,
one of from 5 to 6 mm.
Finally, in anthropometry, theory is of no value without a long and
intelligent practice, constituting an actual and personal education in
anthropometric technique.
All anthropometric figures have a relative value dependent upon the
extent of this education in the individual investigator.
This is a case in which it may be said that the figures are worthless
without the _signature_.
CHAPTER VIII
STATISTICAL METHODOLOGY
Having taken measurements with the rigorous technical precision that
is to-day demanded by anthropometry, we should know how to extract
from these figures certain _laws_, or at least certain statistical
conclusions.
There are two principal methods of regrouping the figures:--_mean_
_averages_ and _seriations_.
=Mean Averages.=--Averages are obtained, as is a matter of common
knowledge and practice, by taking the sum of all the figures and
dividing the result by the number of data. The general formula is as
follows:
(a+b+c+d)/(1+1+1+1)
When comparative figures are given, as, for example, those recorded by
Quetélét for the stature, the diameters of the head, etc., such figures
are always mean averages.
Such averages may be more or less general. We might, for example,
obtain a mean average of the stature of Italians, and this would be
more general than the mean stature for a single region of Italy, and
this again more general than the mean stature for a city, or for some
specified social class, etc.
It is interesting to know how the mean will be affected, according to
the number of individuals examined, because it is obvious that the
mean stature of Italians cannot be based upon measurements of _all_
Italians, but upon a larger or smaller number of individuals. Now,
if we take various different numbers of individuals, shall we obtain
different mean statures? And if so, what number of subjects must we
have at our disposal in order to obtain a constant medial figure, and
hence the one that represents the _real mean average_? It has been
determined that a relatively small number will suffice to give the
mean, if the measurements are taken with uniform method and from the
same class of subjects (sex, age, race, etc.); for the cranium, 25
subjects are sufficient, and for the stature, 100 subjects.
This method furnishes us with an abstract number, insofar as it does
not correspond to any _real individual_, but it serves to give us the
synthetic idea of an entirety. In anthropology we need this sort of
fundamental synthesis before proceeding to individual analysis for the
purpose of interpreting a specified person.
Now, it is evident that the figures representing the mean stature for
each region in Italy give us a basis for judging of the distribution
of this important datum, while an accumulation of a hundred thousand
individual figures would lead to nothing more profitable than confusion
and weariness.
The following table, however, is quite clear and instructive:
MEAN STATURE IN ITALY
(According to Departments)
-------------------------------
Departments |Stature in
|centimetres
-------------------+-----------
Piedmont | 162.7
Liguria | 163.7
Lombardy | 163.6
Venetia | 165.4
Emilia | 164.0
Tuscany | 164.3
Marches | 162.4
Umbria | 162.7
Latium | 162.5
Abruzzi and Molise | 160.6
Campania | 161.3
Apulia | 160.4
Basilicata | 158.9
Calabria | 159.4
Sicily | 161.1
Sardinia | 158.9
-------------------------------
Yet the interpretation of such a table is not simple; it is necessary
to read the numbers, to remember them in their reciprocal relation; and
it demands effort and time to acquire a _clear and_ _synthetic_ idea of
the distribution in Italy of this one datum, _stature_.
On the other hand, we must lose as little time and spare our forces as
far as possible. The value of positive methodology lies in the extent
to which it accomplishes these two subjects.
Geographical charts serve the purpose of this desired simplification.
Let us take an outline map of Italy, divide it into regions, and
_colour_ these different regions darker or lighter, in proportion as
the stature is higher or lower.
The gradations and shadings in colour will tell us at a single glance,
and without any fatigue on our part, what the table of figures reveals
at the cost of a very perceptible effort. Little squares must be
added on the margin of the chart, corresponding to the gradations
in colour, and opposite them the figures which they respectively
indicate--after the fashion in which the scale of reduction is given in
every geographical map. In this way we may _study_ these charts, and
their examination is pleasant and interesting, while it successfully
associates the two ideas of an "anthropometric datum" and of a
"region," a result which a series of figures, pure and simple, could
not achieve.
We have seen Livi's charts of Italy, both for stature and for the
cephalic index. Analogous charts may be constructed for all the
different data, for example, the colour of the hair, the shape of
the nose, the facial index, etc. In the same manner we may proceed
to a still more analytical distribution of anthropometric data among
the different provinces of a single _region_. For example, I myself
prepared charts of this sort for the stature, the cephalic index and
the pigmentation of the population of Latium.
Sometimes we want to see in one single, comprehensive glance, the
_progress_ of some anthropological datum; for instance, in its
development through different ages. Quétélet's series of figures for
growth in stature, in weight, in the diameters of the head, the cranial
circumference, etc., offer when read the same difficulty as the similar
tables of distribution according to regions. On the contrary, we get a
synthetic, sweeping glance in _diagrams_, such as the one which shows
the growth of stature in the two sexes. The method of constructing
such diagrams is very simple, and is widely employed. When we wish to
represent in physics certain phenomena and laws; or in hygiene, the
progress of mortality through successive years, etc., we make use of
the method of diagrams.
Let us draw two fundamental lines meeting in a right angle at _A_ (Fig.
151): _AS_ is known as the _axis of the abscissæ_; _AO_, the _axis of
the ordinates_. We divide each of these lines into equal parts. Let
us assume that the divisions of _AS_ represent the years of age, and
those of _AO_ the measurements of stature in centimetres; and since the
new-born child has an average height of 50 cm., we may place 50 as the
initial figure. From the figure _O_ (age) and from 50 cm. (measure),
we erect perpendiculars meeting at _a_, where we mark the point. At
the age of one year the average stature is about 70 cm., accordingly
we erect perpendiculars from 1 (age) and from 70 (measure), obtaining
the point _c_. Since the stature at two years is about 80 cm. the same
procedure gives us the point _e_. Since the stature at the age of three
is about 86 cm., I erect the perpendicular from a level slightly higher
than half-way between 80 and 90, obtaining the point _i_; and so on,
for the rest. Meanwhile we begin to be able to see at a glance that the
stature increases greatly in the first year and that thereafter the
intensity of its growth steadily diminishes.
[Illustration: FIG. 151]
If we unite the points thus constructed, the line of representation is
completed.
The verticals 0_a_, 1_c_, 2_e_, etc., are the _ordinates_, and the
horizontals 50_a_, 70_c_, etc., are the abscissæ of the line of
representation; and since it is constructed along the intersections
of these lines, they are for that reason collectively called
_coordinates_. It is usual in constructing these diagrams to mark the
coordinates in such a way that they will not be apparent, instead of
which only the axes and the line representing the development of the
phenomenon are shown (Fig. 152).
Sometimes a different method of representing the phenomenon graphically
is followed, namely, by tracing the successive series of distances
developed on the ordinates (Fig. 153); in which case the characteristic
arrangement of the lines causes this to be known as the _organ-pipe_
method.
[Illustration: FIG. 152.]
[Illustration: FIG. 153.]
The diagram for the growth in stature, given earlier in this volume, is
constructed according to the method shown in Fig. 151. When there are a
great number of data to represent, which overlap and interweave, this
method of graphic representation still lends itself admirably to the
purpose; in such a case we shall have a number of broken lines, either
parallel or intersecting, which may be distinguished by different
colours or different methods of tracing (dots, stars, etc.), so that
they may interweave without becoming confused, thus giving us at a
glance the development of several phenomena at once (for example, total
stature and sitting stature, length of upper and lower limbs, in one
and the same diagram).
For the purpose of practice, a graphic representation of the changes in
ponderal weight through the different ages may be constructed in class.
The figures for stature and weight at each age should be read aloud;
one student can find the corresponding _ponderal index_ in the tables,
while another constructs the graphic line upon the blackboard.
In this manner we can see better than by reading the figures, how the
ponderal index increases during the first year and becomes much higher
during early infancy; and then how it diminishes up to the age of
puberty, holding its ground with slight oscillations during the puberal
period; after which it again increases when the individual begins to
_fill out_ after the seventeenth year, and once again later when he
takes on flesh, to fall off again during the closing years, when old
age brings lean and shrunken limbs.
Seriation.--Another method of rearranging the figures is that of
_seriation_. Let us assume that we are taking the average of a thousand
statures, or of hundreds of thousands. We will try to find some means
of simplifying the calculation. Since the individual oscillations of
stature are contained within a few centimetres and the individuals
amount to thousands, large numbers will be found to have the same
_identical_ statures. Accordingly, let us rearrange the individuals
according to their stature, obtaining the following result:
-----------------------------------------------
Stature in metres | Number of individuals
---------------------+-------------------------
1.50 | 20
1.55 | 80
1.60 | 140
1.61 | 200
1.62 | 300
1.63 | 450
1.70 | 100
1.75 | 80
1.80 | 10
------------------------------------------------
By multiplying the 1.50 by 20, 1.55 by 80, etc., and by adding the
results, we shall have simplified the process for obtaining the sum
total which must then be divided by the number of individuals.
Well, while doing this for the purpose of simplifying the calculation,
we have hit upon the method of distributing the individuals in a
_series_, that is, we have regrouped the corresponding figures
according to _seriation_.
Seriation has been discovered as a method of _analysing_ the mean
average, and it demonstrates three things: first, the extent of
oscillations of anthropologic data, a thing which the mean average
completely hides,--indeed, we have seen in the case of the cephalic
index the mean averages oscillate between 75 and 85, when calculated
for the separate regions, while, in the case of individuals, the
oscillations extend from 70 to 90; secondly, it shows the numerical
prevalence of individuals for the one or the other measurement;
third, and finally, seriation reveals a law, to us, namely, that the
distribution of individuals, according to anthropological data, is not
a matter of chance; there is a prevalence of individuals corresponding
to certain average figures, and the number of individuals diminishes in
proportion as the measurements depart from the mean average, equally
whether they increase or diminish.
I take from Livi certain numerical examples of serial distribution:
------------------------------------------------
Stature in inches | Number of observations
---------------------+--------------------------
60 | 6
61 | 26
62 | 32
63 | 26
64 | 160
65 | 154
66 | 191
67 | 128
68 | 160
69 | 89
70 | 45
71 | 7
72 | 6
73 | 3
74 | 1
------------------------------------------------
Although these figures are not rigorously exact, there is a certain
numerical prevalence of individuals in relation to the stature of
66 inches, and above and below this point the number of individuals
diminishes, becoming very few toward the extremes.
The lack of exactness and of agreement in serial distribution is due
to the numerical scarcity of individuals. If this number were doubled,
if it were centupled, we should see the serial distribution become
systematised to the point of producing, for example, such symmetrical
series as the following:
1 1 1
12 16 15
66 120 105
220 560 455
495 1,820 1,365
792 3,368 3,003
924 8,008 5,005
--- 11,440 6,435
792 12,870 -----
495 ------ 6,435
220 11,440 -----
66 8,008 5,005
12 3,368 3,003
1 1,820 1,365
560 455
120 105
16 15
1 1
This law of distribution is one of the most widespread laws; it ordains
the way in which the characteristics of animals and plants alike must
behave; and the statistical method which is beginning to be introduced
into botany sheds much light upon it.
[Illustration: FIG. 154.]
This law may be represented graphically by arranging the anthropologic
data on the abscissæ (_e.g._, those of stature), and the number of
individuals on the ordinates.
In such cases we have a curve with a maximum central height and a
symmetrical bilateral diminution (Fig. 121): this is the curve of
Quétélet.
Or better yet, it is known as _Quétlét's binomial curve_, because this
anthropologist was the first to represent the law graphically and to
perceive that its development was the same as that so well known in
mathematics for the coefficients in Newton's binomial theorem.
Newton's binomial theorem is the law for raising any binomial to the
_n_th power, and is expanded in algebra as follows:
(_a_+_b_)^{_n_} = _a_^{_n_}+
_na_^{(_n_-1)}_b_+
(_n_(_n_-1)/2)_a_^{(_n_-2)}_b_^{2}+
((_n_(_n_-1)(_n_-2))/(2.3))_a_^{(_n_-3)}_b_^{3}+
((_n_(_n_-1)(_n_-2)(_n_-3))/(2.3.4))_a_^{(_n_-4)}_b_^{4}+
((_n_(_n_-1)(_n_-2)(_n_-3)(_n_-4))/(2.3.4.5))_a_^{(_n_-5)}_b_^{5}+ ... +
_b_^{n}
substituting for _n_ some determined coefficient, for example, 10,
the binomial would develop, in regard to its coefficients, after the
following fashion:
(_a_+_b_)^{10} = _a_^{10}+10×_a_^{9}_b_+
((10.9)/2)_a_^{8}_b_^{2}+
((10.9.8)/(2.3))_a_^{7}_b_^{3}+
((10.9.8.7)/(2.3.4))_a_^{6}_b_^{4}+
((10.9.8.7.6)/(2.3.4.5))_a_^{5}_b_^{5}+
((10.9.8.7.6.5)/(2.3.4.5.6))_a_^{4}_b_^{6}+
((10.9.8.7.6.5.4)/(2.3.4.5.6.7))_a_^{3}_b_^{7}+
((10.9.8.7.6.5.4.3)/(2.3.4.5.6.7.8))_a_^{2}_b_^{8}+
((10.9.8.7.6.5.4.3.2)/(2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9))_ab_^{9}+
_b_^{10}.
Whence it appears that, after performing the necessary reductions, the
coefficients following the central one diminish symmetrically in the
same manner as they increased: that is, according to the selfsame law
that we meet in the anthropological statistics of seriations.
Indeed, here is the binomial theorem with the reductions made:
(_a_+_b_)^{10} = _a_^{10}+10×_a_^{9}_b_+
((10.9)/(2))_a_^{8}_b_^{2}+
((10.9.8)/(2.3))_a_^{7}_b_^{3}+
((10.9.8.7)/(2.3.4))_a_^{6}_b_^{4}+
((10.9.8.7.6)/(2.3.4.5))_a_^{5}_b_^{5}+
((10.9.8.7)/(2.3.4))_a_^{4}_b_^{6}+
((10.9.8)/(2.3))_a_^{2}_b_^{7}+
((10.9)/(2))_a_^{2}_b_^{8}+10×_ab_^{9}+_b_^{10}.
And after calculating the coefficients, we obtain the following numbers
in a symmetrical series:
10
45
120
210
252
210
120
45
10
This is why the curve of Quétélet is called _binomial_.
Let us assume that we wish to represent by means of Quétélet's curves,
two seriations, for instance in regard to the stature of children of
the same race, sex and age, but of opposite social conditions: the poor
and the rich.
These two curves of Quétélet's, provided that they are based upon an
equal and very large number of individuals, will be identical, because
the law itself is universal. Only, the curve for the rich children will
be shifted along toward the figures for high statures, and that for the
poor children toward the low statures.
[Illustration: FIG. 155.]
At a certain point _A_ the two curves meet and intersect, each
invading the field of the other: so that within the space _ABC_ there
are individual rich children who are shorter than some of the poor,
and individual poor children who are taller than some of the rich:
_i.e._, the conditions are contrary to those generally established
by the curve as a whole. This rule also, of the intersection of
binomial curves, is of broad application; whenever a general principle
is stated, _e.g._ that the rich are taller than the poor, it is
necessary to understand it in a liberal sense, knowing that wherever
we should descend to details, the opposite conditions could be found
(superimposed area _ABC_). For all that, the principle as a whole does
not alter its characteristic, which is a differentiation of diverse
types (for example, the tall rich and the short poor). The same would
hold true if we made a comparison of the stature of men and women;
the curve for men would be shifted toward the higher figures and that
for women toward the lower, but there would be a point where the two
curves would intersect, and in the triangle _ABC_ there would be
women taller than some of the men, and men shorter than some of the
women. The differences have reference to the numerical _majority_ (the
high portions of the curves) which are clearly separated from each
other, like the tops of cypress trees which have roots interlacing
in the earth. Now, it is the _numerical prevalence_ of individuals,
in any mixed community, that gives that community its distinctive
type, whether of class or of race. If we see gathered together in
a socialistic assemblage a proletarian crowd, suffering from the
effects of pauperism, the majority of the individuals have stooping
shoulders, ugly faces and pallid complexions; all this gives to the
crowd a general aspect, one might say, of physical inferiority. And
we say that this is the type of the labouring class of our epoch in
which labour is proletarian--a type of caste. On the other hand, if
we go to a court ball, what strikes us is the numerical prevalence
of tall, distinguished persons, finely shaped, with velvety skin and
delicate and beautiful facial lineaments, so that we recognise that the
assemblage is composed of privileged persons, constituting the type of
the aristocratic class. But this does not alter the fact that among the
proletariat there may be some handsome persons, well developed, robust
and quite worthy of being confounded with the privileged class; and
conversely, among the aristocrats, certain undersized individuals, sad
and emaciated, with stooping shoulders and features of inferior type,
who seem to belong to the lower social classes.
For this same reason it is difficult to give _clear-cut_ limits to any
law and any distinction that we meet in our study of life. This is why
it is difficult in zoology and in botany to establish a system, because
although every species differs from the others, in the salience of
its characteristics and the numerical prevalence of individuals very
much alike, none the less every species grades off so insensibly into
others, through individuals of intermediate characteristics, that it
is difficult to separate the various species sharply from one another.
It is only the treetops that are separate, but at their bases life is
intertwined; and in the roots there is an inseparable unity. The same
may be said when we wish to differentiate normality from pathology and
degeneration. The man who is clearly sane differs beyond doubt from the
one who is profoundly ill or degenerate; but certain individuals exist
whose state it would be impossible to define.
Now, while seriations analyse certain particularities of the individual
distribution, by studying the actual truth, mean averages give us
only an abstraction, which nevertheless renders distinct what was
previously nebulous and confused in its true particulars. The synthesis
of the mean average brings home to us forcibly the true nature of the
characteristics in their general effect. The analysis of the seriation
brings home to us forcibly the truth regarding this effect when we
observe it in the actuality of individual cases.
"When, from the topmost pinnacle of the Duomo of Milan or from the hill
of the Superga," says Levi in felicitous comparison, "we contemplate
the magnificent panorama of the Alpine chain, we see the zone of snow
distinguished from that free from snow by a line that is visibly
horizontal and that stretches evenly throughout the length of the
chain. But if we enter into the Alpine valleys and try to reach and
to touch the point at which the zone of snow begins, that regularity
which we previously admired disappears before our eyes; we see, at one
moment, a snow-clad peak, and at the next another free from snow that
either is or seems to be higher than the former."
Now, through the statistics of mean averages, we are able to see the
general progress of phenomena, like the spectator who gazes from a
distance at the Alpine chain and concludes that the zone of snow is
above and the open ground is below; while, by means of seriation,
we are in the position of the person who has entered the valley and
discovers the actuality of the particular details which go to make up
the uniform aspect of the scene as a whole. Both aspects are true--just
as both of those statistical methods are useful--for they reciprocally
complete each other, concurring in revealing to us the laws and the
phenomena of anthropology.
CHAPTER IX
BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF THE PUPIL AND HIS ANTECEDENTS
The child, like every other individual, represents an _effect_ of
multifold causes: he is a product of _heredity_ (biological product)
and a product of society (social product). The characteristics of
his ancestors, their maladies, their vices, their degeneration,
live again in the result of the conception which has produced a new
individual: and this individual, whether stronger or weaker, must pass
through various obstacles in the course of his intrauterine life and
his external life. The sufferings and the mistakes of his mother are
reflected in him. The maladies which attack him may leave upon him
permanent traces. Finally, the social environment receives the child
at birth, either as a favoured son or as an unfortunate, and leads him
through paths that certainly must influence his complex development.
All of the preceding and theoretic parts of this volume which took
up each characteristic for separate consideration, have already
explained all that it is necessary to know in order to interpret the
characteristics present in a given individual, and the more or less
remote causes which contributed to them.
We may now _apply_ our acquired knowledge to individual study, by
making investigations into the antecedents of the child and recording
his _biographic history_. It forms a parallel to the _clinical history_
which is recorded in medicine: and it leads to a diagnosis, or at least
to a scientific judgment regarding the child.
Although this biographic part is eminently practical, certain
principal points of research may be indicated for the purpose
of guiding the student. But no one will ever make a successful
study of medical pedagogy unless he will _follow_ the practical
lessons dedicated to the individual study of the scholar, and make
a practice of personal observation. In the Pedagogical School of
Rome, we provide _subjects_, taken from the elementary schools or
from the Asylum School of De Sanctis for defective children. And we
read their biographical history in regard to their antecedents, and
then make an objective examination of them, frequently extending
it to an examination of their sensibility and their psychic
conditions and enquiring into their standard of scholarship. From
these lessons based upon theory, profitable discussions often
result; and they certainly are the most profitable lessons in the
course.
A biographical history is essentially composed of three parts: the
_antecedents_, which comprises an investigation of the facts antedating
the individual in question; _the objective examination_, which studies
the individual personally; and the _diaries_, _i.e._, the continued
observation of the same individual who has already been studied in
regard to himself and his antecedents.
The objective examination and the diaries cannot be considered solely
in the light of anthropology, because they chiefly require the aid
of psychology. But even anthropology makes an ample and important
contribution, first, in the form of an objective morphological
examination, the vast importance of which has already been shown;
secondly, because it gives us a picture of the biologico-social
personality which it is necessary to compare with the _reactions_ of
the subject in question, with his psychic manifestations, his degree of
culture, etc.; and upon this comparison depends the chief importance of
the individual study of the pupil.
Accordingly, in addition to an examination of the individual,
anthropology ought to concern itself also with the conditions
antedating the individual; therefore, it traces back to the _origins_
(antecedents), while psychology reserves for itself the principal task
of _following the psychological development_ of the subject in his
school life (diaries); a task in which it will nevertheless go hand in
hand with anthropology since the latter must follow at the same time
the physio-morphological development of the subject himself.
Accordingly, the gathering of _antecedent_ statistics is the task of
anthropology. The antecedent statistics may be called the _history of
the genesis_ of the individual; the manner of collecting them is by
means of _enquiries_ that are generally made of the child's nearest
relations (the mother) or of the teachers who have superintended his
previous education. The enquiries are conducted under the guidance of a
certain system of which we give the following outline:
anamnesis:
/ remote / ascendant
{ \ collateral
biopathological { / conception
{ { pregnancy
{ / mother { delivery
\ near { \ lactation
{ / dentition
/ first development of { locomotion
{ \ speech
\ child { maladies incurred
{ / character
{ maternal opinions { intelligence
\ of child \ etc.
/ vocation of parents
sociological { their morality
{ their culture
\ their care of their children
school record { opinions of teachers, history of previous schooling.
We may distinguish biopathological antecedents, which have regard
to the organism of the child as a living individual; sociological
antecedents, having regard to the social environment in which
the child has grown up and which contributes to the formation of
his psycho-physical personality; and scholastic antecedents or
_scholarship_, regarding the previous schooling of the child under
examination. The biopathological antecedents are certainly of
fundamental importance. They are called _remote_ when we refer to
the hereditary antecedents of the subject, and _near_ when we have
reference to his personal antecedents.
=Remote Antecedents.=--These include an investigation regarding the
ancestors, the brothers and sisters, and the collateral relations. The
age of the parents (since we know that too immature or too advanced an
age, or a disparity in age between the parents may result in the birth
of weak children). Degree of relationship between the parents (since we
know that the offspring of parents related to each other may be weak).
Maladies incurred by them or prevalent in their families, incidental
vices of the parent (since we know that constitutional maladies, such
as syphilis, tuberculosis, gout, pellagra, malaria, mental and nervous
diseases, etc., _alcoholism_ or an irregular life of excesses, may lead
to the procreation of degenerates). Furthermore, since it is known that
according to the laws of collateral heredity, maladies may reappear in
nephews which previously occurred in uncles and not in the parents,
information should be sought, so far as possible, from all members of
the family. Information regarding the brothers of the subject offers an
interest of a very particular kind, because this gives us an insight
into the generative capacity of the parents: for instance, if there
were abortions, children who died at an early age of convulsions,
meningitis, etc., this argues unfavourably for the normality of the
subject.
=Near Biopathological Antecedents:= _Mother, Child._--Our inquiries
should centre first of all upon the mother, in order to know the
conditions of conception, pregnancy, delivery and lactation, in the
case of the child under examination, because we know that frequently an
error at the time of conception may produce a degenerate or a weakling.
For example, a child generated in a state of physical or mental
exhaustion--_e.g._, after a long trip on a bicycle, or after passing
an examination--may be born feeble, predisposed to nervous diseases
(idiocy, meningitis), just as he may be born abnormal (epilepsy,
anomalies of character, criminal tendencies) if generated by the
father during an alcoholic excess, or by the mother while suffering
from hypochondria, illness, etc. The history of the pregnancy is also
of interest: whether it proceeded regularly to the close of the nine
months, whether the mother suffered especially from mental anxiety,
illness or received any blow on the abdomen.
Other causes which may affect the health of the child have reference to
birth and to lactation. If the delivery requires an operation, it may,
for instance, deform the skull; while a hired wet-nurse, or artificial
feeding are more or less apt to cause deterioration in the child.
Having completed this first enquiry, we pass on to consider the child
itself, from the time of birth onward, lingering especially over its
early development and more particularly over the _cutting_ _of the
teeth_, _learning to walk_ and _learning to speak_, which are the three
first obstacles to infantile development. The healthy child overcomes
them according to normal laws, while the child of tardy development
shows the first characteristic anomaly in these three fundamental
points of its early existence (tardiness of development, incomplete and
defective development, development accompanied by diseases, etc.).
Usually a tardiness in the development of the teeth denotes general
weakness and more especially skeletal weakness (rachitis, syphilis);
tardiness in learning to walk may occur in connection with the
above-named causes (weakness of the lower limbs); or with difficulty
in attaining an equilibrium (of cerebral origin; witness the case
of idiots who, without being paralytic, cannot walk, because they
cannot _learn how to walk_); or with paresis, more or less partial or
diffused, of the muscles controlling the act of walking (infantile
paralysis, Little's disease, etc.). A tardy development of speech is
sometimes found together with a notable intellectual development and
the child will not begin to speak until he can express thoughts and
speak well; but more frequently such delayed development is due to
partial _deafness_; or it originates in the association centres of the
brain (the idiot child cannot _learn_ to speak).
It will also be helpful to know whether the child was ever ill. It is
very important in this connection to find out whether the child ever
suffered from infantile eclampsia in early life (convulsions, or "fits"
as the mothers of the lower classes call them). This is an indication
of a cerebral malady which leaves behind it permanent alterations of
the brain and of its functions. The child may be an idiot, or may
belong to one of the various catagories of children who go under the
name of defectives; or he may be abnormal in character (cerebroplegic
forms). Another important fact to record is nocturnal _enuresis_ (loss
of urine during sleep subsequent to the normal age); this is considered
by some authorities as a pre-epileptic state--that is, a child that
suffers such losses may in the future become subject to epilepsy, and
quite probably, if studied, will show various anomalies of the nervous
system, such, for example, as too deep sleep, slowness of intelligence,
etc. Repeated attacks of _infective diseases_, even though they are
survived, also denote organic weakness, with facile predisposition to
infective agencies--in other words, deficient powers of immunity.
Prolonged intestinal maladies or typhus in the early months
(denutrition from pathological causes, exhaustive diseases) may, in
themselves, be the cause of the child's enfeeblement and its consequent
arrest in development.
But in the interpretation of such observations, the physician should be
the guide and the direct judge.
The most salient symptoms in regard to the child--intelligence,
conduct, character, endurance, etc.--are, for the most part, expressed
with great clearness by the mothers. Prof. De Sanctis, for example,
has noted that the mother's first words might serve the purpose of a
diagnosis; for instance, the mother says of an idiot child: "he doesn't
understand," of a child retarded in development, "he is stupid,"
of an abnormal child, "he understands but he is bad." Accordingly,
Prof. De Sanctis begins his diagnostic researches by registering the
_maternal judgments_, because the mother is _struck_ by the salient
characteristics of her child; and even if she is uneducated she always
finds concise and effective phrases to express her judgment.
To the end of rendering the research into antecedents surer and more
complete so far as regards the personal antecedents of the child,
certain anthropological tablets are being introduced to serve as
_maternal diaries_. In this way the mothers have a guide for studying
their children, and this forms one of the first practical attempts
toward the "education of the mothers."
Here is a form of chart for keeping a record of the dentition. The
significance of the letters is as follows:
_U. r._: upper right, _i.e._, the right half of the upper jaw.
_U. l._: upper left.
_L. r._: lower right.
_L. l._: lower left. (The fact must be borne in mind that in
the first dentition there are twenty teeth.)
FIRST DENTITION
-------------------------------------------------------------
| Dates |
Teeth |------------------------------------| Observations
| of first | of complete | of |
|appearance | development | shedding |
--------+-----------+-------------+----------+---------------
U. r. 1 | | | |
2 | | | |
3 | | | |
4 | | | |
5 | | | |
| | | |
U. l. 1 | | | |
2 | | | |
3 | | | |
4 | | | |
5 | | | |
| | | |
L. r. 1 | | | |
2 | | | |
3 | | | |
4 | | | |
5 | | | |
| | | |
L. l. 1 | | | |
2 | | | |
3 | | | |
4 | | | |
5 | | | |
-------------------------------------------------------------
In this way we have an analytical and exact chart of the development
of the teeth. Analogous tables are made for the second dentition,
for the growth of the stature, for increase in weight, for certain
physiological notes, etc. When the first period of growth is ended, the
mother's note-books contain annual notes, like the following:
YEAR 190....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date |Jan-|Feb- |March|April|May|June|July|August|Sept-|Oct-|Nov- |Dec-
|uary|ruary| | | | | | |ember|ober|ember|ember
Weight | | | | | | | | | | | |
Stature| | | | | | | | | | | |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Special annual diaries are now employed for keeping a minute record of
maladies incurred, symptoms, treatment, etc.
These note-books, similar to those hitherto kept by ladies for their
house accounts, or for sentimental notes, would be of great service
and aid to pedagogic anthropology, even though their use could not
be extended to all mothers (the mothers of the proletariat, immoral
women, etc., either could not or would not give similar contributions).
The institution of "Children's Houses," if more widespread, could
easily facilitate the _education_ _of the mothers_ and the diffusion
of "Maternal Note-books" throughout all grades of society. But at
most these mother's diaries furnish us only with notes of the near
antecedents and not of the remote, which are of extreme importance.
=Sociological Antecedents:= _Vocation, Morality, Culture._--Before all
else, in inquiring into the sociological antecedents, it is necessary
to know in what sort of an environment the child has grown, and
whether it is an environment favorable, or otherwise, to his physical,
psychic, intellectual and moral development. This is an exceedingly
important matter to determine for the purposes of a clinical history,
since the child's moral conduct and the profit derived from study
depend to a large extent upon the environment in which the child
has grown and lived. To this end inquiries should be made into the
economic circumstances of the child's parents, their vocation, moral
standards and degree of education, and also into the child's mode of
life, whether with the parents or other relations, or with persons not
related to him, whether he plays in the street, keeps company with
street children, etc.
=School Record:= _Judgments of Teachers._--This is the history of
the pupil as made by his teachers, beginning with the first day that
he enters school. The judgments of teachers, although not always
so precise and so fair as those of mothers, nevertheless have an
importance of their own. Inquiry should be made into the child's
conduct in school and the profit he derives from his studies.
_Illustrative Cases._--There are, for example, certain families so
infected with a degenerative or pathological taint that the remote
antecedents are sufficient in themselves to stigmatise the biological
condition of an abnormal subject. This may be seen in the genealogy of
the Misdea family (taken from Lombroso's work):
_Grandfather_: MICHELE MISDEA
(Not very intelligent, but very active)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| | | | |
1st uncle 2nd uncle 3d uncle 4th uncle Misdea the
Guiseppe Domenico Cosimo Michele father (alcoholic,
(imbecile) (eccentric (quick-tempered (semi-imbecile) spendthrift, married
and killed in a to an hysterical
violent) quarrel) woman, one
| of whose brothers
------------------------------------------------------- was a brigand and
| | | | another a thief).
1st cousin 2d cousin 3d cousin 4th cousin |
(idiot) (madman) (imbecile) (imbecile) |
|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
| | | | |
1st brother 2d brother 3d brother 4th brother 5th brother
Cosimo Salvatore (sane) (alcoholic) (incorrigible)
(obscene, Misdea
epileptic,
drunkard,
convicted of
assault).
|
grandson
(obscene)
Similarly extraordinary is the genealogy of Ada Türcker, an alcoholic,
thief and vagabond, born in 1740, a large part of whose numerous
descendants it has been possible to trace. Out of the 834 individuals
derived from this degenerate woman, the lives of no less than 709 have
been followed up, and among these are included 143 mendicants, 64
inmates of asylums, 181 prostitutes, 69 criminals, and 7 murderers, who
altogether cost the state upward of seven million francs!
Besides families like these there are others infected with a
pathological taint, in which phthisis and gout alternate with epilepsy
and insanity. Then again there are other families in which the
pathological taint is scarcely perceptible, as for example, the family
of an epileptic child with criminal tendencies, personally studied
by me; all the members of this family are long-lived and enjoy good
health; the father alone is a sufferer from articular rheumatism.
Lastly there are families in which there is no sign of pathological or
degenerative weakness; and in such cases we say that there is nothing
noteworthy in the genealogy, and the near antecedents assume the
highest degree of importance.
The study of antecedents not only has a scientific importance, in so
far as it contributes to a knowledge of anthropological varieties of
mankind (due to adaptation); but it also has an immediate pedagogic
importance through its useful application to the school.
Lino Ferriani is the first jurist to investigate the antecedents of
juvenile delinquents, by gathering notes not only regarding their
parents, but also in regard to their own _school standing_ (by
consulting the teachers in the schools where these juvenile criminals
received their education!). I have extracted from his volume on
"Precocious and senile delinquency" the following statistics of the
physico-moral condition of the parents:
Convicted of crimes against property 1,237
Convicted of crimes against the person 543
Addicted to wine 2,006
Women leading meretricious lives 581
Doubtful reputation 1,500
Very bad reputation 670
Good reputation 210
Industrious 1,888
Semi-idle 4,000
Idle 2,000
Sentenced for drunkenness 1,590
Sentenced for offences against public morals 240
Alcoholics 1,001
Confined in lunatic asylums 48
Mothers deflowered before the age of 15 1,560
Couples separated through fault of the husband 59
Couples separated through fault of the wife 69
Couples separated through fault of both parties 135
Among these notes there is a numerical preponderance of _idlers_ (the
idle and semi-idle: degenerates are weaklings who cannot work and who
shun work; their only form of work is crime, which is an attempt to
reap the fruit of other people's industry) and alcoholism (addicted to
wine, alcoholics, and those sentenced for drunkenness; this also is a
stigma of degeneration: weaklings have recourse to alcohol, because it
gives them an illusion of strength). Furthermore, the majority show,
through crime and prostitution, that they belong to the class of social
parasites.
In regard to the psycho-physical characteristics of juvenile offenders,
Ferriani gives these principal notes:
Nervous 1,250
Habitual liars 3,000
Fond of wine and gluttonous 2,501
Proud of delinquency 2,700
Blasphemers 3,900
Cruel to animals 2,100
Excessive emaciation 1,648
Long hands 1,650
Unreliable workers 2,195
Without interest in life 1,347
Desirous of authority 1,000
Scrofulous 700
Rachitic and syphilitic 500
Vindictive 842
Timid and cowardly 900
Obscene 900
Cruel to parents 700
Cruel to companions 700
And now we come to the most interesting part of all, namely, the notes
taken by teachers where these children went to school.
_Boys._--Age from ten to twelve years. Characteristic notes on 100
children in regard to bad conduct:
Humiliating poorer companions 2
Absolute refusal to obey 4
Corrupting companions 4
Mutilating books of poor companions 2
Spirit of rebellion 1
Malicious and headstrong 1
Resentful of routine 1
Stealing food at expense of companions 6
Abnormally spiteful 4
Impertinent answers 7
Proud of inventing misdeeds 2
Stealing from companions and teacher (school stationary, etc.) 10
Calumniating companions 6
Desire to play the spy 8
Obscene writings in toilet room 2
Obscene writings in copy-books 6
Obscene actions in the school-room 9
Obscene writings on the benches 3
Violence with a weapon (pen-knife) 2
Bullying smaller boys 12
Feigning loss of speech for a month, to avoid reciting lessons 1
Blaspheming 1
Afraid of everything and savagely vindictive 1
Frequently absent from school, to play games of chance 3
Spirit of destruction 1
Spirit of contradiction 1
_Girls._--Age from ten to twelve years. Characteristic notes on 50
children in regard to bad conduct:
Soiling the clothing of their companions 3
Abnormally spiteful 2
Intense envy 4
Frequent absence from school, to play games of chance 4
Tyranny 3
Immoderate vanity 2
Spirit of rebellion 1
Insolent answers 1
Absolute intolerance of supervision 1
Damaging the school furniture 2
Slandering the teacher 4
Slandering school-mates 6
Theft, limited to pens 1
Lascivious love-letters 4
Constantly speaking ill of her mother 1
Attempts to make school-mates unhappy 1
Unkindness toward animals 1
Unkindness toward old persons 1
Unkindness toward small children 1
Obscene writings in the toilet room 1
Harmful anonymous letters 1
Hatred of beautiful things 1
Spirit of contradiction 1
Corrupting companions 1
Thefts in school 1
Mutilating the clothing of companions 1
The prevailing faults among the boys are: theft, obscene actions,
tyranny over the weak; and among the girls: slander, extreme envy and
lascivious love-letters.
If we compare the notes regarding the parents with those relating to
the children, we find a connection amounting to that of cause and
effect. We might almost say that the phenomenon revealed to us in
school through the teachers' notes concerns not so much the pupil
himself as his past history. To keep this sort of record of misconduct,
so damnatory to the pupils in question, would be worse than useless,
if we were unable to trace back their source to the presumable causes
which determined them. There is an intimate relation between the
environment and the products of that environment. If we should read the
notes relating to the children who receive prizes for good conduct, and
who are held up as moral examples, we could trace back and find the
cause of these notes in a favourable family environment; hence, the
qualities which we praise in the child are not a merit peculiar to the
child, but are due to causes, of which the pupil himself is merely the
fortunate epilogue.
And passing from studies taken from works of criminal anthropology to
examples contained in works of pedagogic anthropology (these works all
being based upon the same scientific standards), I am happy to cite a
work which has even earned the praise of Lombroso: _Notes on Infantile
Psycho-physiology_, written by Professor Calcagni.
Notwithstanding that this book of Menotti Calcagni's is inspired by the
most advanced pedagogic conceptions, so that it well deserves to be
cited in its entirety with much profit, I shall avail myself only of
the part which particularly interests me at the present moment. It is
the part containing the data collected and arranged by the author in
a series of tables, in the form of a brief clinical history, of each
pupil in the class studied by the author.
I shall pass over the statistical tables concerning the personal
examination of the pupils (anthropological, physiological, etc.), and
confine myself to just two tables: one in regard to the examination
into the pupil's antecedents (name and surname; day of birth; place of
birth; age of father; age of mother; vocation of father; vocation of
mother; conditions of home environment, hygienic, economic and moral;
conditions of other members of the family; maladies and casualties
incurred by the parents before and after the procreation of the child;
defects and vices of parents, and details regarding their psychic
constitutions; conditions and accidents during pregnancy, birth and
puerperal period; illnesses incurred by the child); the other in
regard to the pupil's previous school record (name and surname; pupils
enrolled at beginning of the year; those transferred to other classes;
those promoted without examination; those promoted after examination;
those permitted a second trial; those not admitted to examination;
those dropped from their class, and for how many different years).
I select from these the notes referring to the children _promoted
without_ _examination_ and those _not admitted to examination_; _i.e._,
the privileged ones before whom an obstacle has been withdrawn which
the majority must surmount before continuing on their path in life: go
forward in peace, you favoured ones! and those who are not even allowed
a chance to overcome the obstacle: turn back, you to whom the path of
other men is closed!
And I read these notes relative to those _promoted without
examination_: "Father shoemaker, Mother dress-maker, home orderly,
frugal and clean; brothers labourers;"--"F. professor of chemistry,
M. housekeeping, condition of environment excellent, brothers
studious;"--"F. assistant engineer, M. keeps house, conditions of
environment good, deaths in family from acute diseases;"--"F. country
tradesman, M. keeps house, conditions of environment excellent, very
religious family;"--"F. man of means, M. housekeeping, conditions of
environment excellent, brothers studious;"--"F. machinist, M. keeps the
house, home somewhat damp because of adjoining garden; much anxiety
on the part of the mother regarding the children, because her first
husband was a consumptive, and the seven children she had by him
all died. Children of second marriage all healthy; but the pupil in
question frequently had attacks of fever;"--"F. cab-driver, M. keeps
house, economic and moral conditions satisfactory;"--"F. antiquarian,
M. keeps house, condition good;"--"F. manager of a lottery office, M.
keeps house, economic conditions of the very best, moral conditions
good," etc.
And here are a few notes on the pupils _not admitted to the
examinations_: "Father itinerant vendor, Mother keeps house, home
exceedingly dirty, utmost indifference regarding the children and their
education. Insufficient nutriment for the mother both before and after
the child's birth;"--"F. cobbler, M. wash-woman, poverty, squalor,
and indifference, dwelling gloomy and cramped;"--"F. mason, M. dead,
dwelling gloomy and unhealthy, through lack of supervision, Giacinto
often runs away from home and goes to play on the banks of the Tiber;
the mother died of tuberculosis; the father is an alcoholic; the child
was brought up by a wet-nurse, etc."
To recapitulate: in the case of children promoted without examination
there is an absolute prevalence of the most favourable social and
biologico-moral conditions, while the opposite holds true of the
children excluded from examinations.
Finally, in my own modest work on children adjudged to be the highest
and the lowest in their classes, I arrived at some very eloquent
conclusions.
In the case of children who stand at the foot of their class,
the prevailing conditions are not only an unhealthy home but an
over-crowded one, with ten or twelve persons sleeping in a single room.
On the contrary, in the case of the children standing at the head
of their class, the homes are for the most part roomy, comfortable,
well-aired and hygienic.
In regard to nutrition, the children who have the lowest standing are
those who go to school without their breakfast and who go from the
school to the street without having had their luncheon. Those who stand
first, on the contrary, bring with them a luncheon that is sufficient
and sometimes over-lavish; and after school, they return home, with the
assurance that food, care and comfort await them.
The parents of these leaders of their class belong nearly all of them
to the liberal professions or the more favoured crafts and trades;
consequently the pupils enjoy a more comfortable and respectable
environment, a higher standard of culture, a mother who can aid them
in their lessons, and who, equally with the father, watches with
solicitous care over her children's education.
The others, the dullest pupils, go at the close of school into the
street, or else--although fortunately very few of them do so--return
directly to the wretchedly cramped quarters that they call home.
Consequently it is not enough to recognise the fact that in school we
have to deal with the more intelligent pupil and the less intelligent,
with the moral and the immoral, the highest and the lowest; these are
effects, the causes of which it is our duty to discover; and that is
what the study of antecedents does for us.
Here begins the far-sighted task of the teacher, who no longer
praises the pupil who is a product of fortunate causes, nor blames
the unfortunate one heavily handicapped by a destiny which is in no
way his fault; but he gives to all an affectionate and enlightened
care, designed to correct and reform the reprobates and raise them to
the level of the chosen few, thus working for the brotherhood and the
amelioration of all mankind, and devoting special attention to those
that need it most.
The study of antecedents is what contributes most to the interpretation
of personality. It is needful, however, that it should be sufficiently
thorough; and to this end a certain order of interrogation should be
followed. Physicians are well acquainted with this order, from the
habit they have acquired of taking the antecedents of the patient in
their clinical practice; but for making biographic charts for schools,
a _guide_ is needed for the use of whoever puts the questions.
Besides, the biographical history is based on different principles
from those of the clinical history (_e.g._, the moral status of the
parents, their degree of culture, etc., which are not taken into
consideration, in treating a patient). Consequently, the blank forms of
biographic charts contain suggestions that are likely to prove helpful
in conducting an inquiry into antecedents. Among such models, I have
selected that of Pastorello, because it is one of the most complete,
and also because it was compiled by an educator (see page 420).
Nevertheless, the inquiry into his antecedents is only a preparation
for the scientific study of the pupil in his present state; a study
which should _follow_ the pupil through his daily life (diaries) and
thus constitute his complete _Biographical History_.
Having collected the antecedent details, we pass on to the objective
anthropological and psychic examination of the pupil: beginning with
the anthropological, which it is more important to secure first; since
the psychic examination will produce better results after a _prolonged
observation of the subject_ (diaries, school records).
In the anthropological examination it is customary to begin by taking
the principal measurements (total stature, sitting stature, weight,
thoracic perimeter, perimeter of the head, and its two maximum
diameters) which furnish the data needed to give a fundamental idea
of the child's physiological constitution and racial type, and to
determine the normality of his growth. Many other measurements may
be taken (spirometry, dynamometry), according to the custom of the
school, and, in private schools, according to the object which the
Principal has in view, in the way of contributions to science. For
instance, in a school for defectives the examinations as to general
sensibility, speech, muscular strength have an importance of the first
order, and equally important is the accurate and minute inspection
of the different organs, for the purpose of discovering possible
malformations. There are various special objects to be attained by
gathering anthropological data, and accordingly every school based upon
modern scientific principles has its own "Biographical Chart" drawn up
according to special forms containing the necessary measurements and
observations, and the examiner has only to follow the directions of
this guide and to fill in the required information obtained from the
individual pupil.
INQUIRY INTO ANTECEDENTS IN PASTORELLO'S BIOGRAPHIC CHART
----------------------------------------------------------------------
General Information Regarding Pupil's Family
----------------------------------------------------------------------
NAME AND SURNAME OF PARENTS
_Father_.........................................................
_Mother_.........................................................
_What degree of relationship, if any, exists between the parents?_
......................................................................
_At what age did the parents contract marriage?_.................
_How old were the parents at the time of the child's birth?_.....
STATE OF HEALTH
_Father_.........................................................
_Mother_.........................................................
_From what diseases have the relatives of the pupil died?_
......................................................................
_Have there been any predominant_ _diseases in the family?_
......................................................................
EDUCATION
_Father_.........................................................
_Mother_.........................................................
EMPLOYMENT
_Father_.........................................................
_Mother_.........................................................
ANCESTRY
_Father_.........................................................
_Mother_.........................................................
MORAL AND FINANCIAL CONDITION OF THE PUPIL'S FAMILY
_Is the family interested in the education of the children?_
......................................................................
FAMILY HABITS, ECCENTRICITIES AND VICES
......................................................................
Here, for instance, is the anthropological form used in the great
orphan asylum in New York:
NEW YORK JUVENILE ASYLUM
ANTHROPOLOGICAL EXAMINATION AND MEASUREMENTS.--_No. of page_
------------------------------------
Date of entrance
Sex
Age
Date of birth
Name
Total stature
Sitting stature
Total spread of arms
Weight
Prehensile strength, right hand
Prehensile strength, left hand
Power of traction
{Antero-posterior diameter
Thorax {Transverse diameter
Maximum circumference of head
Maximum antero-posterior diameter
Maximum transverse diameter
Minimum frontal diameter
Height of head
Inspection: cranium
Face
Eyes
Ears
Gums
Teeth
Palate
Uvula
Strabismus
Limbs
Body
Genitals
Lung
Heart
Special notes
-------------------------
This form has signs of _modernity_: in fact, it concedes the greater
part of the research that is to be made in the first objective
examination to anthropological observations, limiting the observations
of a physiological nature to those of muscular strength--it being well
known that all _functions_ in general, and especially the _psychic_
_functions_, cannot be determined with reliable accuracy except after
repeated and prolonged observations. Furthermore, the modern tendency
in anthropologic research is revealed by the preference given to
measurements of the body in its entirety, giving first place to those
of the _bust_ and _limbs_, from which the important ratio of their
development is obtained (standing and sitting stature, total spread of
the arms), and the _weight_. Furthermore, there is a notable _absence
of measurements of the face_, measurements which it is the modern
tendency to abandon where the subjects of research are children, since
in this case they have no physiological or ethnical importance, because
the face of the child _varies from year to_ _year_, and has no _fixed_
index like that of the cranium. A study of the facial measurements
might be of importance as contributing to a knowledge of the evolution
of the face through successive years; but such knowledge can be
obtained, so far as is needed, from "special studies and researches,"
without making _obligatory_ a form of research that is both troublesome
and dangerous (the application of pointed instruments to the faces of
children). The best method of examining the face is by photographing
the full face and the profile at intervals of one year. Accordingly,
the biographic form used in the "Children's Houses" contains only
questions of an anthropologic nature of importance in relation to
growth (see the form of the Biographic Chart of the "Children's
Houses," page 423).
The greatest importance attaches to the _stature_ and _weight_. Indeed,
while all the required measurements are taken _once a year_ on the
occasion of the child's birthday, the total stature and the weight are
taken once a month upon the day of that month corresponding to the
child's birthday. The numerous other physio-pathological and psychic
notes, the examination in regard to speech, etc., are obtained partly
from the diaries and partly from the physician, according to the
necessities of individual cases.
The photograph should complete the examination of the pupil. The
methods of observation adopted in the "Children's Houses" represent,
I think, the ideal method for the accurate recording of individual
characteristics. Since the pedagogical methods there employed are
themselves founded upon the "spontaneity" of the manifestations of
children, it may be said that they represent the technical and rational
means of proceeding to a psychic examination of the child.
I cannot linger upon this point, because the question deserves a
special investigation; but it must suffice to point out that in order
to render biographic charts a necessary adjunct to the management of
schools, so as to offer a real aid to the teacher and not to have them
mean to her (as happens to-day only too frequently!), "just so much
more work," the immediate utility of which is doubtful, it is essential
that the _pedagogic methods of instruction_ should be changed.
So long as a child is required to perform certain definite acts, he
will reveal nothing of himself beyond responding, in so far as he is
capable, to the requirements of his environment; and any attempt to
make psychological deductions from such response would contain profound
errors.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL FORM
USED IN THE "CHILDREN'S HOUSES," IN ROME AND MILAN
_No._............... _Date of Enrollment_.............
_Name and Surname_..................................... _Age_.........
_Name of Parents_........................... _Age_: _M_......_F_......
_Vocation_............................................................
_Hereditary Antecedents_..............................................
......................................................................
_Personal Antecedents_................................................
......................................................................
ANTHROPOLOGICAL NOTES
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
| | | | | | Cranium
Total | |Thoracic|Essen- | Index | Pon-|-------------------------
stature|Weight|circumf.| tial | of |deral| Cir-|a.-p.|Transv.|Ceph-
| | |stature|stature|index|cumf.|diam.| diam. |alic
| | | | | | | | |index
-------+------+--------+-------+-------+-----+-----+-----+-------+-----
| | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
_Physical constitution_................................................
_Muscular development_.................................................
_Color of complexion_..................................................
_Color of hair_........................................................
NOTES..................................................................
Nevertheless, the earlier forms of biographic charts, and even the
modern ones _in general use in Italy_ (!) frequently contain minute
requirements for psychic examination in relation to such points as
memory, attention, perception and intelligence.
And even less satisfactory are the requirements in the charts regarding
the examination for _sensibility_--namely, ability to distinguish
colours, sense of touch, smell, etc.; because the pedagogic methods in
vogue in school (and this applies to-day to all our schools) make no
provision for a rational exercise of the senses, nor for instruction
in the nomenclature relating to them. An examination of the senses
for the purposes of the biographic chart should at most be limited to
a test of their _acuteness_, forming an inquiry analogous to that of
_sensibility to pain_. For an inquiry into the power to discriminate
between various sensations ceases to be a simple examination of the
senses, and becomes a combined test of psychic powers and of the
degree of culture attained (the degree to which the senses have been
trained). Furthermore, it is well known that a psychical examination
demands preparation on the part of the person to be examined, complete
repose from all emotion, isolation of the senses, etc., the preparation
depending upon the special research which it is desired to make; all of
which is absolutely opposed to the _aggressiveness_ of the tumultuous
examination conducted by an investigator whose chief aim is to fill
in the blanks upon the biographic charts. The psychic examination of
a pupil is a task to be accomplished slowly, by watching the child's
behaviour, in the course of its _daily life_ under the eye of an
intelligent and trained observer.
Nevertheless, it is sometimes necessary, especially in schools for
defective children, to form at once a comprehensive first impression of
the psychic condition of a given child; it furnishes the observer with
a needed point of departure, and abridges the long and difficult task
of a psychological study of the pupil, to be made in the course of the
ensuing year. In such a case, the biographical form should not contain
such general topics as the following:
Memory,
Sense of place and time,
Judgment,
Moral sense, etc.,
but a series of very simple _questions_ to be put by the examiner
to the pupil, the replies to which must be recorded _accurately_,
without alteration in any manner, but reproducing their incorrectness
of speech, their hesitations, etc. In this way such a form of inquiry
constitutes not only a first psychical examination, but also a first
examination as to defects of speech, which is of much value and
reproduces quite exactly the state of the subject at a given moment.
On the contrary, the sort of results obtained according to the older
method, _e.g._:
_Memory_, poor;
_Intelligence_, sufficient;
_Attention_, easily aroused, etc.;
were practically worthless, especially in absence of any knowledge of
the competence of the person who formulated these judgments.
Here is an example of a series of questions to be used as a psychic
test, prepared by Professor Sante de Sanctis, and included in the
Biographic charts of the Asylum-School for Defective Children at Rome:
1. What is your name?
2. How old are you?
3. What is your mamma's name?
4. Have you any brothers?
5. Have you any sisters?
6. What is your father's business?
7. Is your father (or mother) old or young?
8. At what age is one old?
9. How do you know that a man is old?
10. What is this? (a couch in the corridor).
11. What is it for?
12. What is this? (a table).
13. What is it for?
14. Do you always feel well?
15. Are you hungry?
16. When are you hungry?
17. Do you ever dream at night?
18. What do you dream?
19. What time is it now, more or less?
20. What year is it?
21. What month is it?
22. What season of the year?
23. What day of the month is it?
24. What day of the week?
25. Where do you live?
26. Where are you at the present moment?
27. What are these? (two books or two pictures) and which of the
two is the larger?
28. Which of these three glasses has the most water in it?
29. Which will weigh the most and which the least of the three?
30. How many persons are there in your home?
31. Is your home large or small?
32. How many rooms are there?
33. Whom do you love most?
34. What would you do if (the person named) were hungry?
35. What would you do if he were very sick?
36. Or if he died?
37. Do you love some playmate, or some friend? Why do you love him?
38. Do you hate anyone? Why?
39. Do you know the meaning of right and wrong?
40. Do you know the meaning of rewards and punishments?
Out of all the existing forms of biographic charts I have selected
four in their entirety; two are historical: 1. the first form for the
individual examination of the pupil ever published in any treatise
on pedagogy; and 2. the first form printed in Italy by the city
authorities with the intention of having it introduced into the
elementary schools.
The first of these is the biographic chart proposed by Séguin in his
pedagogic treatise relating to the education of idiots (_Traitement
moral, hygiene, et éducation_ _des idiots_, 1846); the second is the
one proposed by Sergi for the communal schools of Rome, and printed
by the Commune with the intention (1889), never actually carried out,
of introducing it into the schools; at all events, this is the first
historic document representing an idea twenty years in advance of the
time when the idea itself was destined to begin to be popularised.
Here are the two forms in question:
=Séguin's Form.=--This follows out all of Séguin's pedagogical ideas,
and all of his didactic methods; it is a guide for the physician, and a
minute guide for the teacher who intends to adopt the Séguin methods of
education. Séguin calls his biographic chart a "Monographic Picture,"
and divides it into five paragraphs, the fifth of which deals with the
pupil's antecedents.
MONOGRAPHIC PICTURE (_Séguin_)
I. _Portrait (Objective Morphological Examination)_
Age.
Sex.
Temperament, health.
Illnesses, accessory infirmities.
Detailed configuration of the cranium.
Configuration of the face.
Proportional relation between cranium and face.
Inequality of the two sides of cranium and face.
Hair, skin.
Proportional relation between the trunk and the limbs.
Inequality of the two sides of the trunk and limbs.
General attitude of the body.
Attitude of the head.
Attitude of the trunk.
Attitude of the lower limbs.
Attitude of the upper limbs.
Attitude of the hand and fingers.
Configuration of the organs of speech, and their possible relation
to the organs of generation; dentition.
Configuration of the thorax.
State of the vertebral column.
State of the abdomen.
II. _Physiological Examination_
Activity, general and applied.
Apparent state of the nervous system.
General irritability of the nervous system.
Irritability of special groups of nerves.
Cries, groans, singing, muttering, etc.
The change which certain stimulants such as cold, heat,
electricity, odours, etc., produce upon irritability and
sensibility, general or special.
Probable state of the brain.
Voluntary articular flexions.
Locomotion.
Positions, recumbent, seated, standing, walking, ascending, descending.
Running.
Jumping.
Grasping objects.
Dropping objects.
Catching objects.
Throwing objects.
Ability to dress, eat, etc., without aid.
Probable state of the spinal marrow.
Probable state of the organic nerves.
Probable state of the sensory nerves.
Probable state of the motor nerves.
Difference of action between the sensory nerves and the motor nerves.
Inequality of action of the motor nerves and sensory nerves on the
two sides of the body.
The muscular system, contractibility of muscles, and condition of
sphincter muscles in particular.
Muscular movements.
Voluntary movements.
Automatic movements depending on the condition of the sympathetic nerve.
Automatic movements depending on the state of the central nervous system.
Spasmodic movements.
Coordinated and disassociated movements.
Sense of touch.
Sense of taste.
Sense of smell.
Sense of hearing.
Sense of sight.
Erectility.
The voice, abnormal tones.
Speech.
Assimilative functions.
Unnatural appetites.
Manner of taking food.
Mastication.
Swallowing.
Digestion.
Evacuation of fæces and urine, voluntary or involuntary; other
excretions, saliva, nasal mucus, tears, sebaceous humor, sweat,
perspiration, etc.
Pulse.
Respiration.
Sleep.
III. _Psychic Examination_
Attention.
Sensorial perception.
Intellectual perception.
Deduction.
Coordination.
Inventiveness.
Unrelated memories.
Foresight and forethought.
To what extent are these intellectual operations, when they exist,
applied to concrete phenomena, mixed phenomena (_i.e._, concrete
and abstract) and to ideas of a moral nature?
Are the general ideas of time, space, conventional measurements,
relative value, intrinsic or arbitrary, understood and applied in
actual daily life?
Comparison.
Judgment.
Reflection.
Have the ordinary rudiments, such as the alphabet, reading,
writing, drawing, arithmetic, been taught to the pupil or not, and
can they be taught in his present state?
Have his attitude toward music and mathematics, enjoyment of
singing, irresistible desire to sing, been brought about naturally?
Has he a perception of the physical proportion of bodies, such as
colour, form, dimensions, relations between the parts to form a
whole?
IV. _Examination Regarding Instincts and Sentiments_
Instinct of self-preservation.
Instincts of order, readjustment,
preservation and destruction
of objects.
Aggressiveness, cruelty.
Instinct of assimilation and
possession.
Is the child obedient or
rebellious, respectful or
impertinent, affectionate
or cold, rude or courteous,
grateful, jealous, merry or sad,
proud, vain or indifferent,
courageous or cowardly, timid or
venturesome, circumspect or
thoughtless, credulous or
suspicious?
Has the child a sense of abstract
right and wrong or only in relation
to a small number of acts that
concern himself?
Does the child show spontaneity
an active will--the kind of will
which is the initial cause of all
human actions producing intellectual
or social results?
Has the child only a negative will
associated with instincts and does
he protest energetically against
any extraneous will that tends to
compel the idiot to concern himself
with social or abstract phenomena?
Finally, in what direction and
within what limits has the idiot
passed beyond the boundaries of his
ego in order to enter into physical,
instinctive, intellectual and moral
communication with the phenomena
which surround him?
V. _Etiology_
Origin of father and mother.
Their constitution.
Hereditary diseases.
Place of residence at the time of
the child's conception,
gestation, birth and lactation.
Possible causes of idiocy.
Circumstances worthy of note during
conception.
Circumstances worthy of note during
gestation, delivery, lactation.
Serious illnesses of the child
during the first year.
Infirmities and illnesses from the
first year down to the first
symptoms of idiocy. Progress,
retrogression or stationary state
from the child's birth down to the
time of examination.
If we realise that this model for a biographic chart was proposed
more than one-half a century ago, it makes us marvel at the modern
spirit of its concepts: it actually considers the relation between the
development _of the trunk and of the limbs_, the _mimic_ _attitudes of
the body_, the _constitution_, etc., all of which concepts are foreign
to the studies of the medical clinics from which Séguin must have drawn
his inspiration, since even to the present day the tendency in the
clinics is toward purely analytical investigation, with the exception
of Professor De Giovanni's clinic.
In the model proposed by Sergi, the examination was required to be
made twice: first upon the reception of the pupil, and again at his
departure with the modifications shown below:
BIOGRAPHICAL CHART FOR SCHOOLS (SERGI)
TABLE I.--_Physical Observations_
----------------------------------------------------------------------
On entering school | On leaving school
|
Class Year | Class Year
----------------------------------+-----------------------------------
1. Name. | 1. Name
2. Age. | 2. Age
3. Birthplace. | 3. Birthplace.
4. Parentage (father and mother).| 4. Parentage (father and mother).
5. Vaccination. | 5. Vaccination.
6. Stature. | 6. Stature.
7. Weight. | 7. Weight.
8. Pulmonary capacity. | 8. Pulmonary capacity.
9. Muscular force. | 9. Muscular force.
10. General state of health. |10. General state of health.
11. Past illnesses. |11. Past illnesses.
12. Anomalies, deformities. |12. Anomalies, deformities.
13. Head, horizontal circumference|13. Head, horizontal circumference.
14. Head, maximum length. |14. Head, maximum length.
15. Head, maximum width. |15. Head, maximum width.
16. Cephalic index. |16. Cephalic index.
17. Face, length. |17. Face, length.
18. Face, width. |18. Face, width.
19. Facial index. |19. Facial index.
20. Hair, colour, form. |20. Hair, colour, form.
21. Eyes, colour. |21. Eyes, colour.
22. Skin, complexion. |22. Skin, complexion.
23. Incidental remarks. |23. Incidental remarks.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
BIOGRAPHICAL CHART FOR SCHOOLS (SERGI)
TABLE II.--_Psychological Observations_
----------------------------------------------------------------------
On entering school | On leaving school
|
Class Year | Class Year
----------------------------------+-----------------------------------
1. Sight, acuteness, far- or | 1. Sight, acuteness, far- or
near-sighted. | near-sighted.
2. Sense of colour, normal, | 2. Sense of colour, normal,
defective. | defective.
3. Hearing, acuteness. | 3. Hearing, acuteness.
4. Sense of touch, acuteness. | 4. Sense of touch, acuteness.
5. Intelligence, quick or slow. | 5. Intelligence, quick or slow.
6. Perception, rapid or gradual. | 6. Perception, rapid or gradual.
7. Memory, tenacious or short. | 7. Memory, tenacious or short.
8. Attention, easily aroused or | 8. Attention, easily aroused or
not. | not.
9. Speech, rapid or slow. | 9. Attention, how long sustained.
10. Speech, pronunciation perfect |10. Attention, progressive
or imperfect. | weariness.
11. Speech, stammering. |11. Speech, rapid or slow.
12. Emotional sensibility, dull |12. Speech, pronunciation perfect
or easily assumed. | or imperfect.
13. Conduct and character at home.|13. Speech, stammering.
14. Affection for parents. |14. Emotional sensibility, dull or
15. Taciturnity or loquacity. | easily assumed.
16. Preferences during free hours.|15. Conduct and character in school.
17. Caprices, eccentricities. |16. Friendships in school.
18. Unusual incidental |17. Taciturnity or loquacity.
occurrences. |18. Preference during free hours.
|19. Caprices, eccentricities.
|20. Unusual incidental occurrences.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The two other biographic charts that deserve specific mention are,
unlike the above, charts in actual use, since they have both been
recently introduced into practical service.
The first, which I reproduce in entirety, is the one adopted by the
Commune of Bologna for its schools; the second is the one introduced,
for the purpose of studying the inmates, into the government
reformatories, of Italy, that have recently been transformed into
educational institutions, into which a number of important reforms have
been introduced, through the influence of scientific pedagogy--among
others, these biographical charts and the anthropological researches
connected with them.
Biographic chart for elementary schools:
DISTRICT OF _Year_ 191--
_Class_
COMMUNE OF BOLOGNA
OFFICE X.--HYGIENE
_Biographic Chart of the Pupil_
_Name and Surname_...............................................
_Age_............................................................
_Place of birth and residence_...................................
_Parents' Place of birth and vocation_...........................
THE TEACHER.
* * * * *
State of skin, of the subcutaneous
tissue, the muscles, the
lymphatic glands
{ horizontal circumference
Head { maximum width
{ maximum length
Cephalic index
Face { height
{ width
Facial index
Hair / colour
\ form
{ keenness of sight
{ hypermetropia
Eyes { myopia
{ colour sense
{ colour of iris
Hearing, acuteness
{ form
Teeth { number decayed
{ number missing
Anomalies of development
Weight { at the beginning,
of body { at the end of the year
Total spread of arms
Stature
Pulmonary capacity
THE PHYSICIAN
* * * * *
Illnesses incurred during the school year.............................
Total number of absences..............................................
Number of absences on account of illness..............................
Profit derived from instruction.......................................
Conduct and character in school.......................................
Affection toward parents and school-mates.............................
Special observations..................................................
THE MASTER
The biographic chart of the reformatories is among the most complete;
nevertheless, it is based upon antiquated methods for the study of the
individual, including, for instance, the facial index and ignoring
that of the stature; and limiting the psychic examination to abstract
notes (reflection, attention, etc.). It constitutes, however, an
anthropological _record_, for it follows the child throughout his whole
residence in the reformatory.
What is called, in the chart in question, the moral account,
corresponds to our _third subdivision_ in biographic histories, in so
far as it represents a summary of the daily records. Under this head
mention is made of the moral balance, and the notes tell us that it is
founded upon "_punishments_" and "_rewards_." In so far as they treat
of disciplining children, these notes are not to be taken as a model;
they are evidently a relic of antiquated educative methods that have
survived amid the efforts of a new scientific movement. There is no
mention made of medical treatment bestowed upon the children, who may
very often owe their so-called _moral_ anomalies to a pathological
condition which must frequently be _aggravated_ by punishments. It is
well known that many normal children have periods of agitation which
is manifested by the most various kinds of action (impulsiveness,
sexual excesses, rebellion), followed by periods of calm during which
the child exhibits the opposite characteristics (industriousness,
obedience, etc.). The biographic chart is quite likely to show a record
of punishments and rewards corresponding to these contrasted periods;
and in this respect it follows antiquated pedagogic methods, which are
precisely what need to be reformed under the light of science.
An illustration of this is contained in the biographic history of an
idiot boy in the asylum of the _Bicêtre_, a report of which is given
below: the periodic _anomalies of character_ in the boy should be
noticed. Many epileptic children do not have convulsions, but exhibit
instead anomalies of character which become permanent and are naturally
aggravated by fatigue and punishment; and the great majority of such
children pass eventually into reformatories.
In the forms customarily used for biographic charts, there is liberal
provision for daily notes. Accordingly, in the biographic chart of the
child in question there are a number of blank pages on which _casual
notes_ have been entered (diary). Every fact deserving of notice
has been entered; facts of a physio-pathological nature, such as
illnesses, strength, endurance in running, appetite, outbursts of anger
without cause; school-notes regarding the progress attained by the
child in school, especially when he has overcome serious difficulties,
correction of incidental defects of speech, etc., and notes of a
psycho-moral nature regarding acts committed by the child, tending to
show the state of his feelings.
The master has a general register which may be compared to the _daily
entry book_ used in book-keeping, and in which all the _notes of the
day_ are entered. Days and even months frequently pass without any
entry being made in regard to some particular child. From this general
register the master later draws up individual _summaries_ which are
then transcribed into the corresponding biographic history of each
child.
Once in so many years all the measurements and observations are
repeated in their entirety (_e.g._, at the most important periods of
growth with especial study of the epoch of puberty). When the child
is definitely discharged from the school, a general summary is drawn
up; in such a case the _biographic chart_ represents that individual's
_own personal history_; a human and social document of the highest
interest to anyone who wishes to _know himself_, and continue his
own self-education! It might serve as a useful guide to a man of
intelligence.
These registers and biographic charts may be compared to the record
of points and the report cards that are in use to-day in the schools.
Even the report cards which are obtained through a fatiguing process of
_averages_ represent a summary of notes taken every day by the teacher
(although not every day for _every_ pupil). But the report card is of
no practical use to the man who wishes to draw up a faithful record of
the education he has received that will serve to _guide him through
life_.
Since there do not yet exist any complete biographic histories relating
to normal children, I shall reproduce one of an idiot boy who was
received into the great Paris hospital for defectives; this history
is interesting because it is the result of the methods of Séguin who
was the founder of the anthropological movement in pedagogy; it would
be still more interesting if we could offer the complete history of a
normal man or of a wayward boy redeemed by education. But let us hope
for this in the near future!
The summary of the history which I here reproduce does not contain
the objective examination of the boy at the time of his reception;
because that would only be a repetition of what has already been
described, while the part which it now interests us to illustrate is
that containing the summaries of the diaries. The antecedents, however,
are given because they are indispensable for an understanding of the
patient's personality.
SUMMARY OF THE BIOGRAPHIC HISTORY OF AN IDIOT BOY
_Admitted at the Age of 3 Years, and Dismissed at the Age of 17_
OUTLINE: Father an alcoholic.--Mother subject to migraine.--No
consanguinity between the parents. Equality of ages (difference
of two years).--A sister died of convulsions.--Conception
during an alcoholic excess on the part of the
father.--Albuminuria during pregnancy.--The child cried both
night and day.--Twitchings of the body and head.--Did he ever
have convulsions?--Fits of anger.--At the time of admission, he
could neither speak nor walk (July 30, 1881, age 3 years).--The
child has involuntary emissions of fæces and urine (is
uncleanly).
_September_, 1884.--The child has learned to walk.
1885.--Development of speech.--The child is beginning to give
notice of its natural necessities.
1886.--The child is no longer uncleanly.--The twitchings of head
and body and the fits of anger have diminished.
1887-1890.--Progressive improvement, with alternate progressive and
stationary periods.
1891.--Description of the patient.
1892-1897.--Physical and intellectual evolution.--Progress in
studies.--Acquirement of a trade.--Results.
_Remote Antecedents._ (Notes furnished by the mother.)--_Father:_
35 years old, tailor's cutter, large, strong, of calm
temperament, a smoker; numerous _excesses of alcoholic
beverages_, especially absinthe--as many as eleven a day;
venereal excesses; came home intoxicated almost every day;
never had convulsions in infancy, nor any nervous shock;
suffered only from eczema. No syphilis.--_Father's Family:_
Paternal grandfather a mason, sober, died of heart disease.
Paternal grandmother, of calm temperament, enjoyed good health.
No other information regarding paternal ancestry.--_Mother:_
33 years old, seamstress, good health, regular features;
no convulsions in infancy. Menstruated at age of 13 years,
married at 20. Suffered from migraine since she was nine
years old. These headaches lasted three days and occurred
at the menstrual periods, ceasing throughout pregnancy and
lactation. The symptoms were: headache, buzzing in the ears,
to the point of deafness, and vision of sparks before the
eyes. The attacks terminated with vomiting. _Mother's Family:_
Father sober and in good health; mother died of influenza.
No information regarding either the ascendant or collateral
branches; but there seem to have been no other cases of nervous
disease in the family. No consanguinity, no disparity in ages.
_Brothers_ _and Sisters of the Patient:_ The mother of D----
had five children; the first, a boy ten years and a half old,
intelligent, no convulsions; the second, a girl, died at
fourteen months, after having convulsions that continued for
eight days; the third, a girl, seven years old, intelligent, no
convulsions; the fourth, the patient in question; the fifth,
a girl, born after D----'s admission to the asylum; she is
intelligent and healthy, no convulsions.
_Near Antecedents._ The child's mother is convinced that the
conception took place during _alcoholic_ intoxication.
Pregnancy was accompanied by generalised oedema from the fifth
month onward, due to albuminuria. No _eclampsia_. No fainting
fits, etc. Delivery timely, difficult, but accomplished
naturally. The child at birth was strong and not asphyxiated.
Was nursed by the mother for the first two months, after which
he depended upon hired nurses and artificial feeding (was sent
to the country where he was fed chiefly from the bottle). Was
returned to the mother at the age of eleven months; could not
walk; would eat anything within reach of his hands, coal,
excrements. Cried continually, day and night, to the great
disturbance of the neighbours. Cut his first tooth at five
months; and at the age of three years the first dentition was
not yet completed. Has a habit of swaying his body forward and
backward; beats his head against the wall, the chairs, etc.,
and strikes his forehead with his clenched fist. Has habitual
constipation. Is extremely affectionate, loves to be caressed.
Yet he will bite anyone who approaches him, including his
brothers and sisters. It cannot be learned whether when he
was staying with the wet-nurse he ever had convulsions. It is
certain that he had none after his return to the family. The
habit of _onanism_ dates from the time of his return from the
nurse. Vaccinated at 13 months, slight attack of varioloid
at the age of two years; no other infectious diseases. No
manifestation of scrofula; no traumatism.
_Objective Examination of the Patient_ (omitted).--The _history_ is
accompanied by eight photographs of the boy, taken respectively
at the ages of 3, 4, 6, 8, 11, 15, and 16 years, three of
which, namely, those taken at the ages of 6, 11 and 16, are
reproduced on page 278.
DIARIES
_July 2._--He is uncleanly (emissions of fæces and urine). Does
not know how to behave at table; when he eats he spills his
food over his clothing. Is gluttonous but not voracious; he
does not steal the food of his companions, but he protests when
he sees food given to others and not to him. Is mistrustful,
hides his bread for fear that it will be taken from him; and
if any one takes notice of this, he utters a cry of rage. He
is affectionate, very timid, jealous, obstinate, grumbling,
somewhat sullen, seldom laughs. Although weak, he fights his
companions and frequently falls into _fits of_ _anger_; then
he flings himself on the floor and beats his head against the
furniture. He sways his body forward and backward. His _power
of speech_ is limited to three words: _papa_, _mamma_, and
_no_. He is able to make himself understood when he wants
anything.
_August-September._--Two slight attacks of ophthalmia. The child
has now learned to walk.
_January-March, 1885._--Otitis (Inflammation of the ear).
_August._--The ability to speak is developing progressively. He
has begun to give notice of his natural necessities; is seldom
uncleanly, so that it is now possible to let him wear trousers.
The habit of balancing his body back and forth is tending to
disappear. The accesses of anger have become rarer. He is less
jealous and plays indiscriminately with his companions.
_January, 1886._--The improvement continues. D---- is now very
attentive in school. When out walking he takes an interest in
the things he sees and asks for explanations. Is doing well in
the first gymnastic exercises. Makes a good appearance.
_March._--D---- has now become altogether cleanly. Furthermore,
he knows how to wash, dress and undress himself alone. At
table, can handle his spoon and fork quite properly, but
cannot yet manage his knife. Is less gluttonous; his speech is
fully developed. Although he cannot keep still in school and
constantly changes his position, he has succeeded in learning
to know his letters, the different colours, etc., can count up
to 50, and can name the greater part of the objects contained
in the boxes used for object lessons. The balancing of the
body has completely disappeared. D---- has a tendency toward
onanism. Accesses of anger an still noted, during which he is
very vulgar.
_December._--Condition stationary. Misconduct in class, frequent
fits of anger, during which he abuses everyone and strikes his
smaller comrades.
_March, 1887._--D---- is calmer and does better work. Can count up
to sixty. His general knowledge has increased. Can tell his
age, his name, the name of his parents, what their employment
is, where they live, etc.
_April, 1888._--The improvement continues. His behavior is better.
Has learned the names of materials, of plane surfaces, of
solids; can distinguish vowels from consonants. It has been
impossible to induce him to trace simple strokes even upon the
blackboard.
_December._--Is more diligent and has taken a fancy to writing.
_January-June, 1889._--Is in the infirmary on account of anal
ulcers.
_December._--Notable improvement in general knowledge. Has begun to
write certain letters in his copybook.
_December, 1890._--D----'s conduct is good. He is no longer
disorderly; and if at times it is necessary to reprove him,
he recognises his fault, cries, and promises to do better. He
fears above all that his misconduct will be reported to his
mother. Has a fairly accurate notion of right and wrong, is
no longer so extremely jealous and shows affection for his
comrades. Has learned to write syllables well; is able to copy
short paragraphs; can do simple sums in addition; gives clear
answers to questions. Walking, running, jumping, going up and
down stairs have become easy for him. The child uses his fork
and knife at table; chews his food well, does not suffer from
any digestive disturbance. Is orderly, and attends to himself
in all details of his toilet.
_April 21, 1891: Objective Examination._--The child's face has a
uniformly ruddy complexion; lips full-blooded; skin smooth,
without scars or eruptions, excepting a slight scaliness due
to eczema. Two small ganglia in the left submaxillary region,
but no others in any other locality. Cranium symmetrical;
volume and form normal. Frontal and parietal nodules slightly
prominent; occipital nodule quite prominent (pentagonoid
cranium). Hair light blonde, abundant, fine, growing low
upon the forehead. Posterior vortex normal, forehead wide,
but not high. Visage oval; with a slight depression of the
nostril and corner of the mouth on the right side; has on the
whole an intelligent expression; it is mobile and reflects
the moods and feelings natural to boyhood. The superciliary
arches are only slightly arched. The eyebrows are chestnut
in colour and scanty; the lashes are abundant and long. Iris
dark blue; pupils equal in size and react under the influence
of light. No functional disturbance, and no lesion in regard
to the eyes. Field of vision normal. D---- recognises all
the colours. Nose small, and straight, with a pronounced
aperture of the nostrils. Zygomata regular, without exaggerated
prominences; naso-labial furrows barely indicated. Aperture
of mouth very wide and habitually half open. Lips thick and
slightly drooping. Tongue normal. Palatine vault distinctly
ogival. Tonsils enlarged; the boy is subject to tonsillitis.
All these parts show quite a blunted sensibility, which permits
of an examination of the pharynx, without causing nausea. Chin
rounded, without indentation. Ears long and thick, the outer
edge is normal, including the fold of the helix; the ears
protrude conspicuously from the cranium and are very peculiar
in shape; namely, the upper two-thirds of the external ear form
with the lower one-third an obtuse angle of such nature that
the _concha_ or shell really represents the outline of a very
deep and almost hemispherical sea-shell. The lobule is thick,
regular, and notably detached. The ear is the seat of frequent
attacks of erythema, complicated by swelling. Neck rather short
and quite stout; circumference 26 centimetres. The lobes of the
thyroid glands are plainly palpable to the touch.
_Thorax and Abdomen._--No notable peculiarities. Auscultation
and percussion show that the internal organs are normal. Body is
hairless. Genital organs are normal. The upper and lower limbs are
normal in all their segments.
_Icthyosis_ of the skin on thighs and knees. General sensibility
normal; usual physiological reflex actions.
_Treatment._--Regular application of the medico-pedagogical method:
tonics during the winter; hydrotherapy annually, from the first of
April to the first of November.
_April 24._--The mother, finding the child much improved, takes him
home on leave (March) and later (end of April) requests his
dismissal, which is granted reluctantly, in the fear that the
boy may lose part of what he has so laboriously gained.
_May 19, 1892._--The boy, having become insubordinate and not
making satisfactory progress in the public school (to which he
was sent, so that he would not be present at the scenes between
the mother and the father, who is habitually intoxicated), has
been sent back to the asylum.
_June._--The physical evolution continues. The child is very timid
and sensitive, cannot bear to be reproved and cries when he is
corrected. Reads fluently, but without expression. Has begun
to write familiar words from dictation. During his absence from
the asylum he learned to know the numbers and to do simple
examples in addition and subtraction.
_Treatment:_ School work; gymnastics; hydrotherapy.
_July._--D---- is at present conducting himself in a way difficult
to control; he plays ill-natured jests upon his companions;
places needles and tacks in seats; during the assembly he
amuses himself by sticking little pins into the backs of the
girls who sit in front of him.
_December._--The boy is very lazy, and often refuses to read or to
do his tasks; he grins and sneers if he is corrected. But he
carries out very well all the movements in the lower gymnastic
course. Has been sent to the _tailor's work-shop_ and seems to
have taken a fancy to the trade.
_April, 1893._--D---- has become quite reasonable, does good work
in school, does not like to be inactive, has ceased to grin
and sneer. His writing has improved; his reasoning power is
good; he is careful of his clothes to the point of vanity; eats
with propriety, has ceased to bolt his food; yet it is still
noticed that he has a tendency to appropriate the wine of his
companions.
_June._--D---- is passing through a bad period; he laughs at
everything that is said to him, is very obstinate, annoys his
comrades, tears up copy-books, breaks pens, etc. Is careless
regarding his clothing; makes a disturbance at night in the
dormitory.
_December._--Same state. Tries to smoke; is unwilling to do any
work; laughs at everybody; dresses with great carelessness; it
is necessary to compel him to wash his hands and face. No sign
of _puberty_.
_December, 1894._--Notable improvement; D---- reads quite readily,
writes quite well, recognises all ordinary objects, their
use, and their colour; has a conception of time. Is docile,
neat, industrious in school work, is attentive to explanations
and understands them. In the work-shop he continues to show
progress.
_January-June, 1895._--The improvement continues; D---- has begun
to learn the multiplication table; he is well-mannered and
scrupulous in his behaviour; excellent in gymnastics. In the
tailor's work-shop he makes marked progress; he has already
learned to put together an entire garment by himself, and he
knows how to use the machine. From time to time he has periods
of indolence; and this happens more often in the work-shop than
in the class.
_Puberty._--A slight down has begun to appear upon his upper lip.
_July 8._--According to the night nurse, D---- had an attack of
epilepsy during the night; he never had one before, and he has
not had one since.
_July 10._--Troubled sleep, nightmare, unintelligible and
threatening words.
_January, 1896._--Very notable improvement in class. The boy
profited above all from the _lessons about natural objects_,
in which he takes much interest. From time to time he shows a
tendency to dissipation and gambling. Is docile, cleanly, and
neat in personal appearance to the point of vanity. The master
of the work-shop is very much pleased with him; he works well
with the machine. Is doing well in gymnastics and in singing.
_Puberty._--His beard has begun to grow even on his cheeks.
_June._--Hand-writing, far from improving, seems to be growing
worse. On the contrary, it is noticed that he has made
progress in arithmetic. Can perform all four primary operations
and has begun to solve easy problems. His general knowledge has
improved. Has become a good tailor's workman.
_January-June, 1897._--The boy prefers the work-shop to the school
and for some time the mistake has been made of leaving him
wholly in the work-shop.
_December._--Same state from point of view of his studies;
character docile, conduct good, personal care and neatness
satisfactory. Works well and rapidly in the work-shop; can make
complete suits of clothing; uses the machine dexterously; is
beginning to cut out garments.
_Puberty_ complete, no onanism. The right eyelids are less widely
open than the left by nearly a quarter. The patient says that he
does not see so well with the right eye as with the left, and
cannot distinguish with it even large letters unless they are very
near.
TABLE OF WEIGHT AND STATURE
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
|1890| 1894 | 1895 | 1896 | 1897 | 1898
-----------+----+-------------+-----------+-----------+---------+------
Meas- |Jan-|Jan- | July |Jan-| July |Jan- |July|Jan-|July|Jan-
urements |uary|uary | |uary| |uary | |uary| |uary
-----------+----+------+------+----+------+------+----+----+----+------
Weight in | | | | | | | | | |
kilograms.| 25 |34.700|35.200| 35 |37.800|39.800| 44 | 46 | 51 |53.700
Stature in | | | | | | | | | |
metres. |1.22| 1.39 | 1.42 |1.42| 1.50 | 1.53 |1.58|1.61|1.66| 1.69
----------------------------------------------------------------------
MEASUREMENTS OF THE HEAD IN CENTIMETRES
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
|1891|1893|1894| 1895 | 1896 | 1897 |1898
|----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
|Jan-|Jan-|Jan-|Jan-| |Jan-| |Jan-| |Jan-
|uary|uary|uary|uary|July|uary|July|uary|July|uary
---------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
Maximum horizontal | | | | | | | | | |
circumference. |50.2|50.2|50.2| 52 | 52 | 52 | 52 | 52 | 52 | 54
Anterior semi- | | | | | | | | | |
circumference. | 33 | 33 | 33 | 33 | 33 | 33 | 33 | 33 | 33 | 34
Distance from the | | | | | | | | | |
occipito-allantoid | | | | | | | | | |
articulation to | | | | | | | | | |
the root of nose. | 36 | 36 | 36 | 36 | 36 | 36 | 36 | 36 | 36 | 37
Maximum antero- | | | | | | | | | |
posterior diameter.|17.5|17.8|17.8| 18 | 18 | 18 | 18 | 19 | 19 | 19
Maximum biauricular | | | | | | | | | |
diameter. | 11 | 12 | 12 |12.5|12.5|12.5|12.2|12.5|12.5| 13
Maximum biparietal | | | | | | | | | |
diameter. |13.5| 14 | 14 |14.5|14.5|14.5|14.5|14.5|14.5|14.5
Maximum bitemporal | | | | | | | | | |
diameter. | -- | -- | -- | -- | 11 | 11 | 11 |11.5|11.5| 12
Medial height of | | | | | | | | | |
forehead. | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 6
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
In the antecedents of this patient, the only suggestions of
degeneration are the _alcoholism_ of the father and the fact that
conception took place in a state of intoxication. The mother's migraine
might also be considered as a nervous malady amounting to a family
taint, but cannot be held responsible for so grave an abnormality as
idiocy.
Consequently, it remains beyond doubt that the most interesting
antecedent fact to be considered in this case is the _conception_
_during alcoholic intoxication_.
The individual we are studying is a sick person; this is shown by
_ptosis_ (drooping eye-lid), the recurrent periods of agitation, the
epileptic convulsion in the night detected by the night nurse.
It is interesting to observe in the photographs of the child, the
alteration of expression between the periods of calm and those
of agitation; in the latter the face is asymmetrical and shows
contractions in the left facial region, while the right side is
paretic; the paresis is also manifested by _ptosis_ (drooping lids).
During the periods of calm, on the contrary, the left side also is
atonic.
In the course of the history the differences in the child's conduct in
the two states are well described.
During the periods of calm, the child is attentive, docile, careful of
his dress, timid, and makes progress in his studies; during the periods
of agitation he is unstable, rebellious, careless, unkind to his
comrades, and makes no progress whatever. At the beginning, there were
no periods of calm at all; furthermore, the child had every appearance
of being an idiot; medico-pedagogic treatment rendered longer and more
frequent, and finally permanent, these periods of calm, during which
the child's intellectual redemption became possible. The treatment did
not consist solely in the _education of an idiot_, but also in the
_cure of a sick child_. "At the time of admission," according to the
_observations_ in the record, "the diagnosis was _retarded mentality_,
and that only in relation to primary instruction, because in regard to
matters of common knowledge and manual work, the patient comes very
near to a normal lad of average intelligence."
Such a surprising _transformation_ of an individual is certainly
deserving of admiration; but this diligently compiled study is not yet
quite completed. As a matter of fact, when the education of D---- was
begun, observations regarding types of stature were not yet made; but
his photographs show that he was an exaggerated macroscelous type.
The trade adopted by D---- which will oblige him to sit with his chest
bowed over the machine, or in a kneeling position while he sews, will
in all probability drive him straight along the road to tuberculosis, a
malady to which his organism has singularly predisposed him. It would
be interesting to follow further the history of this patient, who has
been transformed from an idiot into a skilful and industrious workman.
The society, which under the guidance of science, achieved his
difficult redemption, has perhaps at the same time condemned him to
death.
The modern standards of pedagogical anthropology would have furnished a
more far-sighted guidance in the choice of a vocation.
Meanwhile, however, this history reported by Thulié is a luminous
demonstration of the folly of rewards and punishments; the only forms
of intervention during the periods of agitation, which lasted for
entire months, during which the boy was continually unruly, impulsive,
malicious, reckless, and incapable of work, were tonics, hydrotherapy
and kindly treatment.
"Punishments" would have cruelly wrecked the life of a human being who
was naturally gentle, affectionate, and capable of diligent work and
permanent improvement.
Something similar ought to be attempted in the reformatories. The
boys who are regarded as incorrigible are frequently _sick_ boys,
with an hereditary degenerative taint, and need to live in a tranquil
environment and to receive medical treatment.
The biographic charts of the reformatories give no evidence that
this educative movement has as yet been understood. They show that
_punishments_ are still regarded as possessing a corrective efficacy,
because the conception that the so-called delinquent children may be
a pathological product and a result of disastrous family and social
conditions, has not yet penetrated with sufficient clearness.
But progress along this path is surely bound to come as a result of the
experience which this principle of reform has made possible.
The biographic charts have unquestionably laid the foundations of a new
edifice in pedagogy.
_Scientific Pedagogical Advantages of Biographic Histories:_
1. The biographic chart takes the place of the report cards and records
of the relative marks of merit and demerit; for while these records
and reports constituted a statement of _effects_, altogether empirical,
the biographic chart _investigates the causes_ and in this way
furnishes pedagogy with a scientific basis. There is no need of further
demonstration. The principal consequences of the above indicated
progress are two in number.
2. The biographic chart, replacing the earlier classifications, raises
the teacher's standard of culture by directing him along a scientific
path, associates the teacher's work with that of the physician, and
makes the teacher a far-sighted director of the development and
perfectioning of the new generations.
3. The biographic chart includes a new educative movement which
abolishes rewards and punishments.
On this third point much might be said, since it touches upon one
of the fundamental doctrines of pedagogical progress. But since
this is not a treatise upon scientific pedagogy, it is necessary to
limit the exposition to a few fundamental points.
In fact, it will be sufficient to speak of cases in which education
is most difficult and where the rewards and punishments are
unavailing--for these will include all simpler cases. A luminous
example is furnished by the education of _new-born infants_. Of
all human beings they used to be the most troublesome because of
the impossibility of educating them by the old-fashioned methods.
They cried at all hours of the day and night, making a slave of the
mother or whoever took her place.
To-day, babies are quiet; it is marvelous to go through the infant
ward in the Obstetrical Clinic of Rome; absolute silence reigns
there, and yet if we lift up the white curtains of the cribs, we
see the little ones lying with their eyes wide open. A deeper
knowledge than was formerly had of the _hygiene of_ _the child_ has
enabled us to interpret his needs, and when these are satisfied,
the child is tranquil. Bodily cleanliness, liberty of movement,
prolonged repose in the crib, and _rational feeding_ have obtained
this remarkable result of silencing the baby, of rendering it
more robust and of liberating the mother from the slavery of her
mission. The classic cry of the child in swaddling bands was a
protest against the suffering which ignorance imposed upon him.
To-day the little one, lying tranquilly in his crib, begins to
exercise his senses earlier and more easily, a ray of light strikes
him and attracts his attention, and with this his education has
begun, while formerly the suffering due to indigestion kept him for
a much longer time a stranger to the external world.
The same thing may be repeated for every year of childhood. Often
what we call _naughtiness_ on the part of the individual child is
_rebellion_ against our own mistakes in educating him. The coercive
means which we adopt toward children are what destroy their natural
tranquility. A healthy child, in his moments of freedom, succeeds
in escaping from the toys inflicted upon him by his parents, and
in securing some object which arouses the investigating instinct
of his mind; a worm, an insect, some pebbles, etc.; he is silent,
tranquil and attentive. If the child is not well, or if his mother
obliges him to remain seated in a chair, playing with a doll, he
becomes restless, cries, or gives way to convulsive outbursts
("bad temper"). The mother believes that educating her child means
forcing him to do what is pleasing to her, however far she may be
from knowing what the child's real needs are, and unfortunately
we must make the same statement regarding the school-teachers!
Then, in order to make him yield to coercion, she punishes the
child when he rebels and rewards him when he is obedient. By this
method we _drive a child by force_ along paths that are not natural
to him. In the same way, absolute governments employed public
entertainments and the gallows, in order to compel the people to
act and think according to the will of their sovereign; indeed,
they were considered as indispensable means of good government.
To-day we have come to realise that such means are more or less
adapted to the successful crushing of a people's spirit, but not to
governing them well. The reign of _liberty_, which leaves men the
opportunity to give expression to their own powers and above all to
their own thoughts, is doing away with festivals and executions;
and it is not until this is accomplished that men can be really
well _governed_.
Something similar is going to take place in the schools. But here,
since the children are incapable of understanding _what they ought
to do_ for their own best good, science _studies them_ in order to
assist their natural needs.
I believe that we must greatly modify our ideas regarding infant
psychology, as soon as trained psychologists begin to observe the
spontaneous manifestations of children, to the end of encouraging
their tendencies.
Having applied scientific methods in the "Children's Houses,"
we were amazed at the behaviour of those little children; for
instance, they showed contempt for toys, while they loved objects
on which they could exercise their free powers of reason.
_Intellectual exercise is the most pleasing_ of all to the small
child if he is in good health. Indeed, we already know that
children break their toys in order to see how they are made inside;
this shows that the exercise of their intellect interests them more
than playing with an object that is often irrational. But children
are not, as is generally believed, naturally destructive; on the
contrary, their instinct is to _preserve_. This is seen in the
way in which they save little objects that they have acquired by
themselves; and in the "Children's Houses," we have also seen it in
the way that they preserve unharmed even the most trivial scrap of
paper, although free to tear it up, so long as that scrap of paper
helps them to exercise their thoughts.
Here we see the great difference between the healthy, normal child
who employs himself in the way that pleases him, and is attentive
and tranquil; and another child who, equally healthy and normal, is
obliged to do what other people wish him to do, and is restless,
and troublesome and cries.
To aid the physical development of the child under the guidance of
natural laws is to favour his health and his growth; to aid his
natural psychic tendencies is to render him more intelligent.
This principle has been intuitively recognised by all pedagogists,
but the practical application of it was not possible, excepting
under the guidance of scientific pedagogy, founded upon a direct
knowledge of the human individual.
_To-day it is possible for us to establish a régime of liberty in
our schools, and_ _consequently it is our duty to do so._
Whenever a child exhibits anomalies of character that do not
signify rebellion against irrational methods of education, and
are not expressions of a struggle for liberty, he represents the
unhappy effect of some pathological cause, or of some _social
error_, that has only too fatally accomplished its corruptive task.
This is what the biographic history will reveal!
As a general rule, a bad child should be taken to see a physician,
because it is almost certain that he is a sick child.
But the _treatment_ of such maladies is very often mainly
pedagogical; curative pedagogy, however, must absolutely abolish
_punishment_.
We now know as a fact absolutely established in sociology that the
fear of punishment, of torture and even of death does not avail to
diminish crime, nor the imperious manifestation of human passions.
Brigandage is not repressed by cutting off heads, but by
civilisation in all its forms of industry, intercommunication, etc.
And this principle is especially true in the case of children;
harshness of methods and severity of punishment will not avail to
inculcate, and still less to create, goodness. Man is conquered
through kindness and gentleness; among all the beatitudes, that of
inheriting the earth (_i.e._, of winning over their fellowmen) is
given to the _meek: blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit
the earth_.
We know that hypocrisy, adulation and seduction are criminal means
by which man seeks to deceive his fellow men to his own profit;
but they are based upon gentleness; it would never occur to
anyone to seduce and to conquer hypocritically, with the help of
violence. Because the weak point in man, that to which he is most
susceptible, is gentleness, praise, caresses. We have seen that
the psychic stimulus needed to augment human activity, to arouse
an apathetic person to action, and even to produce a condition
of flourishing growth in a child, is the pleasant stimulus of
kindness and caresses. The mother's caress, like the mother's
milk, is a means of stimulating the child to a more complete
nutrition and vitality. And the entire category of physiological
weaklings, such as the defectives, epileptics and criminals,
have a proportionately greater need of such stimulus than normal
individuals; consequently, how can coercion ever be expected to
restore such unbalanced personalities to their proper equilibrium?
Those whom we have been in the habit of oppressing with severity
and punishment are the very ones most in need of the stimulus of
affection. Indeed, it is only the strong man and the hero who can
pass unscathed through persecution; the weak are left broken,
down-trodden, or slain.
_Sursum Corda._--Always strive to uplift, never to depress.
A beautiful theory and a humane idea. But is it practicable, and to
what extent? In short, what can be done practically, for instance,
in the exceedingly difficult case of juvenile delinquents, in
order to correct their evil tendencies and save them from their
waywardness, without coercion?
But what are evil tendencies of the mind? With that one phrase we
are trying to embrace and ostensibly bind together a quantity of
widely different effects.
The study of the individual should suggest to us the particular
method of education required by him. Meanwhile, in regard to the
question of juvenile delinquents, a wide road leading straight
back to first causes, has been opened by the _pathological_
factor. Who, for instance, does not know that the conduct and the
sentiments of an individual may become unbalanced through the
effects of poison or disease? This takes us at once into the field
of nervous or mental pathology: the first symptom of _paralytic
dementia_ is not the trembling, or alteration of speech, or
interruption of certain reflex actions, or muscular weakness, nor
the real and actual delirium. The symptom which first manifests
itself as an indication of profound disturbance in the personality
of the unfortunate victim of this cruel disease is an almost
unheralded alteration of the natural character and conduct. The
man who hitherto has been a good husband and father, becomes a
profligate, spendthrift and gambler; the man who has hitherto been
most scrupulous in his language and in his sexual conduct becomes
foul-mouthed and obscene; the man who was a kind and affectionate
husband becomes violent and aggressive toward his wife. Anyone
wishing to consider these preliminary symptoms of paralytic
dementia as _evil tendencies of the mind_, would strive in vain
with appropriate sermons, reproofs and punishments to make the sick
man _repent_ and come back to his former state!
Let us pass on to another example. There is no one who is not aware
of the effects of alcohol. There are persons who, when in a state
of intoxication, commit actions that are worse than reprehensible,
even criminal; actions which the individual himself deplores as
soon as the poisonous effects have passed away. Kind-hearted
persons go so far as to maltreat their own children, even when
they are little babies; they commit violent and degrading acts
that often make them shed tears of repentance as soon as they
become aware of them. Well, if we should try to make such a person
understand, while he is still in a state of intoxication, that
his actions are improper, it would be wasted effort. It is better
to let the matter pass, or else to give him treatment for his
alcoholic condition, which is the cause of his misconduct.
And passing on to another class of cases, does not everyone know
that when people are afflicted with a diseased liver, their
character alters, they become jealous, quarrelsome, hypochondriac,
melancholy? It would be useless to tell such persons that they were
formerly more tractable and morally superior; they are already
sufficiently afflicted without having us, who are in good health,
aggravate them with our useless preaching. And analogously, it is
well known that when hysteria attacks a woman it may transform her
from a virtuous and modest person to an unhappy creature, compelled
by her physical condition to forget herself and compromise the
unquestioned propriety of her past life; or again, it may change
her from a gentle soul to an insupportable fury, or it may
actually develop into such pronounced delirium as to necessitate
her confinement in an insane asylum. In this case also, it is the
malady that demands treatment, since it is the sole cause of the
sad manifestations of a change in character.
Now, the pathological cause most frequently associated with
criminal manifestations, is undoubtedly epilepsy. Lombroso
himself attributed a vast influence to this etiological factor
of criminality; and every day this far-sighted intuition of the
master is confirmed and made clearer. The epileptic is not always a
criminal, nor does the criminal always show the classic convulsive
symptoms. There are cases of epilepsy in which the symptoms are
attenuated or latent or replaced by different but equivalent
symptoms. It is frequently necessary to diagnose an _epileptic
character_ from impulsive tendencies and from long protracted
nocturnal _enuresis_ in childhood. De Sanctis has lately been able
to prove in his hospital practice that there are many children
who have unmistakable epilepsy of the classic type, with violent
accesses, but without criminal tendencies; at a certain age the
convulsions cease, the patient is apparently cured: but he has
become a criminal. On the other hand, there are children with
immoral tendencies, destructive, violent, incorrigible; one would
say that these were clear cases of predisposition to crime; all at
once a genuine epileptic attack occurs, followed by other repeated
attacks; the criminal tendencies disappear; the patient is simply
an epileptic. In these cases, we have successive forms of epileptic
equivalence. In the majority of cases, therefore, the proper course
would be to _treat_ the patient for epilepsy, as being the cause of
the apparent "evil tendencies of mind." And hence one notable side
of the great problem of the moral education of juvenile criminals
is transformed fundamentally into this other problem: "Can epilepsy
be treated and cured?"
Up to the present, the treatment of epilepsy is a problem. While
therapeutics prescribe bromides and warm baths, pedagogy is to-day
following a very different course with a combined treatment of
hygiene and education. Benedickt, and following him, the principal
authorities among medical specialists, are at present condemning
the use of depressing bromides, which hide the attacks as an
anesthetic hides pain, but do not cure them. The cure, says
Benedickt, depends upon hygienic life in the open air in order
to absorb the poisons, and upon graded work, provided, however,
that the malady is still recent and has not assumed a chronic
form. Two principles of much importance: the malady must be of
recent occurrence! Consequently, it is only in the _period of
childhood_ that we can attempt the treatment of the great majority
of those predisposed to crime, with any hope of effecting a cure! A
declaration of tremendous interest for the defense of society. But
the treatment must be _pedagogic_. Accordingly, we have returned to
the point of departure. We began by asking: "How are we to educate
them"? A course of reasoning led us along this different road, "it
is necessary to give them treatment." But the treatment consists
in educating them. Well, from all this we can so far extract one
unassailable principle; in their education all coercive measures
must be absolutely abolished, because nervous and convulsive
maladies are most successfully treated with gentleness and quiet;
it is evident that all emotion, all fear, all nervous exhaustion,
all punishment in short, no matter how mild or just it may be,
would seem to be _prohibited_ in pedagogic treatment.
Accordingly, it is necessary to approach the question anew;
what is needed is to set the nervous system in order, to calm
it, to restore its equilibrium. Benedickt says: this is to be
achieved _through work_, rationally measured and graded; hence,
manual training, as organised, for example, in the Reformatory of
San Michele, constitutes of itself a moral cure; it concurs in
readjusting the nervous system by reinforcing it.
However, we must not generalise over such complex questions; if
the pathological factor, and more especially epilepsy, constitutes
a great centre of _biologic_ _causes_ producing individuals
predisposed to crime, we cannot conclude that there is a constant
correspondence between epilepsy and criminality. But there is
no doubt that among these predisposed we shall almost always
find some who are suffering from a taint, or from dystrophy, due
to tuberculosis or syphilis; in short, the _minus habens_, the
physiological proletariat.
The benefit wrought by education consists not only in contributing
to the real and actual cure, as in the case of epilepsy; but
also in the corrective, as well as curative, effect upon the
personality. The abnormal mentality which generally accompanies
degenerate or epileptic conditions requires special methods of
education, which in many cases must absolutely exclude all forms
of coercion. Mental hygiene, an abundance of psychic stimulus,
partly intellectual (chiefly through objective demonstration)
and partly moral (in the form of praise and gentle caressing
treatment), are indispensable accompaniments of such education. An
abnormal mentality almost always accompanies defects of the mind;
from the hypochondriac or the epileptic to the imbecile and the
idiot, the abnormal mentality builds itself up from inaccurate
perceptions, and hence more or less from illusions; a deficiency
of reasoning power or a half delirious condition completes the
fatal organisation of a mode of thought which renders such an
individual unfitted for his environment. We have seen an example
of this in the boy whose clinical history was read in class; his
perceptions were inexact, consequently colours, odours, and sounds
reached him in a manner somewhat different from our perception of
them; his mental world must therefore be differently constructed
from ours. Defectives frequently pass by objects without obtaining
any impression of them, or else transform what impression they do
get into a false idea. Even their sensations of touch and pain
are different from the normal. Hence, they do not feel as we do,
and are often inaccessible to the anguish of pain which refines
human nature by sometimes raising it to the point of heroism. And
because we have learned through our own sufferings to understand
the meaning of pity, altruism and solidarity, these unhappy beings
differ from us even in their relation to society. Their scanty
powers of logic lead them to fall openly into errors, which provoke
vindictive retaliation on our part that tends in the ultimate
analysis to isolate these unfit beings from social intercourse.
To us, their whole conversation is a series of falsehoods, because
it does not correspond to what we ourselves see and feel. An
understanding between them and us becomes steadily more difficult,
in proportion as we continue to perfect ourselves in our individual
evolution, while their unhappy state is steadily aggravated through
the formidable struggles and persecutions which they meet in an
environment to which they are unadaptable. For instance, we saw
that one of the boys who has been studied in class, had committed
his most reprehensible acts as a result of false logic. "Why do you
kill all the pigeons?" "To make them keep still." "Why do you beat
your little sister?" "Because she won't work like the others." (The
sister in question was only eighteen months old!) Well, he showed
in this way that he had learned something from the corrections that
he had received. They had punished him so much for being restless,
and so much because he did not want to work, that he finally
applied his acquired zeal to correcting others in the way that his
defective logic dictated. And similarly, after seeing how they
weigh objects with a steel-yard--also a form of work--it occurred
to him to stick the hook into his little sister, in order to weigh
her; and having learned that useful work is paid for in money,
which serves to buy the necessities of life, he stole all the money
that he could find at home, and gave it to the motormen on the
tram-cars, who in his opinion perform the most useful work in the
world.
I once had occasion to study a paranoiac patient in the asylum for
the criminal insane, who had spent twenty years in prison before
his insanity became so pronounced as to cause his removal from
one place of restraint to the other. He had killed his betrothed,
out of jealousy, so he said, but he narrated the tragic deed with
a fullness of detail and a readiness of phrase--his lurking in
ambush, the unfortunate girl's approach, her fall under the blows
of the cobbler's knife--that proved the cold-blooded calculation
with which the crime was committed.
This man was convinced that he possessed such oratorical gifts
that if he had pleaded his own case in place of his attorney,
the persuasive magic of his eloquence would have resulted in his
acquittal. The lawyer had advised him not to speak and the prisoner
was sentenced to a term of thirty years. The appeal to the Court of
Cassation was denied. The result was that in his desperation at the
failure of his defence, and more particularly because he had lost
the chance of showing his oratorical powers in public, he conceived
the idea that the only way by which he could come into court again,
and speak for himself, and _force_ _them to acquit him_, was to
commit another murder. And he actually sprang at his lawyer's
throat, armed with a nail, meaning to kill him. Thus we see how
paranoiac delirium, and defective reasoning powers, sad evidences
of pathological conditions, combined to create the most cynical and
repellant of all criminal types.
Accordingly the _treatment_ of the pathological condition, and the
education of the _mentality_ in children who are thus predisposed,
constitute a great work on behalf of the defence of society.
Well, this is precisely what scientific pedagogy is trying to
do, through a rational education of the senses: to correct false
perceptions and straighten out the warped and twisted mentality
of abnormal children; and little by little, through repetition of
the same lessons under different forms, and the establishment of a
cooperation of all the senses, the perception of objects tends to
approach nearer and nearer to the normal. Meanwhile, hygienic or
medical treatment may be used to correct the accompanying physical
defects.
Accordingly, we are able to modify an abnormal personality by means
of rational medico-pedagogic treatment; and it is by this means
alone, and not through destructive coercion, that we may hope to
approach the greatly desired goal.
Lastly, it is also necessary, in the etiology of crime, to take
into consideration the environment, the bad example, the brutality,
the absence of affection, all of which are things which might
well pervert the mind of even a normal individual; and when such
conditions exist, the removal of the transgressor to a different
environment where he may have the benefit of physical, intellectual
and moral hygiene, may result in completely transforming him. In
these sad cases nothing short of the profoundest love will serve to
redeem and even transform into a hero the man who has fallen into
evil ways through misfortune.
No one can any longer believe that coercive measures should be
added to the cruelty of the environment which oppresses the
_transgressor_. If he has gone astray in the midst of sorrow it
will be only through consolation that he can be born again to a
new life; if he lost the straight path amid arid wastes, nothing
short of a purifying and assuaging spiritual water will enable him
to recover his path. As a sign of our humanity let us keep a smile
upon our lips and our hearts free of all harshness of offense or
defense; our weapons are intelligence and love and it is only by
these weapons that we can become conquerors.
But, it may be answered, granted that the education of abnormal
persons, and more especially juvenile delinquents, constitutes a
complex work in which medicine, a special environment, and the
methods of scientific pedagogy contribute harmoniously through
diverse ways to the ultimate goal: yet in actual practice how are
we to intervene to render docile these rebels whom society itself,
with all the forces at its disposal, recognises as dangerous and
condemns to isolation? In short, it is argued, a more direct
method will be required for their moral education; a clear-cut
method to offset that equally direct form consisting of coercion
and punishment that are now the consequence of the reprehensible
act. Under all the conditions to be considered in regard to the
biopathological factors and the social environment, there still
remains another element and the most evident of all, namely,
the immediate and practical influence exerted directly upon the
minds of wayward children. We may say quite truly that beneath
the pathological facts and the social injustices, there exists
something more profound which, for the sake of simplicity we may
call the _soul of humanity_. Something which responds from soul
to soul, which may be aroused from the depths of subconsciousness
like a surprise, which may be touched and reveal itself in an
outburst of affection previously hidden and unsuspected. Unknown
profundities of the spirit, that seem to merge into the eternity
of the universe itself and unexpectedly produce new forms as in
a chemical reaction. And this is what we really mean by "moral
education."
Well, in order to accomplish such a lofty work, we do not need to
find a _method_. Method is always more or less mechanical. Here, on
the contrary, is the supreme expression of human life--an evocation
of the superman. What we need to find is not a method, but a
_Master_.
Séguin, in his glorious treatise on scientific pedagogy, dedicates
a chapter to the training of the teacher of defective children. The
teacher of abnormal pupils is not an educator, he is a _creator_;
he must have _been born_ with special gifts, as well as to have
perfected himself for this high task. He ought, says Séguin, to
be handsome in person, and strong as well, so that he may attract
and yet command; his glance should be serene, like that of one
who has gained victories through faith and has attained enduring
peace; his manner should be imperturbable as that of one not easily
persuaded to change his mind. In short, he ought to feel beneath
him the solid rock, the foundation of granite on which his feet
are planted and his steps assured. From this solid base, he should
rise commandingly, like a magician. His voice should be gentle,
melodious, and flexible, with bursts of silvery and resounding
eloquence, but always without harshness. Séguin describes the
methods by which the teacher should educate his own voice, speech
and gesture; he should take a course in facial expression and
declamation, like a great actor who is preparing to win favor of
the select and critical public of the proudest capital.
For, as a matter of fact, he must attract the minds and souls of
human beings who are almost inaccessible, beings who form whole
armies in the world, entire peoples, they are so numerous; powerful
human armies that threaten society with terrible punishment and
bring about cruel executions.
But the perfect teacher must possess something more than physical
beauty and acquired art; he must have the loftiness of a soul
ardent for its mission; yet even this may be cultivated and
perfected. The teacher must "perfect himself" in his moral nature.
There are men, who from the moment they make their appearance,
exert a sort of fascination; everyone else becomes silent in their
presence. It is almost as though some natural fluid emanated from
them and spread to the others, so profoundly does everyone feel
the attraction. When such a man speaks, the words seem, as if by
magic, to touch the profoundest recesses of the heart. Hypnotists
and magicians! Conquerors of souls! Valiant souls themselves; souls
with a great mission!
Well, this is more or less what is demanded of the teacher of
abnormal children. He ought to be conscious of his personal dignity
and human virtue, and of a sincere love for the children whom
it is his task to redeem; his own greatness must overcome their
wretchedness. And if he continues to perfect himself and to mount
toward the moral altitudes, cultivating at the same time a love
for his own mission, he will, as if by magic, become an educator;
he will feel that a magic power of suggestion goes forth from him
and conquers; the work of redemption will then seem to accomplish
itself like a conflagration which has been kindled from some
central point and spreads in rolling flames through the dried
undergrowth.
Undoubtedly, the guidance of science is not everything to a
teacher; the better part is given him through his own moral
perfectionment.
4. The biographic history completes the individual study of the pupil
and prepares for his diagnosis: combining, to this end, the work of the
school with that of the home.
Sergi, in his memorable work, _First Steps in Scientific Pedagogy_,
expresses himself as follows: "_the biographic chart is a methodical_
_means for learning to know the body and spirit of the pupil through_
_direct observations_.... And, since pupils may be classified according
to tendencies, character and intelligence, the master may rationally
divide them into various groups, to which he will give varied
treatment, according to the direction in which each group shows the
greatest need of education.... And he will place himself in closer
association with _the pupils' families_, who should communicate to him
their earliest observations regarding the physical and psychological
nature of their children."
As a matter of fact, the anthropological movement, through the
inquiries necessitated by the compilation of biographic charts, often
proves illuminating to the members of the family, in regard to facts
and conditions of which they had hitherto remained ignorant (sexual
hygiene); in regard to the view they should take of their own children
(those who had been regarded as "bad," and who were really ill), in
regard to the way they should watch over them and take care of them,
etc. Hence it has made a beginning of the practical application of a
pedagogic principal that hitherto has only been abstractly visioned, of
coordinating the educative work of the family with that of the school.
A pedagogic institution which practically realizes this conception,
which was hitherto only a utopian dream of pedagogy, is the "Children's
House;" because by having school in the home and by having teachers and
mothers living together, it results in harmonizing the environment of
the family with that of the school, for the furtherance of the great
mission of education.
5. The biographic chart will furnish everyone with a document capable
of guiding him in his own subsequent self-education.
Sergi says further in the work above quoted:
"The biographic chart should become a _precious document to_ _every
man_, if the sort of record of which I speak were continued through
a series of years, from the kindergartens upward through the entire
course of the secondary schools, because it would contain, in compact
and methodical form, the history of his physical and mental life, and
he would find it of inestimable advantage both in practical life and in
his various social relations."
6. "Lastly, the biographic chart with its gathering of positive data,
prepares a great body of scientific material which will be useful, not
alone to pedagogy, but also to sociology, medicine, and jurisprudence."
And in the same aforesaid work, Sergi adds: "If, for example, we should
gather" (under the guidance of his biographic chart) "biographic notes
in the city of Rome alone and in the elementary schools for both
sexes, we should have for a single year, an average of fifty thousand
observations, taken on entering and leaving school; if we could have
them throughout the whole course of elementary instruction, the number
of observations would amount to two hundred and fifty thousand.
"Then we should be able to see _in every social class all the_
_individual variations in physical and physiological condition
which_ _contribute to the development of the intelligence and to the
manifestations_ _of sentiments which play an active part in practical
life._ _And all this would have a value of a sociological character._"
This conception of Sergi's is precisely one of the scientific
aspects of biographic histories that is of the highest importance,
provided that they could be recorded in so simple a manner as to
render the researches practically possible, and provided, also,
that they could be gathered with _a scientific uniformity of_
_method_ designed to render international researches harmonious.
We are certainly still very far removed from the time when
international pedagogical congresses will be held for the purpose
of establishing a single model form of biographic chart for each
of the various grades in school; and also an agreement as to the
technical method of taking the anthropological measurements! Before
arriving at this point it will be necessary to make many tentative
efforts and experiments.
But a truly scientific sociology, as well as pedagogy, ought
to emanate from such a study of _human beings in the course
of formation_, because such an enormously large number of
observations as could be gathered in school, will reveal to us
the biologico-social mechanism through which those activities are
formed that are destined to promote the progress of humanity and
civilisation (the new generations).
Medicine and the biological sciences in general entered upon a
new era of exceedingly rapid progress when the microscope made
possible the study of _histology_ and _bacteriology_; well, the
researches _in regard to the individual_ constitute the histology
and bacteriology of social science! When Le Play, in his great
work, _Les Ouvriers Européens_, instituted the "family monograph,"
i.e., the study of household accounts as a basis for "positive
sociology," he was considered as the founder of a true social
science. Because the true needs of men, the mechanism through which
are determined the various personalities that afterward _react upon
society_ as _creative or destructive_ forces, can be discovered
only through studying minutely such needs and mechanisms,
individual by individual, family by family. If Le Play's method,
and consequently _positive social science_, have not as yet made
much progress, this is because of the _difficulty of_ _penetrating
within the family in order to study it_.
From the bio-psychological point of view, if not from that of
the family account book, the biographic chart of the schools is
nevertheless a practical means of contributing to social histology;
it is a field open to research and one which must be crossed by
_every one_ of the individuals who constitute society. Furthermore,
it constitutes a foundation for social embryogeny; because in the
school we may study the _genesis of separate individuals_; the
causes which molded their congenital personality, and those which
brought about its definitive formation. In the words of Le Play,
indorsed by Bodio, this is the only positive material from which
the _legislator_ may draw his inspiration in order to become a true
dispenser of justice to the people and to conduct the far-sighted
reforms that are really necessary for the welfare of society.
Consequently, the anthropologic movement in pedagogy marks an
aspect of scientific reform which is universal.
A direct contribution to pedagogy and at the same time to
scientific sociology is given by the biographic charts in the
"Children's Houses." Since this is a case of _school within the
home_, where the mistress, being domiciled with her scholars, has
them under her charge from the age of two or three years, and where
there is a permanent resident physician to aid in the compilation
of the biographic charts, it is evident that there is a chance of
practically applying both the pedagogic plans for studying the
pupil, and the social plans of Le Play, who by means of family
monographs based upon the family account book, proposed to obtain
nothing more nor less than an index of morality, culture, and
individual needs! And as a matter of fact, the _manner of spending
the_ _salary_, the savings, the squanderings, the purpose for which
money is spent, whether it is for low vices, or for vanity, or for
æsthetic or intellectual pleasures in general, etc., reveal the
state of _civilisation and morality_ in which people _live_. In the
"Children's Houses" such a study of the family is easy because it
is revealed of its own accord, since the families are in contact
with the school; consequently, these "Children's Houses" may serve
to lay a true and practical foundation for _embryogenesis_ and
social histology. In short, the importance of research regarding
the individual goes far beyond the school; it leads the way to
every kind of social reform.
Even medicine, like every other science, is going to build up
a firmer scientific basis through the help of the biographic
charts of the schools: Professor De Sanctis has drawn up models
for examinations, mainly of a medical nature, to be used in
his asylum-schools for defectives; and by thus following the
development of the pupils, he has succeeded in throwing positive
light upon the biopathological mechanism through which an abnormal
psychopathic or neuropathic personality develops; while psychiatry
or neuropathology formerly recorded nothing more of such an
abnormal personality than the episode of the moment at which the
adult patient presented himself at the clinic. Even the individual
criminal has now come to be studied in relation to his genesis, and
jurists who are seeking a scientific basis for their enactments,
should not neglect the individual studies that are being compiled
in the schools for defectives. The biographic chart introduced into
the government reformatories in Italy will also furnish a direct
contribution to social histology, in regard to the genesis of
criminal personalities.
Consequently, the reform which has begun with the introduction of
an anthropological movement into the school and the establishment
of biographic charts, is nothing less than a reform of science as a
whole. Medicine, jurisprudence, and sociology as well as pedagogy,
are laying new foundations upon it.
CHAPTER X
THE APPLICATION OF BIOMETRY TO ANTHROPOLOGY FOR THE PURPOSE OF
DETERMINING THE MEDIAL MEN
_Theory of the Medial Man._--_Measurements_ are used not only in
anthropology but in zoology and botany as well; that is, they are
applied to all living creatures; therefore anthropometry might to-day
be regarded as a branch of _biometry_. The measurements obtained from
living beings, and the statistical and mathematical studies based upon
them, tend to determine the _normality_ of characteristics; and when
the biometric method is applied to man, it leads to a determination
of the normal dimensions, and hence of the _normal_ forms, and to a
reconstruction of the _medial man_ that must be regarded as the man
of perfect development, from whom all men actually existing must
differ to a greater or less extent, through their infinite normal and
pathological variations.
This sort of touch-stone is of indisputable scientific utility, since
we cannot judge of _deviations_ from the norm, so long as normality is
unknown to us. In fact, when we speak of normality and of anomalies, we
are using language that is far from exact, and to which there are no
clear and positive corresponding ideas.
Whatever has been accomplished in anthropology up to the present
time in the study of the morphology of degenerates and abnormals,
has served only to illustrate this principle very vaguely--that the
_form_ undergoes alteration in the case of pathological individuals.
It is only now that we are beginning to give definite meaning to this
principle, by seeking to determine what the _form_ is, when it has not
undergone any alteration at all. From this fundamental point a new
beginning must be made, on more certain and positive bases, of the
study of _deviations from normality_ and their etiology.
As far back as 1835, Quétélet, in his great philosophical and
statistical work, _Social Physics or the Development of the Faculties_
_of Man_, for the first time expounded the theory of the "medial man,"
founded on statistical studies and on the mathematical laws of errors.
He reached some very exact concepts of the morphology of the medial
man, based upon measurements, and also of the intellectual and moral
qualities of the medial man, expounding an interesting theory regarding
_genius_.
But inasmuch as Quétélet's _homme moyen_ was, so to speak, at once a
mathematical and philosophical reconstruction of the _non-existent
perfect man_, who furthermore could not possibly exist, this classical
and masterly study by the great statistician was strenuously combatted
and then forgotten, so far as its fundamental concepts were concerned,
and remembered only as a scientific absurdity. The thought of that
period was too analytical to linger over the great, the supreme
synthesis expounded by Quétélet.
Mankind must needs grow weary of anatomising bodies and tracing back to
origins, before returning to an observation of the whole rather than
the parts, and to a contemplation of the future. In fact, the thought
of the nineteenth century was so imbued with the evolutionary theories
as set forth by Charles Darwin, that it believed the reconstruction
of the _Pithecanthropus erectus_ from a doubtful bone a more positive
achievement than that of the _medial man_ from the study of millions of
living men.
But to-day the researches that we have accomplished in the biological
field regarding evolution, regarding natural heredity, regarding
individual variability, are leading biology as a whole toward eminently
synthetic conclusions; and studies which remained neglected or which
were combatted in the past, are beginning to be brought into notice and
properly appreciated: such studies, for instance, as Mendel's theory
and that of Quétélet. Galton, Pearson, Davenport, Dunker, Heinke,
Ludwig, and above all others De Vries, are in the advance guard of
modern biological thought. But beyond all these scientists, there is
one who has an interest for us not only because he is an Italian, but
because he has reestablished Quétélet's ancient theory of the _medial
man_, under the present-day guidance of biometry: I mean Prof. Giacinto
Viola.
_The Importance of Seriation._--Under the statistical method, the basis
of biometry is furnished by a regrouping of measurements in the form
of series. We have seen that Quétélet's binomial curve represents the
symmetrical distribution of subjects in relation to some one central
anthropometric measurement.
Let us suppose, for instance, that the curve here described represents
the distribution of the stature. If we mark upon the abscissæ the
progressive measurements, 1.55; 1.56; 1.57; 1.58; 1.59; 1.60, etc....
1.75; 1.76; 1.77; 1.78; 1.79; 1.80, and on the axis of the ordinates
the number of individuals having a determined stature, the path of the
curve will show that there is a majority of individuals possessing a
mean central measurement; and that the number of individuals diminishes
gradually and symmetrically above and below, becoming extremely few
at the extremes (exceptionally tall and low statures). When the total
number of individuals is sufficiently large, the curve is perfect
(curve of errors): Fig. 156.
[Illustration: FIG. 156.--The highest part of this curve corresponds to
the medial centre of density.]
In such a case, the _general mean_ coincides with the _median_, that
is, with the number situated at the centre of the basal line, because,
since all the other measurements, above and below, are perfectly
symmetrical, in calculating the mean average they cancel out. There
is still another centre corresponding to the mean: the _centre of
density_ of the individuals grouped there, because the maximum number
corresponds to that measurement. Accordingly, if, for example, in place
of half a million men whose measurements of stature, when placed in
seriation, produced a perfect binomial curve, we had selected only ten
men or even fewer from those corresponding to the median line; the
general mean stature obtained from those half million men and that
obtained from the ten individuals would be identical. For we would have
selected _ten individuals_ possessing that mean average stature which
seems to represent a _biological_ _tendency_, from which many persons
deviate to a greater or less extent, as though they were erroneous,
aberrant, for a great variety of causes; but these aberrant statures
are still such that by their excess and their deficiency they perfectly
compensate for each other; so that the mean average stature precisely
reproduces this _tendency_, this centre actually attained by the
maximum number of individuals. Supposing that we could see together all
these individuals: those who belong at the centre being numerically
most _prevalent_, will give a definite _intonation_ to the whole
mass. Anyone having an eye well trained to distinguish differences
of stature could mentally separate those prevalent individuals and
estimate them, saying that they are of _mean_ _average stature_. This
curve is the mathematical curve of errors; and it corresponds to that
constructed upon the exponents of Newton's binomial theorem and to the
calculation of _probability_. It corresponds to the curve of errors in
mathematics: for example, to the errors committed in measuring a line;
or in measuring the distance of a star, etc. Whoever takes measurements
(we have already seen this in anthropometrical technique and in the
calculation of personal error) commits errors, notwithstanding that
the _object to be measured_ and the individual making the measurements
remain the same. But the most diverse causes; nerves, the weather,
weariness, etc., causes not always determinable and perhaps actually
more numerous than could be discovered or imagined, all have their
share in producing errors of too much and too little, which are
distributed in gradations around the real _measurement_ of the object.
But since among all these measurements taken in the same identical way
we do not know which is the true one; the seriation of errors will
reveal it to us, for it causes a maximum number of some one definite
measurement (the true one) to fall in the centre of the aberrations
that symmetrically grade off from the centre itself.
Viola gives some very enlightening examples in regard to errors.
Suppose, for instance, that an artist skilled in modeling wished to
reproduce in plaster a number of copies of a leaf, which he has before
his eyes as a model.
The well-trained eye and hand will at one time cause him to take
exactly the right quantity of plaster needed to reproduce the actual
dimensions of the leaf; at another, on the contrary, he will take more
and at another less than required.
By measuring or superimposing the real leaf upon the plaster copies,
the sculptor will be able to satisfy himself at once which of his
copies have proved successful.
But supposing, on the contrary, that the real leaf has disappeared and
that a stranger wishes to discover from the plaster copies which ones
faithfully reproduce the dimensions of the leaf? They will be those
that are numerically most prevalent.
The same thing holds true for any attempt whatever to attain a
_predetermined object_. For example, shooting at a mark. A skilful
marksman will place the maximum number of shots in the centre, or at
points quite near to the centre; he will often go astray, but the
number of errors will steadily decrease in proportion as the shots are
more aberrant, _i.e._, further from the centre. If a marksman wished
to practise in like manner against some wall, for example, on which he
has chosen a point that is not marked, and hence not recognisable by
others, this point _thought_ of by the marksman, may be determined by
studying the cluster of shots left upon the wall.
In the same way an observer could determine the hour fixed for a
collective appointment, such as a walking trip, by the manner in which
the various individuals arrive in groups; some one will come much ahead
of time because he has finished some task which he had expected would
keep him busy up to the hour of appointment; then in increasing numbers
the persons who come a few minutes ahead of time because they are
provident and prompt; then a great number of people who have calculated
their affairs so well as to arrive precisely on time; a few minutes
later come those who are naturally improvident and a little lazy;
and lastly come the exceptional procrastinators who at the moment of
setting forth were delayed by some unexpected occurrence.
Causes of error in the individual and in the environment interfere in
like manner with the astronomer who wishes to estimate the distance of
the stars and it is necessary for him to repeat his measurements and
calculations on the basis of those which show the greatest probability
of being exact.
Accordingly, such _distribution_ of errors is _independent_ of the
causes which produce them and which, whatever they are, remain
practically the same at any given time, and consequently produce
constant effects and symmetrical errors; but it is dependent upon the
fact of the existence of some pre-established thing (a measurement, the
dimensions of an object to be copied, an appointed hour, the centre of
a target, etc.). In short, whenever a _tendency_ is established the
_errors_ group themselves around the objective point of this tendency.
In the case of anthropometry, as for instance, in the curve of
stature given above, we find that the resulting medial stature was
_predetermined_, _e.g._, _for a given race_; but many individuals,
for various causes, either failed to attain it or surpassed it to
a greater or less extent; and therefore in the course of their
development they have acquired an erroneous stature.
Consequently, this medial stature which still corresponds to the mean
average of a very large number of persons, is the stature that is
biographically pre-established, the normal stature of the race.
If we select individuals presumably of the same race and in sound
health, the serial curve of their statures ought to be very high and
with a narrow base, because these individuals are _uniform_. When a
binomial curve has a _very wide_ basis of oscillations in measurements,
it evidently contains elements that are not uniform; thus, for example,
if we should measure the statures of men and women together, we should
of course obtain a curve, but it would be very broad at the base
and quite low at the centre of density; and a similar result would
follow if we measured the statures of the rich and the poor without
distinguishing between them. Since normal stature, including individual
variations, has an exceedingly wide limit of oscillation (from 1.25
m. to 1.99 m.), if we should measure all the men on earth, we should
obtain a very wide base for our binomial curve, which nevertheless
would have a centre of density corresponding to the median line and to
the general mean average.
Now this mean stature, according to Quétélet, is the mean stature of
the European; and it is that of the _medial man_. But if we should take
the races separately, each one of them would have its own binomial
curve, which would reveal the respective mean stature for each race. In
the same way, if we took the complex curve of all the individuals of a
single race, and separated the men from the women, the two resulting
groups would reveal the _mean average male stature_ and the _mean
average female stature_ of the race in question. An analogous result
would follow if we separated the poor from the rich, etc.
Every time that we draw new distinctions, the base of the curves,
or in other words the limits of oscillation of measurements, will
contract, and the _centre of density_ will rise; while the intermediate
gradations (due, for example, to the intermixture of tall women and
short men; or to the overlapping standards of stature of various
kindred races, etc.), will diminish. In short, if we construct the
binomial curve from individuals who are uniform in sex, race, age,
health, etc., it not only remains symmetrical around a centre but the
eccentric progression of its groups is steadily determined in closer
accordance with the order and progression of the exponents Of Newton's
binomial.
However, a _symmetrical grading off_ from the centre is not the same
thing as a symmetrical grading off from the centre _in a predetermined_
_mode_, _i.e._, that of the binomial exponents. The binomial symmetry
is obtained through calculations of mathematical combinations. Now,
if the _fact_ of the centrality of a prevailing measurement is to be
proved in relation to the predetermination of the measurement itself:
for example, in regard to _racial heredity_, and hence is a fact that
reveals _normality_, the manner of distribution of errors--namely,
in accordance with calculations of _probability_--might very well be
explained by Mendel's laws of heredity, which serve precisely to show
how the prevailing characteristics are distributed according to the
mathematical calculation of probabilities.
Accordingly, the _normal characteristic of race_ would coincide
with the dominant characteristic of Mendel's hereditary powers. The
characteristic which has been shown as the stronger and more potent is
victorious over the recessive characteristics that are latent in the
germ. Meanwhile, however, there are various errors which, artificially
or pathologically, cause a characteristic, which would naturally have
been recessive, to become dominant, or, in other words, most prevalent.
[Illustration: FIG. 157.--The shaded portion represents the
eccentricity of the curve, due to the presence of cretins.]
Whenever a binomial curve constructed from a large number of
individuals is found to be eccentric; and shows, _e.g._, in the case
of stature, a deviation toward the low statures, it reveals (see
De Helguero's curves) the presence of a heterogeneous intermixture
of subjects, for example, of children among adults, or, as in the
case demonstrated by De Helguero, an intermixture of _pathological
individuals_ with normal persons (Fig. 157).
The binomial curve obtained by De Helguero from the inhabitants of
Piedmont included, as a matter of fact, a great number of _cretins_;
they formed within the great normal mass of men, a little mass of
individuals having a stature notably inferior to the normal.
By correcting the eccentric curve on the left of the accompanying
figure, and by tracing a dotted line equal and symmetrical to the right
side, we obtain a normal binomial curve; well, this curve will actually
be reproduced if we subtract all the cretins from the whole mass of
individuals.
The section distinguished by parallel lines represents that portion
of the curve which departs from the normal toward the low statures,
and is due to the cretins; it may be transformed into a small dotted
binomial curve at the base, which is constructed from the statures of
the cretins alone.
Accordingly, the symmetrical binomial curve gives us a _mean_ _average
value_ in relation to a specified measurement.
What has been said regarding stature serves as an example; but it may
be repeated for _all the anthropometric measurements_, as Viola has
proved by actual experiment.
The sitting stature, the thoracic perimeter, the dimensions of an
entire limb or of each and every segment of it; every particular which
it has seemed worth while to take into consideration, comports itself
in the same manner; and this is also true of all the measurements of
the head and face.
That is to say, if we make a seriation of measurements relating to the
sitting stature of an indeterminate number of individuals, we find a
numerical prevalence of those corresponding to the medial measurement
marked upon the axis of the abscissæ; and the number of individuals
will continue to decrease with perceptible symmetry on each side of the
centre, _i.e._, toward the higher and lower statures. If we take into
consideration the significance of the sitting stature, this binomial
curve relates to individuals who possess a normal physiological mass
(the bust; centre of density) and to individuals who fall below or
exceed that mass. We have already, in speaking of the types of stature,
taken the bust under consideration in relation to the limbs, in order
to judge the more or less favourable reciprocal development; but here
we obtain an _absolute datum of normality_, independent of proportional
relations to the body as a whole; _in other words, there_ _exists a
physiological mass_ for the human body which is _normal_ in itself. The
individuals whose sitting stature corresponds to the medial measure of
the binomial curve, are precisely those who have the normal development
of bust.
The same thing repeats itself in the case of the thoracic perimeter, or
the weight, or the length of the leg, or the cranial circumference, etc.
Hence we have a means of obtaining the _normal medial measurements_ by
the seriation of a number of measurements actually obtained from living
individuals the number of whom should be sufficiently large to enable
us to construct a perceptibly symmetrical and regular binomial curve.
Such medial measurements, although they correspond to the true mean
average (as we have already seen), are not for this reason _unreal_,
like arithmetical means which represent a synthetic entirety that does
not correspond to the single individuals actually existing; the medial
measurements obtained by seriation are, on the contrary, measurements
that really belong to living individuals; namely, to that group of
individuals that possess this particular measurement. Therefore, it is
not a combination, or fusion, or abstraction.
* * * * *
But individuals who have one medial measurement, do not necessarily
have all the other medial measurements; that is to say, the individuals
who find that they belong on the medial abscissæ in relation to
stature, do not find themselves similarly placed in relation to the
sitting stature, or the thoracic perimeter, or the weight, or the
cranial circumference, etc. Indeed, it is _impossible_ that all
the bodily measurements of the same individual should be _medial
measurements_: or, to express it better, there has not been found up to
the present among living individuals, in the whole wide world, a man so
constructed.
Such a man would represent anthropologically the _medial man_.
It is also very rare to find a man quite lacking in medial
measurements: everyone has a few central measurements and certain
others that are eccentric.
At the same time it must be admitted that there are men who have many,
and even a large majority, of the central measurements; while the rest
of their measurements are eccentric or paracentral.
One of the objections which used to be made was that if we should wish
to unite all the medial measurements, they would not fit together,
or rather, that a man could not be constructed from them; but that
the result would be a monstrosity. Nevertheless, this assertion or
objection has proved to be absolutely fantastic and contrary to the
actual fact.
Professor Viola has observed that men who have a very large number of
medial measurements are singularly _handsome_.
More than that: the medial man reconstructed from medial measurements
really gathered from living persons, has the identical proportions of
the famous statues of Greek art.
Here, for example, in Figs. 158 and 159, facing page 464, we have the
medial man and the Apollo; even to the eye of the observer, they show
a marked similarity in proportions. The medial man is very nearly the
portrait of an exceedingly handsome young Roman, studied by Viola; this
person possessed a great majority of the mean average measurements; but
some of his measurements did not correspond to the normal averages, and
accordingly Viola had them corrected by an artist under the guidance of
anthropological biometry; and the figure thus corrected is represented
in the drawing here given. Well, this drawing corresponds perfectly to
the proportions of the Apollo.
Consequently, the mean average measurements do not pass unnoticed;
it is not alone the anthropological instrument or mathematical
reconstruction that reveals them; when presented to the eye of the
intelligent man, they _notify him that_ they exist, they arouse in him
an _æsthetic emotion_, they give him the alluring impression of the
_beautiful_.
When the mean average measurements are found accumulated in large
numbers in the same person, they render that person the centre of a
mysterious fascination, the admiration of all other men.
Now, this coincidence of the _beautiful_ with the average is equivalent
to a coincidence of the beautiful with _normality_. "This unforeseen
demonstration," says Viola, "throws a vivid light upon the hitherto
obscure problem of the æsthetic sense.... If a man evolves according to
normal laws, his proportions arouse an exceptional æsthetic enjoyment."
Anyone having an eye trained to recognise the _beautiful_, is able
through his æsthetic sensations, to pick out _normality_ from the great
crowd of biological errors, which is precisely what the scientist does
with great weariness of measurements and calculations. In fact, the
great artists recognise the _beautiful parts_ of a number of beautiful
individuals, and they unite them all together in a single work of art.
The Greeks did this, they reconstructed the medial man, on a basis of
actual observation, and by extracting all the normalities, all the
measurements most prevalent in individuals, and forming from them a
single ideal man. The Greek artists were observers; we might call them
the positivists in art. Their art is supreme and immortal, because they
simultaneously interpreted what is _beautiful_ and what is _true_ in
life.
In short, medial measurements are true measurements, actually
existing in individuals. No one can acquire a true æsthetic taste
by contemplating works of art. The æsthetic sense is trained and
refined by observing the truth in nature and by learning to separate
instinctively the normal from the erroneous.
No other form of art reproduces the _subject_ so faithfully as the
Greek; medieval and modern artists have incarnated their own personal
inspiration, without training themselves to that accurate observation
which refines the sense of the _beautiful_, when we are in the presence
of the _truth_, represented by normality, which is the triumph of life.
Accordingly, we may reconstruct the _medial man_ from the truth as
found in nature. Within the wide scale of individual variations we
pass from men possessing few medial measurements (ugly men) to men
possessing many of them (handsome men), and even a majority of such
measurements (extremely handsome). Our sensation in the presence of
the ugly man is repulsion, _biological_ _pain_; in the presence of the
handsome man we feel an æsthetic contentment, _biological pleasure_.
In this way we take part in the mysterious failures and triumphs of
nature, as children in the great family of life.
Now, as Viola says, the individual variations that group themselves
symmetrically around the medial measurement may be divided into
_groups_ or _types_, _e.g._, central, paracentral and eccentric, both
above and below the mean.[49] Such types are considered by Viola
chiefly from the _pathological_ point of view, or rather, that of the
_physical constitution_ and relative predisposition to disease. It is
only the central type that has such perfect harmony of parts as to
embody the perfection of strength and physical health; as the type
diverges from the centre, it steadily loses its power of resistance and
becomes less capable of realising a long life.
[Illustration: FIG. 158.--Viola's medial man.]
[Illustration: FIG. 159.--Apollo.]
Since the measurements are extremely numerous, it is necessary,
in order to proceed to a separation of types, to select some one
measurement to be regarded as fundamental, and in respect to which
all others have a secondary importance; and such a measurement is
found in the one which is associated with the development of the
physiological man; namely, the _sitting stature_. In the centre there
is the medial measurement; little by little, as we withdraw from
the centre, we approach on the one side toward macroscelia and on
the other side toward brachyscelia. It is possible to determine to
within a millimetre the _normality_ of any measurement whatever. When
this fundamental datum has once been accepted as a _basis_ for the
construction of _types_, let us assume that we next add another and
secondary measurement; for instance, that of the lower limbs. By the
method of seriation we obtain a measurement that is _absolutely normal
when considered by itself_; it is the central measurement. A perfectly
formed and healthy man ought to possess both the medial sitting stature
and the medial length of lower limbs; in actual cases, however, it
is difficult to find so favourable a union, and the two series of
measurements _combine_ in various ways; showing a tendency, however,
to unite in such a way that a short bust goes with long legs, and
_vice_ _versa_. The degree to which this rule is carried out produces
two types that steadily tend to become more eccentric; they are the
macroscelous and brachyscelous types, or, as De Giovanni calls them,
_morphological combinations_. We have only to calculate the _type
of stature_, and that also groups itself according to the binomial
curve; and thus gives us a gradation of the _combinations of parts_.
Viola notes that the paracentral individuals show characteristics
quite different from those of the eccentrics; their constitution is
more favourable, and they differ in respect to their characteristic
proportions between thorax and abdomen, and in certain other
physiological particulars that are of pathological importance.
In this way a _method_ has been built up for determining mathematically
the one absolute normality; as well as the anomalies in all their
infinite variety, which may, however, be regrouped under _types_, on
the basis of their eccentricities.
Here then we have, thanks to Viola, and under the guidance of the
glorious school of De Giovanni, a pathway indicated, that is
exceedingly rich in its opportunities for research, and that may
advance the importance of anthropometry side by side with that of
biometry, the development of which is to-day so earnestly pursued,
especially in England.
* * * * *
One of the objections which may be raised to the theory of the medial
man is that there cannot be any one perfect, human model because of
the diverse races of mankind, each with its own established biological
characteristics.
For instance, I believe that I have proved that what we consider as
_beautiful_ is distributed among _different races_; in other words,
perfect beauty of all the separate parts of the body is never found
united in any one race, any more than it is in any one person.
The women of Latium who are dark and dolichocephalic have most
beautiful faces, but their hands and feet are imperfect; the
brachycephalic blondes, on the contrary, are coarse-featured, while
their hands and feet are extremely beautiful. The same may be said
regarding their breasts and certain other details. Furthermore, the
stature of the dolichocephalics is too low as compared with what is
shown to be the _average stature_, while the brachycephalics are
similarly too tall. Nevertheless, it is _extremely_ _difficult_ to
discover racial types of such comparative purity as to establish these
differences: it was by a lucky chance that I succeeded in tracing out,
at Castelli Romani and at Orte, certain groups of the races that were
very nearly pure. The rest of the population are, for the most part,
hybrids showing a confused intermingling of characteristics.
In fact, pure _types of race_ no longer exist, least of all where
civilisation is most intense. In order to speak of _types of race_, it
is necessary to go among barbaric tribes; and even this is a relative
matter, because all the races on earth are more or less the result of
intermixture. Yet in civilised countries an occasional group of pure
racial stock may be discovered in isolated localities, as though they
had found refuge, so to speak, from the vortex of civilisation which is
engulfing the races. Throughout the history of humanity we may watch
this absorption of racial and morphological characteristics, and the
formation of more and more intimate intermixtures, leading to the final
disappearance of the original _types of_ _race_.
When a primitive race emigrated, when men crossed over from Africa
to the European coast of the Mediterranean, or Aryans from oriental
Asia traversed the mountains and steppes of Russia and the Balkan
countries, they were on their way to conquer territory and to subjugate
peoples, but they were also on their way to lose their own type, the
characteristics of their race. Yet even this sacrifice of _race_ was
not without compensation: indeed, it seems as though the _race_ loses
through hybridism a large part of its _ugly_ characteristics, but
retains and transmits for the most part the characteristics that are
pleasing. Unquestionably, the more civilised peoples are better looking
than the barbarians, although the history of emigration would seem to
indicate an almost common racial origin.
When we remember that in human hybridism the result is not always a
true and complete _fusion_ of characteristics, but for the most part
an intermixture of them--so that, for example, the hybrid has the type
of cranium belonging to one race, and the stature belonging to another
race--we have the explanation of the fact that throughout thousands of
years certain morphological characteristics have remained fixed, to
such an extent as to permit anthropologists to use them as a basis upon
which to trace out the origins of races. But these characteristics,
while fixed in themselves, are _interchanged_ among individual hybrids,
who form more or less felicitous _combinations_ of characteristics
belonging to several races.
When we recall what was said in this regard concerning heredity
(general biological section) it is necessary to conclude that Mendel's
law must be invoked to explain the phenomenon.
Human hybridism, like all hybridism throughout the whole biological
field, falls under this law.
But there is still another phenomenon that should be noted: civilised
men, who are the most hybrid of all hybrids upon earth, have formed a
_new type_ that is almost unique, the _civilised race_, in which one
and all resemble one another. It is only logical to believe that, in
proportion as facilities of travel become easier and intermarriage
between foreign countries more widespread, it will become less and less
easy to distinguish the Englishman from the Frenchman, or the Russian
or the Italian; provided that the various hybridisms in the respective
countries have developed an almost uniform local type, so that the
general characteristics of French hybridism may be distinguished from
those of English hybridism, etc.
Even these local hybrid types, determining, as it were, the physiognomy
of a people, will disappear when Europe finally becomes a single
country for civilised man.
In short, we are spectators of this tendency: a fusion or intermixture
of characteristics that is tending to establish one single human
type, which is no longer an original racial type, but the _type of
civilisation_. It is the unique race, the _resultant human_ _race_,
the product of the fusion of races and the triumph of all the elements
of beauty over the disappearance of those ugly forms which were
characteristic of primitive races.
Are the dominant forces in the human germinative cells those which
bring a contribution of beauty? One would say "yes," on the strength of
the morphological history of humanity.
There is no intention of implying by this that humanity is tending
toward the incarnation of perfectly beautiful human beings, all
identical in their beauty; but they will be harmonious in those
skeletal proportions that will insure perfect functional action of
their organism. Harmony is fundamental; the soft tissues, the colour of
hair and eyes, may upon this foundation give us an infinite _variety_
of beauty. "Even in music," says Viola, "so long as the laws of harmony
are respected, there are possibilities of melodic thoughts of infinite
beauty in gradation and variety; but the first condition is that the
aforesaid laws shall be respected."
The soft and plastic tissues are like a _garment_ which may be
infinitely varied: because life is richer in normal forms than
in abnormal; richer in triumphs than in failures; and hence more
impressive in the varieties of its beauties than in its monstrosities.
Such philosophic concepts of the _medial man_ are exceedingly
fertile in moral significance. The ugly and imperfect races have
gone on through wars, conquests, intellectual and civil advancement
unconsciously preparing new intermarriages and higher forms of love,
which eliminated all that is harsh and inharmonic, in order to achieve
the triumph of human beauty. In fact, quite aside from the heroic deeds
of man, the constructor of civilisation, we are witnessing the coming
of the unique man, the man of perfect beauty, such as Phidias visioned
in a paroxysm of æsthetic emotion.
A living man who incarnates supreme beauty, supreme health, supreme
strength: almost as though it were Christ himself whom humanity was
striving to emulate, through a most intimate brotherhood of all the
peoples on earth.
* * * * *
On the analogy of the medial morphological man, Quétélet also conceived
of the _medial intellectual man_ and the _medial moral_ _man_.
The medial intellectual man is closely bound to the thoughts of his
century; he incarnates the prevailing ideas of his time; he vibrates
in response to the majority. He is to his nation and century, says
Quétélet, "what the centre of gravity is to the body--namely, the
one thing to be taken into consideration in order to understand the
phenomena of equilibrium and movement." Considered from the ideal side,
the medial man ought to centralise in himself and keep in equilibrium
the movement of thought of his period, giving it harmonic form, in
works of art or of science. And it is the capacity for accomplishing
this work of synthesis that constitutes the _inborn quality_ in the man
of genius.
He does not create; he reassembles in one organism the _scattered_
_members_, the medial vibrations of the crowd; he feels and expresses
all that is new and beautiful and great that is in process of formation
in the men who surround him, who are frequently unconscious of the
beauty which is in them, just as they are unconscious of having those
normal predetermined measurements of their bodies. But whenever they
discover in a creation of thought _something of themselves_, they
are stirred to enthusiasm at recognising this something belonging to
them as forming part of a harmonious whole: and they applaud the work
of art or of science which has stirred their enthusiasm. The medial
intellectual man who has produced it is a beneficent genius to humanity
because he aids its upward progress by appealing to the better part in
each individual.
Now, there has never existed a medial intellectual man who sums up
all the thought of his time: just as there does not exist a living
man so beautiful as to incarnate all the medial measurements. But the
man of genius is he who does embody the greater part of such ideas:
and he produces a masterpiece when he succeeds in shedding his own
individuality in order to assume what is given him from without. Goethe
said that it was not he who composed _Faust_, but a spirit which
invaded him. And the same thought is expressed in the autobiographies
of many men of genius.
A well-known writer told me that it sometimes happened to him, while he
was writing, to forget himself completely; at such times he no longer
wrote the truth as he saw and felt it consciously, but transmitted pure
and unforeseen inspiration.
Such portions, said this author, are judged by the public as containing
the greatest degree of beauty and truth.
When a great orator thrills a crowd, he certainly does nothing
more than repeat what is already in the thoughts of each member
of that crowd; every individual present had, as it were, in his
subconsciousness, the same thought that is expressed by the orator,
which was taking form within him but had not yet _matured_ and which he
would not have had the knowledge or the ability to express. The orator,
as it were, matures and extracts from him that new thought which was
taking shape within him; his better part, which after light is shed
upon it will have the power to elevate him. But no orator could ever
persuade a crowd with ideas that do not already exist in that crowd,
and which consequently, are not part of the truth of their age.
The orator is like the centre of gravity, inasmuch as he gives form and
equilibrium to the scattered and timid thought of the crowd.
Carducci[50] says "the art of the lyric poet consists in this: to
express what is common to all in the form in which he has created it
anew and specially in his mind; or rather to give to the thought which
is peculiar to himself an imprint of universal understanding, so that
each one looking into it may recognise himself."
* * * * *
When we think of the brilliant concept of the medial man, we behold
a fundamental and profound principle: the necessity of hybridism
and consequently of a profound intermixture of races; all of which
goes side by side with the spread of civilisation, and the increased
facilities of traveling and of communication between different
communities. Connected with these material advantages is the moral
progress which leads to a realisation of perfect brotherhood between
men that is rendered steadily more possible by environment, and is
sanctioned little by little by laws and customs; whereas at the start
it was only an ethical or mystical theory.
While the physical formations of the races are becoming merged,
the racial customs are also blending and disappearing in a single
civilisation, in one sole form of thought. If, at one time, the
powerful race was the one united to its territory, faithful to its
customs, adhering to its moral code and its religion, all this melts
away in the presence of universal hybridism which actually means the
birth of a new generation of men and a new outlook upon life.
When we contemplate the morphologically medial man, he seems to stand
as a symbol of unlimited universal progress. His realisation seems to
demand very lofty standards of morality and civilisation.
Whereas, on the contrary, the survival of types and of customs and
sentiments peculiar to separate races, is the expression of local
conditions that are inferior both in morality and in civil progress.
As for the innumerable _paracentral errors_ which form to-day a large
proportion of individual varieties, they are due directly to the
imperfection of the environment, which does not permit of the natural
development of human life, and consequently interferes through a wide
range of methods and degrees with the development of ideal normality.
Hence, the extreme eccentric errors are the consequence of diseases and
far-reaching social imperfections which lead to genuine deviations from
the normal, including _pathological_ and _degenerate malformations_,
and associated with them the lowest forms of individual degradation,
both intellectual and moral.
All the paracentral errors and malformations are a physical burden
which retards the perfectionment of man. Admitting that hybridism will
eventually result in complete beauty, it will be greatly delayed in
its attainment through the accumulation of errors that surround the
characteristics of race. They form a heavy ballast, if the phrase may
be permitted, that impedes the progress of its ascension.
Consequently, the long awaited social progress which is gradually
bringing about the "brotherhood of man" is not in itself sufficient for
the attainment of the ideal mean.
There are certain errors that must more or less necessarily be
encountered along the pathway of humanity; and that act either directly
or indirectly upon posterity, deforming and destroying its resistance
to life; and it is these that must be taken under consideration,
because they delay the normal progress of human society.
They are conscious and well recognised errors; hence up to a certain
point the _active_ agency of man may combat them and succeed little by
little in mitigating them and overcoming their disastrous influence
upon biological humanity.
There are, in general, two influences developing and promoting that
improvement which leads toward the _medial man_: in proportion as the
real and practical intermarriage of races approaches its realisation,
social errors diminish; and as the brotherhood of humanity is promoted,
it leads to social reforms by which the "sins of the world" are little
by little overcome.
But these may also be _actively_ combated; and in this direction
education has a task of inestimable importance to civilisation. We
ought to know not only the thought of our century, which is the
luminous torch in the light of which we advance along the path of
progress; but also the _moral needs_ of our time, and the errors which
may be conquered through our conscious agency.
To know "the faults of our century," which are destined to be conquered
in the coming century, and to make preparation for the victory--such is
our moral mission. The ethical movement of human society has continued
to advance from conquest to conquest, and in looking backward the more
civilised part of mankind have been horrified at the conditions that
have been outgrown and have called them "barbarous."
Thus, for example, slavery was an unsurmountable obstacle to progress,
and had to be crushed out by civilisation; the license to _kill_ is
also a form of barbarism which to-day we are boasting of having just
outgrown--or, at least, of having reached the final limit of its
duration. In early times it was not only permissible to kill, but in
many of its forms murder was considered honourable, as, for instance,
in wars and in duels; it was also one form of justice to kill for
vengeance, either social or individual; the condemnation to death of
a criminal, the murder of an adulterous wife, the murder of anyone
who has attacked the _honour_ of the family, all this seemed just in
the past. Lastly, murder was committed for pure diversion, as in the
auto-da-fè and in the games of the circus.
Our civic morality seems to have attained its extreme altitude in
having sanctioned the inviolability of human life; and the present-day
struggle against the death penalty, against war, against revolutions,
against uxoricide, in the case of adultery, and against duelling, shows
us the triumph of a new and loftier conception of humanity in the
upward progress of man.
The intermixture of races and the intermingling of national interests,
have aroused a sort of collective sentiment actually existing as a
normal form of conscience, namely, "human solidarity."
But we are still in a state of complete _barbarity_, still sunk in the
most profound unconsciousness, all of us partners in the same great sin
that threatens the overthrow of so-called civilised humanity; namely,
_barbarity toward the species_.
We are ignorant, we are almost strangers, in regard to our
_responsibility_ toward those who are destined to issue from us as
the continuation of humanity downward through the centuries; those
who form the ultimate scope of our biological existence, inasmuch as
each one of us is merely a connecting link between certain portions
of past and future life. We are all so engrossed with the progress of
our environment and of the ideas embodied in it, that we have not yet
turned our attention inward toward ourselves: toward _life_.
This solidarity which we recognise as existing among men at the present
moment, ought to be extended to the men of the future. And since the
species is closely bound up in the individual who is destined to
reproduce it, this gives us at once the basis for a code of _individual
moral conduct_, such as would assure to everyone the integrity of the
fruit of his own reproduction. Sexual immorality which is the stigma
of the barbarity of our times, entails the most ignominious form of
slavery; the slavery of women through prostitution. And emanating from
this form of barbarity, the slavery has expanded and spread to all
women, more or less oppressive, more or less conscious. The wife is a
slave, for she has married in ignorance and has neither the knowledge
nor the power to avoid being made the instrument for the birth of
weakly, diseased or degenerate children; and still more deeply enslaved
is the mother who cannot restrain her own son from degradations that
she knows are the probable source of ruin of body and soul. We are all
silently engaged in an enormous crime against the species and against
humanity; and like accomplices we have made a tacit agreement not to
speak of it. Indeed, the mysterious silence regarding sexual life is
absolute; it is as though we feared to compromise ourselves in the
sight of that great and powerful judge, our own posterity; we hide
under an equal silence the good and the bad in relation to sexual life.
This sort of terror goes by the name of shame and modesty. Such an
excuse for silence certainly sounds like pure irony, coming as it does
in the full midst of the orgy, at a time when we all know that every
man is laden with his sins, and that we are all either accomplices or
slaves in the common fault. It would seem that a race so modest as to
blush at the mere mention of sexual life ought to be eminently chaste,
and far removed from the age of foundling asylums and houses of ill
fame; the age in which infanticide exists as proof of absolute impunity
in regard to sexual crimes.
What we call shame and modesty, is in reality not shame or modesty in
regard to sexual acts and phenomena, but only in regard to sins against
them.
These acts and phenomena, being directly related to creation and the
eternity of the species, ought to be regarded by men as in the nature
of a lofty religious culte, equally, for instance, with that which
from the earliest prehistoric times placed the symbol of maternity,
_the mother and the child_, side by side with the _scythe_, symbol of
labour, in places of worship. We cannot admit that _love_, sung by the
poets as a divine sentiment, is the moral exponent of unworthy and
shameful acts. It is the error, the perversion of sexual life, the
source of degeneration, of degradation and of the death of the species,
that makes us keep silent, conceal and blush with shame.
In reality, all this ought to stir us, not to embarrassment and shame,
but to a formidable rebellion, a sharp awakening of conscience, a
redemption from a state of inferior civilisation.
It was a barbarous sovereign who, in the delusive hope that it would
cure him of eczema, caused the throats of little children to be cut, so
that he might immerse himself in the warm bath of their blood.
To-day anyone who would sacrifice the lives of children to allay the
itching of his own skin, would be in our eyes a monster of criminality.
And yet almost equally criminal are the men of our time, lords, in a
barbaric sense, of sexual life; and we silently acquiesce in customs
which in the future centuries will perhaps be remembered as a monstrous
barbarism.
The whole moral revival which awaits us, revolves around the struggle
against the sexual sins. The emancipation of woman, the protection
of maternity and of the child, are its most luminous exponents; but
no less efficacious evidences of such progress are all the efforts
directed against alcoholism and the other vices and diseases which are
reflected in their unhappy consequences to posterity. There is just one
side of the question that has hitherto been scarcely touched at all,
and that is the chastity of man and his responsibility as a father;
but even this has already come to be felt as an imperative necessity
for progress. In place of reducing other human beings to slavery and
prostituting them; instead of betraying them and shattering their lives
by seduction and the desertion of their offspring, the man of the
future will choose to _become chaste_. He will feel that otherwise he
is dishonoured, morally lost. Man will not be willing to be so weak as
to confess himself dragged down to degradation and crime because unable
to conquer his own instincts; man who has nothing but victories on the
credit side of his history, and who even succeeded in overcoming the
greatest of all his irresistible instincts, that of self-preservation,
in showing himself capable of going into combat and dying for the
ideals of his fatherland.
Man is capable of every great heroism; it was man who found a means of
conquering the formidable obstacles of his environment, establishing
himself lord of the earth, and laying the foundations of civilisation.
He will also teach himself to be chaste, within sufficiently narrow
limits to guarantee the dignity of the human race and the health of the
species; and in this way he will prescribe the ethics for the centuries
of the near future: _sexual_ _morality_. There are customs and
virtues, lofty ethical doctrines that stand in direct accord with the
conservation and the progress of life. Bodily cleanliness, temperance
in drink, the conquest of personal instincts, human brotherhood in the
full extent of the thought, the feeling, and the practice, chastity;
all these are just so many forms of the defense of life, both of the
individual and of the species. To-day, in hygiene, in pathology and in
anthropology, science is showing us the truth through positive proofs,
through experiments and statistics. But these virtues which are paths
leading to _life_, are simply being reconfirmed by science; just as
they are being little by little attained by civil progress, which
prepares their practical elements; but they were always intuitively
recognised by the human heart: nothing is older in the ethics of
mankind than the principal of brotherhood, of victory over the
instincts, of chastity. Only, these virtues, _intuitively perceived_,
could not be universally _practised_, because universal practice
demanded time for preparation. But they survived partly as affirmations
of absolute virtue and partly as _prophesies_ of a future age and were
considered as constituting the _highest_ good. Just as the æsthetic
sense led to the recognition of _normality_ at a time when this
scientific concept was very far from being understood as it is to-day;
in the same way the ethical and religious sense was able to feel
intuitively and to separate from customs and from sentiments belonging
to an evanescent form of transitory civilisation or from the temporary
racial needs, those others that relate fundamentally to the biological
preservation of the individual and the species and the practical
attainment of human perfection. And while the medial intellectual man
or the artistic genius combines wholly or in part the thoughts of his
time, the medial moral or religious man sums up the guiding principles
of life which everyone feels profoundly in the depth of his heart; and
when he speaks to other men it seems as though he instilled new vigour
into the very roots of their existence, and he is believed, when he
speaks of a happier future toward which humanity is advancing. If the
intellectual genius is almost a reader of contemporaneous thought as
it vibrates around him, the religious genius interprets more or less
completely and perfectly the universal and eternal spirit of life in
humanity.
Accordingly, the medial men incarnate the _beautiful_, the _true_, and
the _good_: in other words, the theories of positivism arrive at the
selfsame goals as idealism, those of poetry, philosophy and art.
By following the path of observation, we reach a goal analogous to that
sought along the path of intuition.
The theory of the medial man constructed fundamentally upon positive
bases of _measurements_ and _facts_, represents the limit[51] of
perfection of the human individual associated with the limit of
perfection of _human society_, which is formed in a two-fold way: a
close association between all human beings, or the formation of a
true social organism (complete hybridism in body; human brotherhood
in sentiment), and the steadily progressive emancipation, of every
individual member from anxiety concerning the _defense of life_, in
order to enjoy the triumph of the _development of_ _life_. All that
was formerly included under _defense_ will assume collective forms
of a high order (repressive justice replaced by more varied forms of
prevention: which have for their final goal a widespread education and
a gradual amelioration of labour and social conditions); and in this
_reign of peace_ there will arise the possibility _of developing all_
the forces of life (biological liberty).
In such a conception, the individual organism depends more and
more upon the social organism: just as the cells depend upon the
multicellular organism; and we may almost conceive of a new living
entity, a _super-organism_ made up of humanity, but in which every
component part is allowed the maximum expansion of its personal
activity emancipated from all the obstacles that have been successively
overcome. This conception of _biological_ _liberty_, in other words,
the triumph of the free and peaceful development of life, through the
long series of more or less bitter _struggles and defenses of life_,
constitutes, in my opinion, the very essence of the new pedagogy. And
the evolution of modern thought and of the social environment can alone
prepare for its advent, perhaps at no distant day.
FOOTNOTES:
[49] Viola, _The Laws of Morphological Correlation of the Individual
Types_.
[50] Cited by Viola.
[51] Limit, in the mathematical sense.
TABLES SUMMARIZING
THE MEAN PROPORTIONS OF THE BODY ACCORDING TO AGE
_Useful for judging of normal development and incidentally for_
_diagnosing forms of infantilism:_
_Preceded by_ figures (from QUÉTÉLET) giving the _growth of
stature_ _in man and in woman (it being well known that the
stature_ _is the fundamental measurement for forming the
aforesaid_ _judgments)_.
-------------------------
Age | Males | Females
------+---------+--------
0 | 0.496 | 0.483
1 | 0.696 | 0.690
2 | 0.707 | 0.780
3 | 0.860 | 0.850
4 | 0.932 | 0.910
5 | 0.990 | 0.974
6 | 1.046 | 1.032
7 | 1.112 | 1.096
8 | 1.170 | 1.139
9 | 1.227 | 1.200
10 | 1.282 | 1.248
11 | 1.327 | 1.275
12 | 1.359 | 1.327
13 | 1.403 | 1.386
14 | 1.487 | 1.447
15 | 1.559 | 1.475
16 | 1.610 | 1.500
17 | 1.670 | 1.544
18 | 1.700 | 1.562
19 | 1.706 | 1.566
20 | 1.711 | 1.570
| |
25 | 1.722 | 1.577
30 | 1.722 | 1.579
40 | 1.713 | 1.555
50 | 1.674 | 1.536
60 | 1.639 | 1.516
70 | 1.628 | 1.514
-------------------------
{ Length of body 0.50 m.
{ Weight 3 kg.
New-born child { Maximum cranial circumference 335 mm.
{ Circumference of thorax 350 mm.
{ Index of stature 68
{ Ponderal index 28.8--
---------------------------------------------------------
Age in years | 1 | 2 | 3
---------------------------------+-------+-------+-------
Stature in metres | 0.696 | 0.797 | 0.860
Index of stature | 65 | 63 | 62
Weight in kilograms | 10 | 12 | 13.21
Ponderal index | 30.9 | 28.7 | 27.5
Maximum circumference of head in | | |
millimetres. | 440 | 471 | 486
---------------------------------------------------------
Age in years | 4 | 5 | 6
---------------------------------+-------+-------+-------
Stature in metres | 0.932 | 0.990 | 1.046
Index of stature | 60 | 59 | 57
Weight in kilograms | 15 | 16.70 | 18.04
Ponderal index | 26.5 | 25.8 | 25.1
Maximum circumference of head in | | |
millimetres. | 496 | 503 | 508
---------------------------------+-------+-------+-------
Age in years | 7 | 8 | 9
---------------------------------+-------+-------+-------
Stature in metres | 1.112 | 1.170 | 1.227
Index of stature | 56 | 55 | 55
Weight in kilograms | 20.16 | 22.26 | 24.09
Ponderal index | 24.4 | 24 | 23.5
Maximum circumference of head in | | |
millimetres. | 513 | 519 | 523
---------------------------------+-------+-------+--------
Age in years | 10 | 11 | 12
---------------------------------+-------+-------+--------
Stature in metres | 1.282 | 1.327 | 1.359
Index of stature | 54 | 53 | 53
Weight in kilograms | 26.12 | 27.85 | 31
Ponderal index | 23.1 | 22.8 | 23.1
Maximum circumference of head in | | |
millimetres. | 527 | 531 | 535
---------------------------------+-------+-------+------
Ages in years | 13 | 14 | 15
---------------------------------+-------+-------+------
Stature in metres | 1.403 | 1.487 | 1.559
Index of stature | 52 | 52 | 51
Weight in kilograms | 35.32 | 40.50 | 46.41
Ponderal index | 23.4 | 23.1 | 23.1
Maximum circumference of head in | | |
millimetres. | 539 | 543 | 547
---------------------------------+-------+-------+-------
Age in years | 16 | 17 | 18
---------------------------------+-------+-------+-------
Stature in metres | 1.610 | 1.670 | 1.700
Index of stature | 51 | 52 | 52
Weight in kilograms | 53.39 | 57.40 | 61.26
Ponderal index | 23.4 | 23.1 | 23.2
Maximum circumference of head in | | |
millimetres. | 551 | 555 | 561
---------------------------------------------------------
TABLES OF CALCULATIONS
I
TABLES FOR CALCULATING THE CEPHALIC INDEX
CALCULATIONS OF THE CEPHALIC INDEX
Antero-posterior diameters from 160 to 174 mm.; bilateral diameters
from 120 to 159 mm.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bilateral |
diameters | Antero-posterior diameters, in millimetres
in milli- |-----------------------------------------------------------
metres |160|161|162|163|164|165|166|167|168|169|170|171|172|173|174
----------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---
120 | 75| 75| 74| 74| 73| 73| 72| 72| 71| 71| 71| 70| 70| 69| 69
121 | 76| 75| 75| 74| 74| 73| 73| 72| 72| 72| 71| 71| 70| 70| 70
122 | 76| 76| 75| 75| 74| 74| 73| 73| 73| 72| 72| 71| 71| 71| 70
123 | 77| 76| 76| 75| 75| 75| 74| 74| 73| 73| 72| 72| 72| 71| 71
124 | 77| 77| 77| 76| 76| 75| 75| 74| 74| 73| 73| 73| 72| 72| 71
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
125 | 78| 78| 77| 77| 76| 76| 75| 75| 74| 74| 74| 73| 73| 72| 72
126 | 79| 78| 78| 77| 77| 76| 76| 75| 75| 75| 74| 74| 73| 73| 72
127 | 79| 79| 78| 78| 77| 77| 77| 76| 76| 75| 75| 74| 74| 73| 73
128 | 80| 80| 79| 79| 78| 78| 77| 77| 76| 76| 75| 75| 74| 74| 74
129 | 81| 80| 80| 79| 79| 78| 78| 77| 77| 76| 76| 75| 75| 75| 74
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
130 | 81| 81| 80| 80| 79| 79| 78| 78| 77| 77| 76| 76| 76| 75| 75
131 | 82| 81| 81| 80| 80| 79| 79| 78| 78| 78| 77| 77| 76| 76| 75
132 | 82| 82| 81| 81| 80| 80| 80| 79| 79| 78| 78| 77| 77| 76| 76
133 | 83| 83| 82| 82| 81| 81| 80| 80| 79| 79| 78| 78| 77| 77| 76
134 | 84| 83| 83| 82| 82| 81| 81| 80| 80| 79| 79| 78| 78| 77| 77
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
135 | 84| 84| 83| 83| 82| 82| 81| 81| 80| 80| 79| 79| 78| 78| 78
136 | 85| 84| 84| 83| 83| 82| 82| 81| 81| 80| 80| 80| 79| 79| 78
137 | 86| 85| 85| 84| 84| 83| 83| 82| 82| 81| 81| 80| 80| 79| 79
138 | 86| 86| 85| 85| 84| 84| 83| 83| 82| 82| 81| 81| 80| 80| 79
139 | 87| 86| 86| 85| 85| 84| 84| 83| 83| 82| 82| 81| 81| 80| 80
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
140 | 87| 87| 86| 86| 85| 85| 84| 84| 83| 83| 82| 82| 81| 81| 80
141 | 89| 88| 87| 87| 86| 85| 85| 84| 84| 83| 83| 82| 82| 82| 81
142 | 89| 88| 88| 87| 87| 86| 86| 85| 85| 84| 84| 83| 83| 82| 82
143 | 89| 89| 88| 88| 87| 87| 86| 86| 85| 85| 84| 84| 83| 83| 82
144 | 90| 89| 89| 88| 88| 87| 87| 86| 86| 85| 85| 84| 84| 83| 83
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
145 | 91| 90| 90| 89| 88| 88| 87| 87| 86| 86| 85| 85| 84| 84| 83
146 | 91| 91| 90| 90| 89| 88| 88| 87| 87| 86| 86| 85| 85| 84| 84
147 | 92| 91| 91| 90| 90| 89| 89| 88| 87| 87| 86| 86| 85| 85| 84
148 | 92| 92| 91| 91| 90| 90| 89| 89| 88| 88| 87| 87| 86| 86| 85
149 | 93| 93| 92| 91| 91| 90| 90| 89| 89| 88| 88| 87| 87| 86| 86
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
150 | 94| 93| 93| 92| 91| 91| 90| 90| 89| 89| 88| 88| 87| 87| 86
151 | 94| 94| 93| 93| 92| 92| 91| 90| 90| 89| 89| 88| 88| 87| 87
152 | 95| 94| 94| 93| 93| 92| 92| 91| 90| 90| 89| 89| 88| 88| 87
153 | 96| 95| 94| 94| 93| 93| 92| 92| 91| 91| 90| 89| 89| 88| 88
154 | 96| 96| 95| 94| 94| 93| 93| 92| 92| 91| 91| 90| 90| 89| 89
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
155 | 97| 96| 96| 95| 95| 94| 93| 93| 92| 92| 91| 91| 90| 90| 89
156 | 97| 97| 96| 96| 95| 95| 94| 93| 93| 92| 92| 91| 91| 90| 90
157 | 98| 98| 97| 96| 96| 95| 95| 94| 93| 93| 92| 92| 91| 91| 90
158 | 99| 98| 98| 97| 96| 96| 95| 95| 94| 93| 93| 92| 92| 91| 91
159 | 99| 99| 98| 98| 97| 96| 96| 95| 95| 94| 94| 93| 92| 92| 91
----------------------------------------------------------------------
CALCULATIONS OF THE CEPHALIC INDEX
Antero-posterior diameters from 175 to 189 mm.; bilateral diameters
from 126 to 164 mm.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bilateral |
diameters | Antero-posterior diameters, in millimetres
in milli- |-----------------------------------------------------------
metres |175|176|177|178|179|180|181|182|183|184|185|186|187|188|189
----------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---
125 | 71| 71| 71| 70| 70| 69| 69| 69| 68| 68| 68| 67| 67| 66| 66
126 | 72| 72| 71| 71| 70| 70| 70| 69| 69| 68| 68| 68| 67| 67| 67
127 | 73| 72| 72| 71| 71| 71| 70| 70| 69| 69| 69| 68| 68| 68| 67
128 | 73| 73| 72| 72| 72| 71| 71| 70| 70| 70| 69| 69| 68| 68| 68
129 | 74| 73| 73| 72| 72| 72| 71| 71| 70| 70| 70| 69| 69| 69| 68
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
130 | 74| 74| 73| 73| 73| 72| 72| 71| 71| 71| 70| 70| 70| 69| 69
131 | 75| 74| 74| 74| 73| 73| 72| 72| 72| 71| 71| 70| 70| 70| 69
132 | 75| 75| 75| 74| 74| 73| 73| 73| 72| 72| 71| 71| 71| 70| 70
133 | 76| 76| 75| 75| 74| 74| 73| 73| 73| 72| 72| 72| 71| 71| 70
134 | 77| 76| 76| 75| 75| 74| 74| 74| 73| 73| 72| 72| 72| 71| 71
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
135 | 77| 77| 76| 76| 75| 75| 75| 74| 74| 73| 73| 73| 72| 72| 71
136 | 78| 77| 77| 76| 76| 76| 75| 75| 74| 74| 74| 73| 73| 72| 72
137 | 78| 78| 77| 77| 77| 76| 76| 75| 75| 74| 74| 74| 73| 73| 72
138 | 79| 78| 78| 78| 77| 77| 76| 76| 75| 75| 75| 74| 74| 73| 73
139 | 79| 79| 79| 78| 78| 77| 77| 76| 76| 76| 75| 75| 74| 74| 74
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
140 | 80| 80| 79| 79| 78| 78| 77| 77| 77| 76| 76| 75| 75| 74| 74
141 | 81| 80| 80| 79| 79| 78| 78| 77| 77| 77| 76| 76| 75| 75| 75
142 | 81| 81| 80| 80| 79| 79| 78| 78| 78| 77| 77| 76| 76| 76| 75
143 | 82| 81| 81| 80| 80| 79| 79| 79| 78| 78| 77| 77| 76| 76| 76
144 | 82| 82| 81| 81| 80| 80| 80| 79| 79| 78| 78| 77| 77| 77| 76
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
145 | 83| 82| 82| 81| 81| 81| 80| 80| 79| 79| 78| 78| 78| 77| 77
146 | 83| 83| 82| 82| 82| 81| 81| 80| 80| 79| 79| 78| 78| 78| 77
147 | 84| 84| 83| 83| 82| 82| 81| 81| 80| 80| 79| 79| 79| 78| 78
148 | 85| 84| 84| 83| 83| 82| 82| 81| 81| 80| 80| 80| 79| 79| 78
149 | 85| 85| 84| 84| 83| 83| 82| 82| 81| 81| 81| 80| 80| 79| 79
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
150 | 86| 85| 85| 84| 84| 83| 83| 82| 82| 82| 81| 81| 80| 80| 79
151 | 86| 86| 85| 85| 84| 84| 83| 83| 83| 82| 82| 81| 81| 80| 80
152 | 87| 86| 86| 85| 85| 84| 84| 84| 83| 83| 82| 82| 81| 81| 80
153 | 87| 87| 86| 86| 85| 85| 85| 84| 84| 83| 83| 82| 82| 81| 81
154 | 88| 87| 87| 87| 86| 86| 85| 85| 84| 84| 83| 83| 82| 82| 81
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
155 | 89| 88| 88| 87| 87| 86| 86| 85| 85| 84| 84| 83| 83| 82| 82
156 | 89| 89| 88| 88| 87| 87| 86| 86| 85| 85| 84| 84| 83| 83| 83
157 | 90| 89| 89| 88| 88| 87| 87| 86| 86| 85| 85| 84| 84| 84| 83
158 | 90| 90| 89| 89| 88| 88| 87| 87| 86| 86| 85| 85| 84| 84| 84
159 | 91| 90| 90| 89| 89| 88| 88| 87| 87| 86| 86| 85| 85| 85| 84
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
160 | 91| 91| 90| 90| 89| 89| 88| 88| 87| 87| 86| 86| 86| 85| 85
161 | 92| 91| 91| 90| 90| 89| 89| 88| 88| 87| 87| 87| 86| 86| 85
162 | 93| 92| 92| 91| 91| 90| 90| 89| 89| 88| 88| 87| 87| 86| 86
163 | 93| 93| 92| 92| 91| 91| 90| 90| 89| 89| 88| 88| 87| 87| 86
164 | 94| 93| 93| 92| 92| 91| 91| 90| 90| 89| 89| 88| 88| 87| 87
----------------------------------------------------------------------
CALCULATIONS OF THE CEPHALIC INDEX
Antero-posterior diameters from 190 to 204 mm.; bilateral diameters
from 130 to 169 mm.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bilateral |
diameters | Antero-posterior diameters, in millimetres
in milli- |-----------------------------------------------------------
metres |190|191|192|193|194|195|196|197|198|199|200|201|202|203|204
----------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---
130 | 68| 68| 68| 67| 67| 67| 66| 66| 66| 65| 65| 65| 64| 64| 64
131 | 69| 69| 68| 68| 68| 67| 67| 66| 66| 66| 65| 65| 65| 65| 64
132 | 69| 69| 69| 68| 68| 68| 67| 67| 67| 66| 66| 66| 65| 65| 65
133 | 70| 70| 69| 69| 69| 68| 68| 68| 67| 67| 66| 66| 66| 66| 65
134 | 71| 70| 70| 69| 69| 69| 68| 68| 68| 67| 67| 67| 66| 66| 66
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
135 | 71| 71| 70| 70| 70| 69| 69| 69| 68| 68| 67| 67| 67| 67| 66
136 | 72| 71| 71| 70| 70| 70| 69| 69| 69| 68| 68| 68| 67| 67| 67
137 | 72| 72| 71| 71| 71| 70| 70| 70| 69| 69| 68| 68| 68| 67| 67
138 | 73| 72| 72| 72| 71| 71| 70| 70| 70| 69| 69| 69| 68| 68| 68
139 | 73| 73| 72| 72| 72| 71| 71| 71| 70| 70| 69| 69| 69| 68| 68
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
140 | 74| 73| 73| 73| 72| 72| 71| 71| 71| 70| 70| 70| 69| 69| 69
141 | 74| 74| 73| 73| 73| 72| 72| 72| 71| 71| 70| 70| 70| 69| 69
142 | 75| 74| 74| 74| 73| 73| 72| 72| 72| 71| 71| 71| 70| 70| 70
143 | 75| 75| 74| 74| 74| 73| 73| 73| 72| 72| 71| 71| 71| 70| 70
144 | 76| 75| 75| 75| 74| 74| 73| 73| 73| 72| 72| 72| 71| 71| 71
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
145 | 76| 76| 76| 75| 75| 74| 74| 74| 73| 73| 72| 72| 72| 71| 71
146 | 77| 76| 76| 76| 75| 75| 74| 74| 74| 73| 73| 73| 72| 72| 72
147 | 77| 77| 77| 76| 76| 75| 75| 75| 74| 74| 73| 73| 73| 72| 72
148 | 78| 77| 77| 77| 76| 76| 76| 75| 75| 74| 74| 74| 73| 73| 73
149 | 78| 78| 78| 77| 77| 76| 76| 76| 75| 75| 74| 74| 74| 73| 73
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
150 | 79| 79| 78| 78| 77| 77| 77| 76| 76| 75| 75| 75| 74| 74| 74
151 | 79| 79| 79| 78| 78| 77| 77| 77| 76| 76| 75| 75| 75| 74| 74
152 | 80| 80| 79| 79| 78| 78| 78| 77| 77| 76| 76| 76| 75| 75| 75
153 | 80| 80| 80| 79| 79| 78| 78| 78| 77| 77| 76| 76| 76| 75| 75
154 | 81| 81| 80| 80| 79| 79| 79| 78| 78| 77| 77| 77| 76| 76| 75
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
155 | 82| 81| 81| 80| 80| 79| 79| 79| 78| 78| 77| 77| 77| 76| 76
156 | 82| 82| 81| 81| 80| 80| 80| 79| 79| 78| 78| 78| 77| 77| 76
157 | 83| 82| 82| 81| 81| 81| 80| 80| 79| 79| 78| 78| 78| 77| 77
158 | 83| 83| 82| 82| 81| 81| 81| 80| 80| 79| 79| 79| 78| 78| 77
159 | 84| 83| 83| 82| 82| 82| 81| 81| 80| 80| 79| 79| 79| 78| 78
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
160 | 84| 84| 83| 83| 82| 82| 82| 81| 81| 80| 80| 80| 79| 79| 78
161 | 85| 84| 84| 83| 83| 83| 82| 82| 81| 81| 80| 80| 80| 79| 79
162 | 85| 85| 84| 84| 84| 83| 83| 82| 82| 81| 81| 81| 80| 80| 79
163 | 86| 85| 85| 84| 84| 84| 83| 83| 82| 82| 81| 81| 81| 80| 80
164 | 86| 86| 85| 85| 85| 84| 84| 83| 83| 82| 82| 82| 81| 81| 80
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
165 | 87| 86| 86| 85| 85| 85| 84| 84| 83| 83| 82| 82| 82| 81| 81
166 | 87| 87| 86| 86| 86| 85| 85| 84| 84| 83| 83| 83| 82| 82| 81
167 | 88| 87| 87| 87| 86| 86| 85| 85| 84| 84| 83| 83| 83| 82| 82
168 | 88| 88| 87| 87| 87| 86| 86| 85| 85| 84| 84| 84| 83| 83| 82
169 | 89| 88| 88| 88| 87| 87| 86| 86| 85| 85| 84| 84| 84| 83| 83
II
TABLES FOR CALCULATING THE PONDERAL INDEX
CALCULATIONS OF THE PONDERAL INDEX
Statures from 46 to 60 centimetres; weights from 2 to 16 kilograms
W k|
e i|
i l|
g i o|
h n g|
t r|
s a| Statures in centimetres
m|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
s| 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60
-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
2 --|27 4|26 8|26 2|25 7|25 2|24 7|24 2|23 8|23 3|22 9|22 5|22 1|21 7|21 4|21 0
2 10|27 8|27 3|26 7|26 1|25 6|25 1|24 6|24 2|23 7|23 3|22 9|22 5|22 1|21 7|21 3
2 20|28 3|27 7|27 1|26 6|26 0|25 5|25 0|24 5|24 1|23 7|23 2|22 8|22 4|22 1|21 7
2 30|28 7|28 1|27 5|26 9|26 4|25 9|25 4|24 9|24 4|24 0|23 6|23 2|22 8|22 4|22 0
2 40|29 1|28 5|27 9|27 3|26 8|26 2|25 7|25 3|24 8|24 3|23 9|23 5|23 1|22 7|22 3
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
2 50|29 5|28 9|28 3|27 7|27 1|26 6|26 1|25 6|25 1|24 7|24 2|23 8|23 4|23 0|22 6
2 60|29 9|29 3|28 6|28 1|27 5|27 0|26 4|25 9|25 5|25 0|24 6|24 1|23 7|23 3|22 9
2 70|30 3|29 6|29 0|28 4|27 8|27 3|26 8|26 3|25 8|25 3|24 9|24 4|24 0|23 6|23 2
2 80|30 6|30 0|29 4|28 8|28 2|27 6|27 1|26 6|26 1|25 6|25 2|24 7|24 3|23 9|23 5
2 90|31 0|30 3|29 7|29 1|28 5|28 0|27 4|26 9|26 4|25 9|25 5|25 0|24 6|24 2|23 8
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
3 --|31 3|30 7|30 0|29 4|28 8|28 3|27 7|27 2|26 7|26 2|25 7|25 3|24 9|24 4|24 0
3 10|31 7|31 0|30 4|29 8|29 2|28 6|28 0|27 5|27 0|26 5|26 0|25 6|25 1|24 7|24 3
3 20|32 0|31 4|30 7|30 1|29 5|28 9|28 3|27 8|27 3|26 8|26 8|25 9|25 4|25 0|24 6
3 30|32 4|31 7|31 0|30 4|29 8|29 2|28 6|28 1|27 6|27 1|26 6|26 1|25 7|25 2|24 8
3 40|32 7|32 0|31 3|30 7|30 1|29 5|28 9|28 4|27 9|27 3|26 9|26 4|25 9|25 5|25 1
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
3 50|33 0|32 3|31 6|31 0|30 4|29 8|29 2|28 6|28 1|27 6|27 1|26 6|26 2|25 7|25 3
3 60|33 3|32 6|31 9|31 3|30 7|30 1|29 5|28 9|28 4|27 9|27 4|26 9|26 4|26 0|25 5
3 70|33 6|32 9|32 2|31 6|30 9|30 3|29 7|29 2|28 6|28 1|27 6|27 1|26 7|26 2|25 8
3 80|33 9|33 2|32 5|31 8|31 2|30 6|30 0|29 4|28 9|28 4|27 9|27 4|26 9|26 4|26 0
3 90|34 2|33 5|32 8|32 1|31 5|30 9|30 3|29 7|29 1|28 6|28 1|27 6|27 1|26 7|26 2
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
4 --|34 5|33 8|33 1|32 4|31 7|31 1|30 5|29 9|29 4|28 9|28 3|27 8|27 4|26 9|26 4
4 10|34 8|34 1|33 4|32 7|32 0|31 4|30 8|30 2|29 6|29 1|28 6|28 1|27 6|27 1|26 7
4 20|35 1|34 3|33 6|32 9|32 3|31 6|31 0|30 4|29 9|29 3|28 8|28 3|27 8|27 3|26 9
4 30|35 3|34 6|33 9|33 2|32 5|31 9|31 3|30 7|30 1|29 6|29 0|28 5|28 0|27 6|27 1
4 40|35 6|34 9|34 1|33 4|32 8|32 1|31 5|30 9|30 4|29 8|29 3|28 8|28 3|27 8|27 3
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
4 50|35 9|35 1|34 4|33 7|33 0|32 4|31 7|31 2|30 6|30 0|29 5|29 0|28 5|28 0|27 5
4 60|36 2|35 4|34 6|33 9|33 3|32 6|32 0|31 4|30 8|30 2|29 7|29 2|28 7|28 2|27 7
4 70|36 4|35 6|34 9|34 2|33 5|32 8|32 2|31 6|31 0|30 5|29 9|29 4|28 9|28 4|27 9
4 80|36 7|35 9|35 1|34 4|33 7|33 1|32 4|31 8|31 2|30 7|30 1|29 6|29 1|28 6|28 1
4 90|36 9|36 1|35 4|34 7|34 0|33 3|32 7|32 0|31 4|30 9|30 3|29 8|29 3|28 8|28 3
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
5 --|37 2|36 4|35 6|34 9|34 2|33 5|32 9|32 3|31 7|31 1|30 5|30 0|29 5|29 0|28 5
5 25|37 8|37 6|36 2|35 5|34 8|34 1|33 4|32 8|32 2|31 6|31 0|30 5|30 0|29 5|29 0
5 50|38 4|37 6|36 8|36 0|35 3|34 6|33 9|33 3|32 7|32 1|31 5|31 0|30 4|29 9|29 4
5 75|39 0|38 1|37 3|36 6|35 8|35 1|34 5|33 8|33 2|32 6|32 0|31 4|30 9|30 4|29 9
6 --|39 5|38 7|37 9|37 1|36 3|35 6|34 9|34 3|33 6|33 0|32 4|31 9|31 3|30 8|30 3
6 25|40 0|39 2|38 4|37 6|36 8|36 1|35 4|34 8|34 1|33 5|32 9|32 3|31 8|31 2|30 7
6 50|40 6|39 7|38 9|38 1|37 3|36 6|35 9|35 2|34 6|33 9|33 3|32 7|32 2|31 6|31 1
6 75|41 1|40 2|30 4|38 6|37 8|37 1|36 3|35 7|35 0|34 4|33 7|33 2|32 6|32 0|31 5
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
7 --|41 6|40 7|39 9|39 0|38 3|37 5|36 8|36 1|35 4|34 8|34 2|33 6|33 0|32 4|31 9
7 50|42 5|41 6|40 8|39 9|39 1|38 4|37 6|36 9|36 2|35 6|34 9|34 3|33 7|33 2|32 6
8 --|43 5|42 6|41 7|40 8|40 0|39 2|38 5|37 7|37 0|36 4|35 7|35 1|34 5|33 9|33 3
8 50|44 4|43 4|42 5|41 7|40 8|40 0|39 2|38 5|37 8|37 1|36 4|35 8|35 2|34 6|34 0
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
9 --|45 2|44 3|43 3|42 4|41 6|40 8|40 0|39 2|38 5|37 8|37 1|36 5|35 9|35 3|34 7
10 --|46 8|45 8|44 9|44 0|43 1|42 2|41 4|40 6|39 9|39 2|38 5|37 8|37 1|36 5|35 9
11 --|48 3|47 3|46 3|45 4|44 5|43 6|42 8|42 0|41 2|40 4|39 7|39 0|38 3|37 7|37 1
12 --|49 8|48 7|47 7|46 7|45 8|44 9|44 0|43 2|42 4|41 6|40 9|40 2|39 5|38 8|38 1
13 --|51 1|50 0|49 0|48 0|47 0|46 1|45 2|44 4|43 5|42 7|42 0|41 2|40 5|39 8|39 2
14 --|52 4|51 3|50 2|49 2|48 2|47 3|46 3|45 5|44 6|43 8|43 0|42 3|41 6|40 8|40 2
15 --|53 6|52 5|51 4|50 3|49 3|48 4|47 4|46 5|45 7|44 8|44 0|43 3|42 5|41 8|41 1
16 --|54 8|53 6|52 5|51 4|50 4|49 4|48 5|47 5|46 7|45 8|45 0|44 2|43 4|42 7|42 0
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CALCULATIONS OF THE PONDERAL INDEX
Statures from 61 to 75 centimetres; weights from 2 to|16 kilograms.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
W k|
e i|
i l|
g i o|
h n g|
t r|
s a| Statures in centimetres
m|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
s| 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75
-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
2 --|20 7|20 3|20 0|19 7|19 4|19 1|18 8|18 5|18 3|18 0|17 7|17 5|17 3|17 0|16 8
2 10|21 0|20 7|20 3|20 0|19 7|19 4|19 1|18 8|18 6|18 3|18 0|17 8|17 5|17 3|17 1
2 20|21 3|21 0|20 7|20 3|20 0|19 7|19 4|19 1|18 9|18 6|18 3|18 0|17 8|17 6|17 3
2 30|21 6|21 3|21 0|20 6|20 3|20 0|19 7|19 4|19 1|18 9|18 6|18 3|18 1|17 8|17 6
2 40|22 0|21 6|21 3|20 9|20 6|20 3|20 0|19 7|19 4|19 1|18 9|18 6|18 3|18 1|17 9
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
2 50|22 2|21 9|21 5|21 2|20 9|20 6|20 3|20 0|19 7|19 4|19 1|18 8|18 6|18 3|18 1
2 60|22 5|22 2|21 8|21 5|21 2|20 8|20 5|20 2|19 9|19 6|19 4|19 1|18 8|18 6|18 3
2 70|22 8|22 5|22 1|21 7|21 4|21 1|20 8|20 5|20 2|19 9|19 6|19 3|19 1|18 8|18 6
2 80|23 1|22 7|22 4|22 0|21 7|21 3|21 0|20 7|20 4|20 1|19 8|19 6|19 3|19 0|18 8
2 90|23 4|23 0|22 6|22 3|21 9|21 6|21 3|21 0|20 7|20 4|20 1|19 8|19 5|19 3|19 0
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
3 --|23 6|23 3|22 9|22 5|22 2|21 8|21 5|21 2|20 9|20 6|20 3|20 0|19 8|19 5|19 2
3 10|23 9|23 5|23 1|22 8|22 4|22 1|21 8|21 4|21 1|20 8|20 5|20 2|20 0|19 7|19 4
3 20|24 2|23 8|23 4|23 0|22 7|22 3|22 0|21 7|21 4|21 1|20 8|20 5|20 2|19 9|19 7
3 30|24 4|24 0|23 6|23 3|22 9|22 6|22 2|21 9|21 6|21 3|21 0|20 7|20 4|20 1|19 9
3 40|24 7|24 3|23 9|23 5|23 1|22 8|22 4|22 1|21 8|21 5|21 2|20 9|20 6|20 3|20 1
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
3 50|24 9|24 5|24 1|23 7|23 4|23 0|22 7|22 3|22 0|21 7|21 4|21 1|20 8|20 5|20 2
3 60|25 1|24 7|24 3|24 0|23 6|23 2|22 9|22 5|22 2|21 9|21 6|21 3|21 0|20 7|20 4
3 70|25 4|25 0|24 6|24 2|23 8|23 4|23 1|22 7|22 4|22 1|21 8|21 5|21 2|20 9|20 6
3 80|25 6|25 2|24 8|24 4|24 0|23 6|23 3|22 9|22 6|22 3|22 0|21 7|21 4|21 1|20 8
3 90|25 8|25 4|25 0|24 6|24 2|23 8|23 5|23 1|22 8|22 5|22 2|21 9|21 6|21 3|21 0
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
4 --|26 0|25 6|25 2|24 8|24 4|24 0|23 7|23 3|23 0|22 7|22 4|22 0|21 7|21 4|21 2
4 10|26 2|25 8|25 4|25 0|24 6|24 3|23 9|23 5|23 2|22 9|22 5|22 2|21 9|21 6|21 3
4 20|26 4|26 0|25 6|25 2|24 8|24 4|24 1|23 7|23 4|23 0|22 7|22 4|22 1|21 8|21 5
4 30|26 7|26 2|25 8|25 4|25 0|24 6|24 3|23 9|23 6|23 2|22 9|22 6|22 3|22 0|21 7
4 40|26 9|26 4|26 0|25 6|25 2|24 8|24 5|24 1|23 8|23 4|23 1|22 8|22 5|22 1|21 9
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
4 50|27 1|26 6|26 2|25 8|25 4|25 0|24 6|24 3|23 9|23 6|23 3|22 9|22 6|22 3|22 0
4 60|27 3|26 8|26 4|26 0|25 6|25 2|24 8|24 5|24 1|23 8|23 4|23 1|22 8|22 5|22 2
4 70|27 5|27 0|26 6|26 2|25 8|25 4|25 0|24 6|24 3|23 9|23 6|23 3|22 9|22 6|22 3
4 80|27 7|27 2|26 8|26 4|26 0|25 6|25 2|24 8|24 4|24 1|23 8|23 4|23 1|22 8|22 5
4 90|27 8|27 4|27 0|26 5|26 1|25 7|25 3|25 0|24 6|24 3|23 9|23 6|23 3|22 9|22 6
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
5 --|28 0|27 7|27 1|26 7|26 3|25 9|25 5|25 1|24 8|24 4|24 1|23 7|23 4|23 1|22 8
5 25|28 5|28 0|27 6|27 2|26 7|26 3|25 9|25 6|25 2|24 8|24 5|24 1|23 8|23 5|23 2
5 50|28 9|28 5|28 0|27 6|27 2|26 7|26 3|26 0|25 6|25 2|24 9|24 5|24 2|23 9|23 5
5 75|29 4|28 9|28 4|28 0|27 6|27 2|26 7|26 3|26 0|25 6|25 2|24 9|24 5|24 2|23 9
6 --|29 8|29 3|28 8|28 4|28 0|27 5|27 1|26 7|26 3|26 0|25 6|25 2|24 9|24 6|24 2
6 25|30 2|29 7|29 2|28 8|28 3|27 9|27 5|27 1|26 7|26 3|25 9|25 6|25 2|24 9|24 6
6 50|30 6|30 1|29 6|29 5|28 7|28 3|27 9|27 4|27 0|26 7|26 3|25 9|25 6|25 2|24 9
6 75|31 0|30 5|30 0|29 5|29 1|28 6|28 2|27 8|27 4|27 0|26 6|26 3|25 9|25 5|25 2
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
7 --|31 4|30 9|30 4|29 9|29 4|29 0|28 6|28 1|27 7|27 3|26 9|26 6|26 2|25 9|25 5
7 50|32 1|31 6|31 1|30 6|30 1|29 7|29 2|28 8|28 4|28 0|27 6|27 2|26 8|26 4|26 1
8 --|32 8|32 3|31 7|31 2|30 8|30 3|29 9|29 4|29 0|28 6|28 2|27 8|27 4|27 0|26 7
8 50|33 5|32 9|32 4|31 9|31 4|30 9|30 5|30 0|29 6|29 2|28 7|28 3|28 0|27 6|27 2
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
9 --|34 1|33 5|33 0|32 5|32 0|31 5|31 0|30 6|30 1|29 7|29 3|28 9|28 5|28 1|27 7
10 --|35 3|34 7|34 2|33 7|33 1|32 6|32 1|31 7|31 2|30 8|30 3|29 9|29 5|29 1|28 7
11 --|36 5|35 9|35 3|34 7|34 2|33 7|33 2|32 7|32 2|31 8|31 3|30 9|30 5|30 1|29 7
12 --|37 5|36 9|36 3|35 7|35 2|34 7|34 2|33 7|33 2|32 7|32 2|31 8|31 4|30 9|30 5
13 --|38 5|37 9|37 3|36 7|36 2|35 6|35 1|34 6|34 1|33 6|33 1|32 7|32 2|31 8|31 3
14 --|39 5|38 9|38 3|37 7|37 1|36 5|36 0|35 4|34 9|34 4|33 9|33 5|33 0|32 6|32 1
15 --|40 4|39 8|39 1|38 5|37 9|37 4|36 8|36 3|35 7|35 2|34 7|34 2|33 8|33 3|32 9
16 --|41 3|40 6|40 0|39 4|38 8|38 2|37 6|37 1|36 5|36 0|35 5|35 0|34 5|34 1|33 6
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Statures from 76 to 90 centimetres; weights from 4 to|37 kilograms
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
W k|
e i|
i l|
g i o|
h n g|
t r|
s a| Statures in centimetres
m|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
s| 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 | 80 | 81 | 82 | 83 | 84 | 85 | 86 | 87 | 88 | 89 | 90
-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
4 --|20 9|20 6|20 3|20 1|19 8|19 6|19 4|19 1|18 9|18 7|18 5|18 2|18 0|17 8|17 6
4 50|21 7|21 4|21 2|20 9|20 6|20 4|20 1|19 9|19 7|19 4|19 2|19 0|18 8|18 6|18 3
5 --|22 5|22 2|21 9|21 6|21 4|21 1|20 9|20 6|20 4|20 1|19 9|19 7|19 4|19 2|19 0
5 50|23 2|22 9|22 6|22 3|22 1|21 8|21 5|21 3|21 0|20 8|20 5|20 3|20 1|19 8|19 6
6 --|23 9|23 6|23 3|23 0|22 6|22 4|22 2|21 9|21 6|21 4|21 1|20 9|20 6|20 4|20 2
6 50|24 6|24 2|23 9|23 6|23 3|23 0|22 8|22 5|22 2|22 0|21 7|21 4|21 2|21 0|20 7
7 --|25 2|24 8|24 5|24 2|23 9|23 6|23 3|23 0|22 8|22 5|22 2|22 0|21 7|21 5|21 3
7 50|25 7|25 4|25 1|24 8|24 5|24 2|23 9|23 6|23 3|23 0|22 8|22 5|22 2|22 0|21 7
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
8 --|26 3|26 0|25 6|25 3|25 0|24 7|24 4|24 1|23 8|23 5|23 3|23 0|22 7|22 5|22 2
8 50|26 9|26 5|26 2|25 8|25 5|25 2|24 9|24 6|24 3|24 0|23 7|23 5|23 2|22 9|22 7
9 --|27 4|27 0|26 7|26 3|26 0|25 7|25 4|25 1|24 8|24 5|24 2|23 9|23 6|23 4|23 1
9 50|27 9|27 5|27 2|26 8|26 5|26 1|25 8|25 5|25 2|24 9|24 6|24 3|24 1|23 8|23 5
10 --|28 3|28 0|37 6|27 3|26 9|26 6|26 3|26 0|25 6|25 3|25 0|24 8|24 5|24 2|23 9
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
10 50|28 8|28 4|28 1|27 7|27 4|27 0|26 7|26 4|26 1|25 8|25 5|25 2|24 9|24 6|24 3
11 --|29 3|28 9|28 5|28 2|27 8|27 5|27 1|26 8|26 5|26 2|25 9|25 6|25 3|25 0|24 7
11 50|29 7|29 3|28 9|28 6|28 2|27 9|27 5|27 2|26 9|26 6|26 2|25 9|25 6|25 4|25 1
12 --|30 1|29 7|29 3|29 0|28 6|28 3|27 9|27 6|27 2|26 9|26 6|26 3|26 0|25 7|25 4
12 50|30 5|30 1|29 8|29 4|29 0|28 7|28 3|28 0|27 6|27 3|27 0|26 7|26 4|26 1|25 8
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
13 --|30 9|30 5|30 1|29 8|29 4|29 0|28 7|28 3|28 0|27 7|27 3|27 0|26 7|26 4|26 1
13 50|31 3|30 9|30 5|30 1|29 8|29 4|29 0|28 7|28 3|28 0|27 7|27 4|27 1|26 8|26 5
14 --|31 7|31 3|30 0|30 5|30 1|29 8|29 4|29 0|28 7|28 3|28 0|27 7|27 4|27 1|26 8
14 50|32 1|31 7|31 3|30 9|30 5|30 1|29 7|29 4|29 0|28 7|28 3|28 0|27 7|27 4|27 1
15 --|32 4|32 0|31 6|31 2|30 8|30 4|30 1|29 7|29 4|29 0|28 7|28 3|28 0|27 7|27 4
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
15 50|32 8|32 4|32 0|31 6|31 2|30 8|30 4|30 0|29 7|29 3|29 0|28 7|28 3|28 0|27 7
16 --|33 2|32 7|32 3|31 9|31 5|31 1|30 7|30 4|30 0|29 6|29 3|29 0|28 6|28 3|28 0
16 50|33 5|33 1|32 6|32 2|31 8|31 4|31 0|30 7|30 3|30 0|29 6|29 3|28 9|28 6|28 3
17 --|33 8|33 4|33 0|32 5|32 0|31 7|31 4|31 0|30 6|30 2|29 9|29 6|29 2|28 9|28 6
17 50|34 2|33 7|33 3|32 9|32 4|32 0|31 7|31 3|30 9|30 5|30 2|29 8|29 5|29 2|28 8
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
18 --|34 5|34 0|33 6|33 2|32 8|32 4|32 0|31 6|31 2|30 8|30 5|30 1|29 8|29 4|29 1
18 50|34 8|34 4|33 9|33 5|33 1|32 7|32 3|31 9|31 5|31 1|30 8|30 4|30 1|29 7|29 4
19 --|35 1|34 6|34 2|33 8|33 3|32 9|32 5|32 1|31 8|31 4|31 0|30 7|30 3|30 0|29 6
19 50|35 4|35 0|34 5|34 1|33 6|33 2|32 8|32 4|32 0|31 7|31 3|30 9|30 6|30 2|29 9
20 --|35 7|35 2|34 8|34 4|33 9|33 5|33 1|32 7|32 3|31 9|31 6|31 2|30 8|30 5|30 2
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
21 --|36 3|35 8|35 4|34 9|34 5|34 1|33 6|33 2|32 8|32 5|32 1|31 7|31 4|31 0|30 7
25 --|36 9|36 4|35 9|35 5|35 0|34 6|34 2|33 8|33 4|33 0|32 6|32 2|31 8|31 5|31 1
23 --|37 4|36 9|36 5|36 0|35 5|35 1|34 7|34 3|33 9|33 5|33 1|32 7|32 3|31 9|31 6
24 --|37 9|37 5|37 0|36 5|36 0|35 6|35 2|34 7|34 3|33 9|33 5|33 2|32 8|32 4|32 0
25 --|38 5|38 0|37 5|37 0|36 5|36 1|35 7|35 2|34 8|34 4|34 0|33 6|33 2|32 9|32 5
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
26 --|39 0|38 5|38 0|37 5|37 0|36 6|36 1|35 7|35 3|34 8|34 4|34 0|33 7|33 3|32 9
27 --|39 5|39 0|38 5|38 0|37 5|37 0|36 6|36 1|35 7|35 3|34 9|34 5|34 1|33 7|33 3
28 --|40 0|39 4|38 9|38 4|38 0|37 5|37 0|36 6|36 2|35 7|35 3|34 9|34 5|34 1|33 7
29 --|40 4|39 9|39 4|38 9|38 4|37 9|37 5|37 0|36 6|36 1|35 7|35 3|34 9|34 5|34 1
30 --|40 9|40 4|39 8|39 3|38 8|38 4|37 9|37 4|37 0|36 6|36 1|35 7|35 3|34 9|34 5
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
31 --|41 3|40 8|40 3|39 8|39 3|38 8|38 3|37 8|37 4|37 0|36 5|36 1|35 7|35 3|34 9
32 --|41 8|41 2|40 7|40 2|39 7|39 2|38 7|38 3|37 8|37 4|36 9|36 5|36 1|35 7|35 3
33 --|42 2|41 7|41 1|40 6|40 1|39 6|39 1|38 7|38 2|37 7|37 3|36 9|36 5|36 0|35 6
34 --|42 6|42 1|41 5|41 0|40 5|40 0|39 5|39 0|38 6|38 1|37 7|37 2|36 8|36 4|36 0
35 --|43 0|42 5|41 9|41 4|40 9|40 4|39 9|39 4|38 9|38 5|38 0|37 6|37 2|36 8|36 3
36 --|43 4|42 9|42 3|41 8|41 3|40 8|40 3|39 8|39 3|38 8|38 4|38 0|37 5|37 1|36 7
37 --|43 8|43 3|42 7|42 2|41 6|41 1|40 6|40 1|39 7|39 2|38 7|38 3|37 9|37 4|37 0
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CALCULATIONS OF THE PONDERAL INDEX
Statures from 91 to 105 centimetres; weights from 4 to 37 kilograms
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
W k|
e i|
i l|
g i o|
h n g|
t r|
s a| Statures in centimetres
m|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
s| 91 | 92 | 93 | 94 | 95 | 96 | 97 | 98 | 99 | 100| 101| 102| 103| 104| 105
-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
4 --|17 4|17 2|17 0|16 9|16 7|16 5|16 4|16 2|16 0|15 9|15 7|15 6|15 4|15 3|15 1
4 50|18 1|17 9|17 8|17 6|17 4|17 2|17 0|16 8|16 7|16 5|16 3|16 2|16 0|15 9|15 7
5 --|18 8|18 6|18 4|18 2|18 0|17 8|17 6|17 4|17 3|17 1|16 9|16 8|16 6|16 5|16 3
5 50|19 4|19 2|19 0|18 8|18 6|18 3|18 2|18 0|17 8|17 6|17 5|17 3|17 1|17 0|16 8
6 --|20 0|19 7|19 5|19 3|19 1|18 9|18 7|18 5|18 4|18 2|18 0|17 8|17 6|17 5|17 3
6 50|20 5|20 3|20 1|19 9|19 6|19 4|19 2|19 0|18 8|18 7|18 5|18 3|18 1|17 9|17 8
7 --|21 0|20 8|20 6|20 4|20 1|19 9|19 7|19 5|19 3|19 1|18 9|18 8|18 6|18 4|18 2
7 50|21 5|21 3|21 1|20 8|20 6|20 4|20 2|20 0|19 8|19 6|19 4|19 2|19 0|18 8|18 6
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
8 --|22 0|21 7|21 5|21 3|21 1|20 8|20 6|20 4|20 2|20 0|19 8|19 6|19 4|19 2|19 0
8 50|22 4|22 2|22 0|21 7|21 5|21 3|21 0|20 8|20 6|20 4|20 2|20 0|19 8|19 6|19 4
9 --|22 9|22 6|22 4|22 1|21 9|21 7|21 4|21 2|21 0|20 8|20 6|20 4|20 2|20 0|19 8
9 50|23 3|23 0|22 8|22 5|22 3|22 1|21 8|21 6|21 4|21 2|21 0|20 8|20 6|20 4|20 2
10 --|23 7|23 4|23 2|22 9|22 7|22 4|22 2|22 0|21 8|21 5|21 3|21 1|20 9|20 7|20 5
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
10 50|24 1|23 8|23 5|23 3|23 1|22 8|22 6|22 3|22 1|21 9|21 7|21 5|21 3|21 1|20 9
11 --|24 4|24 2|23 9|23 7|23 4|23 2|22 9|22 7|22 5|22 2|22 0|21 8|21 6|21 4|21 2
11 50|24 8|24 5|24 3|24 0|23 8|23 5|23 3|23 0|22 8|22 6|22 3|22 1|21 9 12 7|21 5
12 --|25 2|24 9|24 6|24 4|24 1|23 8|23 6|23 4|23 1|22 9|22 7|22 4|22 2|22 0|21 8
12 50|25 5|25 2|25 0|24 7|24 4|24 2|23 9|23 7|23 4|23 2|23 0|22 8|22 5|22 3|22 1
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
13 --|25 8|25 6|25 3|25 0|24 7|24 5|24 2|24 0|23 7|23 5|23 3|23 0|22 8|22 6|22 4
13 50|26 2|25 9|25 6|25 3|25 1|24 8|24 5|24 3|24 1|23 8|23 6|23 3|23 1|22 9|22 7
14 --|26 5|26 2|25 9|25 6|25 4|25 1|24 8|24 6|24 3|24 1|23 9|23 6|23 4|23 2|23 0
14 50|26 8|26 5|26 2|25 9|25 7|25 4|25 1|24 9|24 6|24 4|24 1|23 9|23 7|23 4|23 3
15 --|27 1|26 8|26 5|26 2|26 0|25 7|25 4|25 2|24 9|24 7|24 4|24 2|23 9|23 7|23 5
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
15 50|27 4|27 1|26 8|26 5|26 2|26 0|25 7|25 4|25 2|24 9|24 7|24 4|24 2|24 0|23 7
16 --|27 7|27 4|27 1|26 8|26 5|26 2|26 0|25 7|25 5|25 2|25 0|24 7|24 5|24 2|24 0
16 50|28 0|27 7|27 4|27 1|26 8|26 5|26 2|26 0|25 7|25 5|25 2|25 0|24 7|24 5|24 2
17 --|28 3|27 9|27 6|27 4|27 1|26 8|26 5|26 2|26 0|25 7|25 5|25 2|25 0|24 7|24 5
17 50|28 5|28 2|27 9|27 6|27 3|27 0|26 8|26 5|26 2|26 0|25 7|25 5|25 2|25 0|24 7
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
18 --|28 8|28 5|28 2|27 9|27 6|27 3|27 0|26 7|26 5|26 2|26 0|25 7|25 4|25 2|25 0
18 50|29 1|28 7|28 4|28 1|27 8|27 6|27 3|27 0|26 7|26 4|26 2|25 9|25 7|25 4|25 2
19 --|29 3|29 0|28 7|28 4|28 0|27 8|27 5|27 2|20 9|26 7|26 4|26 2|25 9|25 7|25 4
19 50|29 6|29 3|28 9|28 6|28 3|28 0|27 8|27 5|27 2|26 9|26 7|26 4|26 1|25 9|25 6
20 --|29 8|29 5|29 2|28 9|28 6|28 3|28 0|27 7|27 4|27 1|26 9|26 6|26 3|26 1|25 8
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
21 --|30 3|30 0|29 7|29 4|29 0|28 7|28 4|28 2|27 9|27 6|27 3|27 0|26 8|26 5|26 3
22 --|30 8|30 5|30 1|29 8|29 5|29 2|28 9|28 6|28 3|28 0|27 7|27 5|27 2|26 9|26 7
23 --|31 2|30 9|30 6|30 3|29 9|29 6|29 3|29 0|28 7|28 4|28 2|27 9|27 6|27 3|27 1
24 --|31 7|31 3|31 0|30 7|30 4|30 0|29 7|29 4|29 1|28 8|28 6|28 3|28 0|27 7|27 5
25 --|32 1|31 8|31 4|31 1|30 8|30 5|30 1|29 8|29 5|29 2|28 9|28 7|28 4|28 1|27 8
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
26 --|32 5|32 2|31 8|31 5|31 2|30 9|30 5|30 2|29 9|29 6|29 3|29 0|28 8|28 5|28 2
27 --|33 0|32 6|32 3|31 9|31 9|31 2|30 9|30 6|30 3|30 0|29 7|29 4|29 1|28 8|28 6
28 --|33 4|33 0|32 7|32 3|32 0|31 6|31 3|31 0|30 7|30 4|30 1|29 8|29 5|29 2|28 9
29 --|33 8|33 4|33 0|32 7|32 3|32 0|31 7|31 3|31 0|30 7|30 4|30 1|29 8|29 5|29 3
30 --|34 1|33 8|33 4|33 1|32 7|32 4|32 0|31 7|31 4|31 1|30 8|30 5|30 2|29 9|29 6
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
31 --|34 5|34 1|33 8|33 4|33 1|32 7|32 4|32 1|31 7|31 4|31 1|30 8|30 5|30 2|29 9
32 --|34 9|34 5|34 1|33 8|33 4|33 1|32 7|32 4|32 1|31 7|31 4|31 1|30 8|30 5|30 2
33 --|35 3|34 9|34 5|34 1|33 8|33 4|33 1|32 7|32 4|32 1|31 8|31 5|31 1|30 8|30 6
34 --|35 6|35 2|34 8|34 5|34 1|33 7|33 4|33 1|32 7|32 4|32 1|31 8|31 5|31 2|30 9
35 --|35 9|35 6|35 2|34 8|34 4|34 1|33 7|33 4|33 0|32 7|32 4|32 1|31 8|31 5|31 2
36 --|36 3|35 9|35 5|35 1|34 8|31 4|34 0|33 7|33 4|33 0|32 7|32 4|32 1|31 7|31 4
37 --|36 6|36 2|35 8|35 4|35 1|34 7|34 4|34 0|33 7|33 3|33 0|32 7|32 3|32 0|31 7
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CALCULATIONS OF THE PONDERAL INDEX
Statures from 106 to 120 centimetres; weights from 11 to 60 kilograms
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
W k|
e i|
i l|
g i o|
h n g|
t r|
s a| Statures in centimetres
m|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
s| 106| 107| 108| 109| 110| 111| 112| 113| 114| 115| 116| 117| 118| 119| 120
-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
11 |21 0|20 8|20 6|20 4|20 2|20 0|19 9|19 7|19 5|19 3|19 2|19 0|18 8|18 7|18 5
12 |21 6|21 4|21 2|21 0|20 8|20 6|20 4|20 3|20 1|19 9|19 7|19 6|19 4|19 2|19 1
13 |22 2|22 0|21 8|21 6|21 4|21 2|21 0|20 8|20 6|20 4|20 3|20 1|19 9|19 8|19 6
14 |22 7|22 5|22 3|22 1|21 9|21 7|21 5|21 3|21 1|21 0|20 8|20 6|20 4|20 3|20 1
15 |23 3|23 0|22 8|22 6|22 4|22 2|22 0|21 8|21 6|21 4|21 3|21 1|20 9|20 7|20 6
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
16 |23 8|23 6|23 3|23 1|22 9|22 7|22 5|22 3|22 1|21 9|21 7|21 5|21 4|21 2|21 0
17 |24 3|24 0|23 8|23 6|23 4|23 2|23 0|22 8|22 6|22 4|22 2|22 0|21 8|21 6|21 4
18 |24 7|24 5|24 3|24 0|23 8|23 6|23 4|23 2|23 0|22 8|22 6|22 4|22 2|22 0|21 8
19 |25 2|24 9|24 7|24 5|24 3|24 0|23 8|23 6|23 4|23 2|23 0|22 8|22 6|22 4|22 2
20 |25 6|25 4|25 1|24 9|24 7|24 5|24 2|24 0|23 8|23 6|23 4|23 2|23 0|22 8|22 6
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
21 |26 0|25 8|25 5|25 3|25 1|24 9|24 6|24 4|24 2|24 0|23 8|23 6|23 4|23 2|23 0
22 |26 4|26 2|25 9|25 7|25 5|25 2|25 0|24 8|24 6|24 4|24 2|23 9|23 7|23 5|23 3
23 |26 8|26 6|26 3|26 1|25 9|25 6|25 4|25 2|24 9|24 7|24 5|24 3|24 1|23 9|23 7
24 |27 2|27 0|26 7|26 5|26 2|26 0|25 7|25 5|25 3|25 1|24 9|24 6|24 4|24 2|24 0
25 |27 6|27 3|27 1|26 8|26 6|26 3|26 1|25 9|25 6|25 4|25 2|25 0|24 8|24 6|24 4
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
26 |27 9|27 5|27 4|27 2|26 9|26 7|26 4|26 2|26 0|25 8|25 5|25 3|25 1|24 9|24 7
27 |28 3|28 0|27 8|27 5|27 3|27 0|26 8|26 5|26 3|26 1|25 9|25 6|25 4|25 2|25 0
28 |28 7|28 4|28 1|27 9|27 6|27 4|27 1|26 9|26 6|26 4|26 2|26 0|25 7|25 5|25 3
29 |29 0|28 7|28 4|28 2|27 9|27 7|27 4|27 2|26 9|26 7|26 5|26 3|26 0|25 8|25 6
30 |29 3|29 0|28 8|28 5|28 2|28 0|27 7|27 5|27 3|27 0|26 8|26 6|26 3|26 1|25 9
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
31 |29 6|29 4|29 1|28 8|28 6|28 3|28 0|27 8|27 6|27 3|27 1|26 8|26 6|26 4|26 2
32 |30 0|29 7|29 4|29 1|28 9|28 6|28 3|28 1|27 9|27 6|27 4|27 1|26 9|26 7|26 5
33 |30 3|30 0|29 7|29 4|29 2|28 9|28 6|28 4|28 1|27 9|27 7|27 4|27 2|27 0|26 7
34 |30 6|30 3|30 0|29 7|29 5|29 2|28 9|28 7|28 4|28 2|27 9|27 7|27 5|27 2|27 0
35 |30 9|30 6|30 3|30 0|29 7|29 5|29 2|28 9|28 7|28 4|28 2|28 0|27 7|27 5|27 3
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
36 |31 2|30 9|30 6|30 3|30 0|29 7|29 5|29 2|29 0|28 7|28 5|28 2|28 0|27 7|27 5
37 |31 4|31 1|30 9|30 6|30 3|30 0|29 7|29 5|29 2|29 0|28 7|28 5|28 2|28 0|27 8
38 |31 7|31 4|31 1|30 8|30 6|30 3|30 0|29 7|29 5|29 2|29 0|28 7|28 5|28 3|28 0
39 |32 0|31 7|31 4|31 1|30 8|30 5|30 3|30 0|29 7|29 5|29 2|29 0|28 7|28 5|28 3
40 |32 3|32 0|31 7|31 4|31 1|30 8|30 5|30 3|30 0|29 7|29 5|29 2|29 0|28 7|28 5
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
41 |32 5|32 2|31 9|31 7|31 3|31 1|30 8|30 5|30 2|30 0|29 7|29 5|29 2|29 0|28 7
42 |32 8|32 5|32 2|31 9|31 6|31 3|31 0|30 8|30 5|30 2|30 0|29 7|29 5|29 2|29 0
43 |33 0|32 7|32 4|32 1|31 8|31 6|31 3|31 0|30 7|30 5|30 2|29 9|29 7|29 4|29 2
44 |33 3|33 0|32 7|32 4|32 1|31 8|31 5|31 2|31 0|30 7|30 4|30 2|29 9|29 7|29 4
45 |33 6|33 2|32 9|32 6|32 3|32 0|31 8|31 5|31 2|30 9|30 7|30 4|30 1|29 9|29 6
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
46 |33 8|33 5|33 2|32 9|32 6|32 3|32 0|31 7|31 4|31 2|30 9|30 6|30 4|30 1|29 9
47 |34 0|33 7|33 4|33 1|32 8|32 5|32 2|31 9|31 7|31 4|31 1|30 8|30 6|30 3|30 1
48 |34 3|34 0|33 6|33 3|33 0|32 7|32 4|32 2|31 9|31 7|31 3|31 1|30 8|30 5|30 3
49 |34 5|34 2|33 9|33 6|33 3|33 0|32 7|32 4|32 1|31 8|31 5|31 3|31 0|30 7|30 5
50 |34 8|34 4|34 1|33 8|33 5|33 2|32 9|32 6|32 3|32 0|31 8|31 5|31 2|31 0|30 7
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
51 |35 0|34 7|34 3|34 0|33 7|33 4|33 1|32 8|32 5|32 2|32 0|31 7|31 4|31 2|30 9
52 |35 2|34 9|34 6|34 2|33 9|33 6|33 3|33 0|32 7|32 6|32 2|31 9|31 6|31 4|31 1
53 |35 4|35 1|34 8|34 5|34 1|33 8|33 5|33 2|32 9|32 7|32 4|32 1|31 8|31 6|31 3
54 |35 7|35 3|35 0|34 7|34 4|34 1|33 7|33 5|33 2|32 9|32 6|32 3|32 0|31 8|31 5
55 |35 9|35 5|35 2|34 9|34 6|34 3|34 0|33 7|33 4|33 1|32 8|32 5|32 2|32 0|31 7
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
56 |36 1|35 8|35 4|35 1|34 8|34 5|34 2|33 9|33 6|33 3|33 0|32 7|32 4|32 2|31 9
57 |36 3|36 0|35 6|35 3|35 0|34 7|34 4|34 1|33 8|33 5|33 2|32 9|32 6|32 3|32 1
58 |36 5|36 2|35 8|35 5|35 2|34 9|34 6|34 3|34 0|33 7|33 4|33 1|32 8|32 5|32 3
59 |36 7|36 4|36 0|35 7|35 4|35 1|34 8|34 5|34 1|33 9|33 6|33 3|33 0|32 7|32 4
60 |36 9|36 6|36 2|35 9|35 6|35 3|35 0|34 6|34 3|34 0|33 7|33 5|33 2|32 9|32 6
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CALCULATIONS OF THE PONDERAL INDEX
Statures from 121 to 135 centimetres; weights from 11 to 60 kilograms
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
W k|
e i|
i l|
g i o|
h n g|
t r|
s a| Statures in centimetres
m|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
s| 121| 122| 123| 124| 125| 126| 127| 128| 129| 130| 131| 132| 133| 134| 135
-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
11 |18 4|18 2|18 1|17 9|17 8|17 7|17 5|17 4|17 2|17 1|17 0|16 8|16 7|16 6|16 5
12 |18 9|18 8|18 6|18 5|18 3|18 2|18 0|17 9|17 7|17 6|17 5|17 3|17 2|17 1|17 0
13 |19 4|19 3|19 1|19 0|18 8|18 7|18 5|18 4|18 2|18 1|17 9|17 8|17 7|17 5|17 4
14 |19 9|19 8|19 6|19 4|19 3|19 1|19 0|18 8|18 7|18 5|18 4|18 3|18 1|17 9|17 9
15 |20 4|20 2|20 0|19 9|19 7|19 6|19 4|19 3|19 1|19 0|18 8|18 7|18 5|18 4|18 3
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
16 |20 8|20 7|20 5|20 3|20 2|20 0|19 8|19 7|19 5|19 4|19 2|19 1|18 9|18 8|18 7
17 |21 2|21 1|20 9|20 7|20 6|20 4|20 2|20 1|19 9|19 8|19 6|19 5|19 3|19 2|19 0
18 |21 6|21 5|21 3|21 1|21 0|20 8|20 6|20 5|20 3|20 2|20 0|19 9|19 7|19 6|19 4
19 |22 0|21 9|21 7|21 5|21 3|21 2|21 0|20 8|20 7|20 5|20 4|20 2|20 1|19 9|19 8
20 |22 4|22 2|22 1|21 9|21 7|21 5|21 4|21 2|21 0|20 9|20 7|20 6|20 4|20 3|20 1
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
21 |22 8|22 6|22 4|22 2|22 1|21 9|21 7|21 6|21 4|21 2|21 1|20 9|20 7|20 6|20 4
22 |23 2|23 0|22 8|22 6|22 4|22 2|22 1|21 9|21 7|21 6|21 4|21 2|21 1|20 9|20 8
23 |23 5|23 3|23 1|22 9|22 8|22 6|22 4|22 2|22 0|21 9|21 7|21 5|21 4|21 2|21 1
24 |23 8|23 6|23 4|23 3|23 1|22 9|22 7|22 5|22 4|22 2|22 0|21 8|21 7|21 5|21 4
25 |24 2|24 0|23 8|23 6|23 4|23 2|23 0|22 8|22 7|22 5|22 3|22 2|22 0|21 8|21 7
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
26 |24 5|24 3|24 1|23 9|23 7|23 5|23 3|23 1|23 0|22 8|22 6|22 4|22 3|22 1|21 9
27 |24 8|24 6|24 4|24 2|24 0|23 8|23 6|23 4|23 3|23 1|22 9|22 7|22 6|22 4|22 2
28 |25 1|24 9|24 7|24 5|24 3|24 1|23 9|23 7|23 5|23 4|23 2|23 0|22 8|22 7|22 5
29 |25 4|25 2|25 0|24 8|24 6|24 4|24 2|24 0|23 8|23 6|23 5|23 3|23 1|22 9|22 8
30 |25 7|25 5|25 3|25 1|24 9|24 7|24 5|24 3|24 1|23 9|23 7|23 5|23 4|23 2|23 0
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
31 |26 0|25 7|25 5|25 3|25 1|24 9|24 7|24 5|24 3|24 2|24 0|23 8|23 6|23 4|23 3
32 |26 2|26 0|25 8|25 6|25 4|25 2|25 0|24 8|24 6|24 4|24 2|24 1|23 9|23 7|23 5
33 |26 5|26 3|26 1|25 9|25 7|25 5|25 3|25 1|24 9|24 7|24 5|24 3|24 1|23 9|23 8
34 |26 8|26 6|26 3|26 1|25 9|25 7|25 5|25 3|25 1|24 9|24 7|24 5|24 4|24 2|24 0
35 |27 0|26 8|26 6|26 4|26 2|26 0|25 8|25 6|25 4|25 2|25 0|24 8|24 6|24 4|24 2
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
36 |27 3|27 1|26 8|26 6|26 4|26 2|26 0|25 8|25 6|25 4|25 2|25 0|24 8|24 6|24 5
37 |27 5|27 3|27 1|26 9|26 7|26 4|26 2|26 0|25 8|25 6|25 4|25 2|25 1|24 9|24 7
38 |27 8|27 6|27 3|27 1|26 9|26 7|26 5|26 3|26 1|25 9|25 7|25 5|25 3|25 1|24 9
39 |28 0|27 8|27 6|27 3|27 1|26 9|26 7|26 5|26 3|26 1|25 9|25 7|25 5|25 3|25 1
40 |28 3|28 0|27 8|27 6|27 4|27 1|26 9|26 7|26 5|26 3|26 1|25 9|25 7|25 5|25 3
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
41 |28 5|28 3|28 0|27 8|27 6|27 4|27 1|26 9|26 7|26 5|26 3|26 1|25 9|25 7|25 5
42 |28 7|28 5|28 3|28 0|27 8|27 6|27 4|27 2|26 9|26 7|26 5|26 3|26 1|25 9|25 7
43 |29 0|28 7|28 5|28 2|28 0|27 8|27 6|27 4|27 2|26 9|26 7|26 5|26 3|26 1|25 9
44 |29 2|28 9|28 7|28 5|28 2|28 0|27 8|27 6|27 4|27 2|26 9|26 7|26 5|26 3|26 1
45 |29 4|29 2|28 9|28 7|28 5|28 2|28 0|27 8|27 6|27 4|27 2|26 9|26 7|26 5|26 3
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
46 |29 6|29 4|29 1|28 0|28 7|28 4|28 2|28 0|27 8|27 6|27 4|27 1|26 9|26 7|26 5
47 |29 8|29 6|29 3|29 1|28 9|28 6|28 4|28 2|28 0|27 8|27 5|27 3|27 1|26 9|26 7
48 |30 0|29 8|29 5|29 3|29 1|28 8|28 6|28 4|28 2|28 0|27 7|27 6|27 3|27 1|26 9
49 |30 2|30 0|29 7|29 5|29 3|29 0|28 8|28 6|28 4|28 1|27 9|27 7|27 5|27 3|27 1
50 |30 4|30 2|30 0|29 7|29 5|29 2|29 0|28 8|28 6|28 3|28 1|27 9|27 7|27 5|27 3
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
51 |30 6|30 4|30 1|29 9|29 7|29 4|29 2|29 0|28 7|28 5|28 3|28 1|27 9|27 7|27 5
52 |30 9|30 6|30 3|30 1|29 9|29 6|29 4|29 2|28 9|28 7|28 5|28 3|28 1|27 9|27 7
53 |31 0|30 8|30 5|30 3|30 0|29 8|29 6|29 3|29 1|28 9|28 7|28 5|28 2|28 0|27 8
54 |31 2|31 0|30 7|30 5|30 2|30 0|29 8|29 5|29 3|29 1|28 9|28 6|28 4|28 2|28 0
55 |31 4|31 2|30 9|30 7|30 4|30 2|29 9|29 7|29 5|29 3|29 0|28 8|28 6|28 4|28 2
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
56 |31 6|31 4|31 1|30 9|30 6|30 4|30 1|29 9|29 7|29 4|29 2|29 0|28 8|28 6|28 3
57 |31 8|31 5|31 3|31 0|30 8|30 5|30 3|30 1|29 8|29 6|29 4|29 2|28 9|28 7|28 5
58 |32 0|31 7|31 5|31 2|31 0|30 7|30 5|30 2|30 0|29 8|29 5|29 3|29 1|28 9|28 7
59 |32 2|31 9|31 7|31 4|31 1|30 9|30 7|30 4|30 2|29 9|29 7|29 5|29 3|29 1|28 8
60 |32 4|32 1|31 8|31 6|31 3|31 1|30 8|30 6|30 3|30 1|29 9|29 7|29 4|29 2|29 0
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CALCULATIONS OF THE PONDERAL INDEX
Statures from 136 to 150 centimetres; weights from 26 to 75 kilograms
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
W k|
e i|
i l|
g i o|
h n g|
t r|
s a| Statures in centimetres
m|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
s| 136| 137| 138| 139| 140| 141| 142| 143| 144| 145| 146| 147| 148| 149| 150
-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
26 |21 8|21 6|21 5|21 3|21 2|21 0|20 9|20 7|20 6|20 4|20 3|20 1|20 0|19 9|19 7
27 |22 1|21 9|21 7|21 6|21 4|21 3|21 1|21 0|20 8|20 7|20 5|20 4|20 3|20 1|20 0
28 |22 3|22 2|22 0|21 8|21 7|21 5|21 4|21 2|21 1|20 9|20 8|20 7|20 5|20 4|20 2
29 |22 6|22 4|22 3|22 1|21 9|21 8|21 6|21 5|21 3|21 2|21 0|20 9|20 8|20 6|20 5
30 |22 8|22 7|22 5|22 4|22 2|22 0|21 9|21 7|21 6|21 4|21 3|21 1|21 0|20 9|20 7
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
31 |23 1|22 9|22 8|22 6|22 4|22 3|22 1|22 0|21 8|21 7|21 5|21 4|21 2|21 1|20 9
32 |23 3|23 2|23 0|22 8|22 7|22 5|22 4|22 2|22 0|21 9|21 7|21 6|21 5|21 3|21 2
33 |23 6|23 4|23 2|23 1|22 9|22 8|22 6|22 4|22 3|22 1|22 0|21 8|21 7|21 5|21 4
34 |23 8|23 6|23 5|23 3|23 1|23 0|22 8|22 7|22 5|22 3|22 2|22 0|21 8|21 7|21 6
35 |24 1|23 9|23 7|23 5|23 4|23 2|23 0|22 9|22 7|22 6|22 4|22 3|22 1|22 0|21 8
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
36 |24 3|24 1|23 9|23 8|23 6|23 4|23 3|23 1|22 9|22 8|22 6|22 5|22 3|22 2|22 0
37 |24 5|24 3|24 1|24 0|23 8|23 6|23 5|23 3|23 1|23 0|22 8|22 7|22 5|22 4|22 2
38 |24 7|24 5|24 4|24 2|24 0|23 8|23 7|23 5|23 3|23 2|23 0|22 9|22 7|22 6|22 4
39 |24 9|24 8|24 6|24 4|24 2|24 0|23 9|23 7|23 5|23 4|23 2|23 1|22 9|22 8|22 6
40 |25 1|25 0|24 8|24 6|24 4|24 3|24 1|23 9|23 7|23 6|23 4|23 3|23 1|23 0|22 8
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
41 |25 4|25 2|25 0|24 8|24 6|24 5|24 3|24 1|23 9|23 8|23 6|23 5|23 3|23 1|23 0
42 |25 6|25 4|25 2|25 0|24 8|24 7|24 5|24 3|24 1|24 0|23 8|23 6|23 5|23 3|23 2
43 |25 8|25 6|25 4|25 2|25 0|24 8|24 7|24 5|24 3|23 2|24 0|23 8|23 7|23 5|23 4
44 |26 0|25 8|25 6|25 4|25 2|25 0|24 9|24 7|24 5|24 3|24 2|24 0|23 9|23 7|23 5
45 |26 2|26 0|25 8|25 6|25 4|25 2|25 0|24 9|24 7|24 5|24 4|24 2|24 0|23 9|23 7
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
46 |26 3|26 2|26 0|25 8|25 6|25 4|25 2|25 1|24 9|24 7|24 5|24 4|24 2|24 0|23 9
47 |26 5|26 3|26 2|26 0|25 8|25 6|25 4|25 2|25 1|24 9|24 7|24 6|24 4|24 2|24 1
48 |26 7|26 5|26 3|26 1|26 0|25 8|25 6|25 4|25 2|25 1|24 9|24 7|24 6|24 4|24 2
49 |26 9|26 7|26 5|26 3|26 1|26 0|25 8|25 6|25 4|25 2|25 1|24 9|24 7|24 6|24 4
50 |27 1|26 9|26 7|26 5|26 3|26 1|25 9|25 8|25 6|25 4|25 2|25 1|24 9|24 7|24 6
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
51 |27 3|27 1|26 9|26 7|26 5|26 3|26 1|25 9|25 7|25 6|25 4|25 2|25 1|24 9|24 7
52 |27 4|27 2|27 1|26 9|26 7|26 5|26 3|26 1|25 9|25 7|25 6|25 4|25 2|25 1|24 9
53 |27 6|27 4|27 2|27 0|26 8|26 6|26 5|26 3|26 1|25 9|25 7|25 6|25 4|25 2|25 0
54 |27 8|27 6|27 4|27 2|27 0|26 8|26 6|26 4|26 2|26 1|25 9|25 7|25 5|25 4|25 2
55 |28 0|27 8|27 6|27 4|27 2|27 0|26 8|26 6|26 4|26 2|26 0|25 9|25 7|25 5|25 4
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
56 |28 1|27 9|27 7|27 5|27 3|27 1|26 9|26 8|26 6|26 4|26 2|26 0|25 9|25 7|25 5
57 |28 3|28 1|27 9|27 7|27 5|27 3|27 1|26 9|26 7|26 5|26 4|26 2|26 0|25 8|25 7
58 |28 5|28 3|28 1|27 8|27 6|27 5|27 3|27 1|26 9|26 7|26 5|26 3|26 2|26 0|25 8
59 |28 6|28 4|28 2|28 0|27 8|27 6|27 4|27 2|27 0|26 8|26 7|26 5|26 3|26 1|26 0
60 |28 8|28 6|28 4|28 2|28 0|27 8|27 6|27 4|27 2|27 0|26 8|26 6|26 5|26 3|26 1
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
61 |28 9|28 7|28 5|28 3|28 1|27 9|27 7|27 5|27 3|27 1|27 0|26 8|26 6|26 4|26 2
62 |29 1|28 9|28 7|28 5|28 3|28 1|27 9|27 7|27 5|27 3|27 1|26 9|26 7|26 6|26 4
63 |29 3|29 0|28 8|28 6|28 4|28 2|28 0|27 8|27 6|27 4|27 3|27 1|26 9|26 7|26 5
64 |29 4|29 2|29 0|28 8|28 6|28 4|28 2|28 0|27 8|27 6|27 4|27 2|27 0|26 8|26 7
65 |29 6|29 4|29 1|28 9|28 7|28 5|28 3|28 1|27 9|27 7|27 5|27 4|27 2|27 0|26 8
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
66 |29 7|29 5|29 3|29 1|28 9|28 7|28 5|28 3|28 1|27 9|27 7|27 5|27 3|27 1|26 9
67 |29 9|29 6|29 4|29 2|29 0|28 8|28 6|28 4|28 2|28 0|27 8|27 6|27 4|27 3|27 1
68 |30 0|29 8|29 6|29 4|29 2|29 0|28 8|28 6|28 4|28 2|28 0|27 8|27 6|27 4|27 2
69 |30 2|29 9|29 7|29 5|29 3|29 1|28 9|28 7|28 5|28 3|28 1|27 9|27 7|27 5|27 3
70 |30 3|30 1|29 9|29 6|29 4|29 2|29 0|28 8|28 6|28 4|28 2|28 0|27 8|27 7|27 5
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
71 |30 4|30 2|30 0|29 8|29 6|29 4|29 2|29 0|28 8|28 6|28 4|28 2|28 0|27 8|27 6
72 |30 6|30 4|30 1|29 9|29 7|29 5|29 3|29 1|28 9|28 7|28 5|28 3|28 1|27 9|27 7
73 |30 7|30 5|30 3|30 1|29 8|29 6|29 4|29 2|29 0|28 8|28 6|28 4|28 2|28 0|27 9
74 |30 9|30 6|30 4|30 2|30 0|29 8|29 6|29 4|29 2|29 0|28 8|28 6|28 4|28 2|28 0
75 |31 0|30 8|30 6|30 3|30 1|29 9|29 7|29 5|29 3|29 1|28 9|28 7|28 5|28 3|28 1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CALCULATIONS OF THE PONDERAL INDEX
Statures from 151 to 165 centimetres; weights from 26 to 75 kilograms
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
W k|
e i|
i l|
g i o|
h n g|
t r|
s a| Statures in centimetres
m|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
s| 151| 152| 153| 154| 155| 156| 157| 158| 159| 160| 161| 162| 163| 164| 165
-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
26 |19 6|19 5|19 4|19 2|19 1|19 0|18 9|18 7|18 6|18 5|18 4|18 3|18 2|18 1|18 0
27 |19 9|19 7|19 6|19 5|19 4|19 2|19 1|19 0|18 9|18 7|18 6|18 5|18 4|18 3|18 2
28 |20 1|20 0|19 8|19 7|19 6|19 5|19 3|19 2|19 1|19 0|18 9|18 7|18 6|18 5|18 4
29 |20 3|20 2|20 1|19 9|19 8|19 7|19 6|19 4|19 3|19 2|19 1|19 0|18 8|18 7|18 6
30 |20 6|20 4|20 3|20 2|20 0|19 9|19 8|19 7|19 5|19 4|19 3|19 2|19 1|18 9|18 8
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
31 |20 8|20 7|20 5|20 4|20 3|20 1|20 0|19 9|19 8|19 6|19 5|19 4|19 3|19 2|19 0
32 |21 0|20 9|20 8|20 6|20 5|20 4|20 2|20 1|20 0|19 8|19 7|19 6|19 5|19 4|19 2
33 |21 2|21 1|21 0|20 8|20 7|20 6|20 4|20 3|20 2|20 0|19 9|19 8|19 7|19 6|19 4
34 |21 5|21 3|21 2|21 0|20 9|20 8|20 6|20 5|20 4|20 2|20 1|20 0|19 9|19 8|19 6
35 |21 7|21 5|21 4|21 2|21 1|21 0|20 8|20 7|20 6|20 4|20 3|20 2|20 1|19 9|19 8
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
36 |21 9|21 7|21 6|21 4|21 3|21 2|21 0|20 9|20 8|20 6|20 5|20 4|20 3|20 1|20 0
37 |22 1|21 9|21 8|21 6|21 5|21 4|21 2|21 1|21 0|20 8|20 7|20 6|20 4|20 3|20 2
38 |22 3|22 1|22 0|21 8|21 7|21 6|21 4|21 3|21 1|21 0|20 9|20 8|20 6|20 5|20 4
39 |22 5|22 3|22 2|22 0|21 9|21 7|21 6|21 5|21 3|21 2|21 1|20 9|20 8|20 7|20 6
40 |22 6|22 5|22 4|22 2|22 1|21 9|21 8|21 6|21 5|21 4|21 2|21 1|21 0|20 9|20 7
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
41 |22 8|22 7|22 5|22 4|22 2|22 1|22 0|21 8|21 7|21 5|21 4|21 3|21 2|21 0|20 9
42 |23 0|22 9|22 7|22 6|22 4|22 3|22 1|22 0|21 9|21 7|21 6|21 5|21 3|21 2|21 1
43 |23 2|23 0|22 9|22 7|22 6|22 5|22 3|22 2|22 0|21 9|21 8|21 6|21 5|21 4|21 2
44 |23 4|23 2|23 1|22 9|22 8|22 6|22 5|22 3|22 2|22 1|21 9|21 8|21 7|21 5|21 4
45 |23 6|23 4|23 2|23 1|22 9|22 8|22 7|22 5|22 4|22 2|22 1|22 0|21 8|21 7|21 6
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
46 |23 7|23 6|23 4|23 3|23 1|23 0|22 8|22 7|22 5|22 4|22 3|22 1|22 0|21 8|21 7
47 |23 9|23 7|23 6|23 4|23 3|23 1|23 0|22 8|22 7|22 6|22 4|22 3|22 1|22 0|21 9
48 |24 1|23 9|23 8|23 6|23 4|23 3|23 1|23 0|22 9|22 7|22 6|22 4|22 3|22 2|22 0
49 |24 2|24 1|23 9|23 8|23 6|23 5|23 3|23 2|23 0|22 9|22 7|22 6|22 4|22 3|22 2
50 |24 4|24 2|24 1|23 9|23 8|23 6|23 5|23 3|23 2|23 0|22 9|22 7|22 6|22 5|22 3
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
51 |24 6|24 4|24 2|24 1|23 9|23 8|23 6|23 5|23 3|23 2|23 0|22 9|22 7|22 6|22 5
52 |24 7|24 6|24 4|24 2|24 1|23 9|23 8|23 6|23 5|23 3|23 2|23 0|22 9|22 8|22 6
53 |24 9|24 7|24 5|24 4|24 2|24 1|23 9|23 8|23 6|23 5|23 3|23 2|23 0|22 9|22 8
54 |25 0|24 9|24 7|24 5|24 4|24 2|24 1|23 9|23 8|23 6|23 5|23 3|23 2|23 0|22 9
55 |25 2|25 0|24 9|24 7|24 5|24 4|24 2|24 1|23 9|23 8|23 6|23 5|23 3|23 2|23 0
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
56 |25 3|25 2|25 0|24 8|24 7|24 5|24 4|24 2|24 1|23 9|23 8|23 6|23 5|23 3|23 2
57 |25 5|25 3|25 2|25 0|24 8|24 7|24 5|24 4|24 2|24 1|23 9|23 8|23 6|23 5|23 3
58 |25 6|25 5|25 3|25 1|25 0|24 8|24 7|24 5|24 3|24 2|24 0|23 9|23 7|23 6|23 5
59 |25 8|25 6|25 4|25 3|25 1|25 0|24 8|24 6|24 5|24 3|24 2|24 0|23 9|23 7|23 6
60 |25 9|25 8|25 6|25 4|25 3|25 1|24 9|24 8|24 6|24 5|24 3|24 2|24 0|23 9|23 7
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
61 |26 1|25 9|25 7|25 6|25 4|25 2|25 1|24 9|24 8|24 6|24 4|24 3|24 1|24 0|23 9
62 |26 2|26 0|25 9|25 7|25 5|25 3|25 2|25 1|24 9|24 7|24 6|24 4|24 3|24 1|24 0
63 |26 4|26 2|26 0|25 8|25 7|25 5|25 3|25 2|25 0|24 9|24 7|24 6|24 4|24 3|24 1
64 |26 5|26 3|26 1|26 0|25 8|25 6|25 5|25 3|25 2|25 0|24 8|24 7|24 5|24 4|24 2
65 |26 6|26 5|26 3|26 1|25 9|25 8|25 6|25 4|25 3|25 1|25 0|24 8|24 7|24 5|24 4
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
66 |26 8|26 6|26 4|26 2|26 1|25 9|25 7|25 6|25 4|25 3|25 1|24 9|24 8|24 6|24 5
67 |26 9|26 7|26 5|26 4|26 2|26 0|25 9|25 7|25 5|25 4|25 2|25 1|24 9|24 8|24 6
68 |27 0|26 9|26 7|26 5|26 3|26 2|26 0|25 8|25 7|25 5|25 4|25 2|25 0|24 9|24 7
69 |27 2|27 0|26 8|26 6|26 5|26 3|26 1|26 0|25 8|25 6|25 5|25 3|25 2|25 0|24 9
70 |27 3|27 1|26 9|26 8|26 6|26 4|26 2|26 1|25 9|25 8|25 6|25 4|25 3|25 1|25 0
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
71 |27 4|27 2|27 1|26 9|26 7|26 5|26 4|26 2|26 0|25 9|25 7|25 6|25 4|25 3|25 1
72 |27 5|27 4|27 2|27 0|26 8|26 7|26 5|26 3|26 2|26 0|25 8|25 7|25 5|25 4|25 2
73 |27 7|27 5|27 3|27 1|27 0|26 8|26 6|26 4|26 3|26 1|26 0|25 8|25 6|25 5|25 3
74 |27 8|27 6|27 4|27 3|27 1|26 9|26 7|26 6|26 4|26 2|26 1|25 9|25 8|25 6|25 4
75 |27 9|27 7|27 6|27 4|27 2|27 0|26 9|26 7|26 5|26 4|26 2|26 0|25 9|25 7|25 6
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CALCULATIONS OF THE PONDERAL INDEX
Statures from 166 to 180 centimetres; weights from 46 to 95 kilograms
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
W k|
e i|
i l|
g i o|
h n g|
t r|
s a| Statures in centimetres
m|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
s| 166| 167| 168| 169| 170| 171| 172| 173| 174| 175| 176| 177| 178| 179| 180
-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
46 |21 6|21 5|21 3|21 2|21 1|21 0|20 8|20 7|20 6|20 5|20 4|20 2|20 1|20 0|19 9
47 |21 7|21 6|21 5|21 4|21 2|21 1|21 0|20 9|20 7|20 6|20 5|20 4|20 3|20 2|20 1
48 |21 9|21 8|21 6|21 5|21 4|21 3|21 1|21 0|20 9|20 8|20 6|20 5|20 4|20 3|20 2
49 |22 0|21 9|21 8|21 7|21 5|21 4|21 3|21 2|21 0|20 9|20 8|20 7|20 6|20 4|20 3
50 |22 2|22 1|21 9|21 8|21 7|21 5|21 4|21 3|21 2|21 1|20 9|20 8|20 7|20 6|20 5
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
51 |22 3|22 2|22 1|21 9|21 8|21 7|21 6|21 4|21 3|21 2|21 1|20 9|20 8|20 7|20 6
52 |22 5|22 4|22 2|22 1|22 0|21 8|21 7|21 6|21 5|21 4|21 3|21 1|21 0|20 9|20 7
53 |22 6|22 5|22 4|22 2|22 1|22 0|21 8|21 7|21 6|21 5|21 4|21 3|21 1|21 0|20 9
54 |22 8|22 6|22 5|22 4|22 2|22 1|22 0|21 9|21 7|21 6|21 5|21 4|21 3|21 1|21 0
55 |22 9|22 8|22 6|22 5|22 4|22 2|22 1|22 0|21 9|21 7|21 6|21 5|21 4|21 3|21 1
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
56 |23 0|22 9|22 8|22 6|22 5|22 4|22 2|22 1|22 0|21 9|21 7|21 6|21 5|21 4|21 3
57 |23 2|23 0|22 9|22 8|22 6|22 5|22 4|22 2|22 1|22 0|21 9|21 7|21 6|21 5|21 4
58 |23 3|23 2|23 0|22 9|22 8|22 6|22 5|22 4|22 2|22 1|22 0|21 9|21 7|21 6|21 5
59 |23 5|23 3|23 2|23 0|22 9|22 8|22 6|22 5|22 4|22 2|22 1|22 0|21 9|21 7|21 6
60 |23 6|23 4|23 3|23 2|23 0|22 9|22 8|22 6|22 5|22 4|22 2|22 1|22 0|21 9|21 7
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
61 |23 7|23 6|23 4|23 3|23 2|23 0|22 9|22 8|22 6|22 5|22 4|22 2|22 1|22 0|21 9
62 |23 8|23 7|23 6|23 4|23 3|23 1|23 0|22 9|22 7|22 6|22 5|22 4|22 2|22 1|22 0
63 |24 0|23 8|23 7|23 5|23 4|23 3|23 1|23 0|22 9|22 7|22 6|22 5|22 4|22 2|22 1
64 |24 1|24 0|23 8|23 7|23 5|23 4|23 3|23 1|23 0|22 9|22 7|22 6|22 5|22 3|22 2
65 |24 2|24 1|23 9|23 8|23 6|23 5|23 4|23 2|23 1|23 0|22 8|22 7|22 6|22 5|22 3
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
66 |24 3|24 2|24 1|23 9|23 7|23 6|23 5|23 4|23 2|23 1|23 0|22 8|22 7|22 6|22 4
67 |24 5|24 3|24 2|24 0|23 9|23 7|23 6|23 5|23 3|23 2|23 1|22 9|22 8|22 7|22 6
68 |24 6|24 4|24 3|24 2|24 0|23 9|23 7|23 6|23 5|23 3|23 2|23 1|22 9|22 8|22 7
69 |24 7|24 6|24 4|24 3|24 1|24 0|23 8|23 7|23 6|23 4|23 3|23 2|23 0|22 9|22 8
70 |24 8|24 7|24 5|24 4|24 2|24 1|24 0|23 8|23 7|23 6|23 4|23 3|23 2|23 0|22 9
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
71 |24 9|24 8|24 6|24 5|24 4|24 2|24 1|23 9|23 8|23 7|23 5|23 4|23 3|23 1|23 0
72 |25 1|24 9|24 8|24 6|24 5|24 3|24 2|24 0|23 9|23 8|23 6|23 5|23 4|23 2|23 1
73 |25 2|25 0|24 9|24 7|24 6|24 4|24 3|24 2|24 0|23 9|23 7|23 6|23 5|23 3|23 2
74 |25 3|25 1|25 0|24 8|24 7|24 5|24 4|24 3|24 1|24 0|23 9|23 7|23 6|23 5|23 3
75 |25 4|25 3|25 1|25 0|24 8|24 7|24 5|24 4|24 2|24 1|24 0|23 8|23 7|23 6|23 4
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
76 |25 5|25 4|25 2|25 1|24 9|24 8|24 6|24 5|24 3|24 2|24 1|23 9|23 8|23 7|23 5
77 |25 6|25 5|25 3|25 2|25 0|24 9|24 7|24 6|24 4|24 3|24 2|24 0|23 9|23 8|23 6
78 |25 7|25 6|25 4|25 3|25 1|25 0|24 8|24 7|24 6|24 4|24 3|24 1|24 0|23 9|23 7
79 |25 8|25 7|25 5|25 4|25 2|25 1|24 9|24 8|24 7|24 5|24 4|24 2|24 1|24 0|23 8
80 |26 0|25 8|25 6|25 5|25 3|25 2|25 1|24 9|24 8|24 6|24 5|24 3|24 2|24 1|23 9
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
81 |26 1|25 9|25 8|25 6|25 5|25 3|25 2|25 0|24 9|24 7|24 6|24 4|24 3|24 2|24 0
82 |26 2|26 0|25 9|25 7|25 6|25 4|25 3|25 1|25 0|24 8|24 7|24 5|24 4|24 3|24 1
83 |26 3|26 1|26 0|25 8|25 7|25 5|25 4|25 2|25 1|24 9|24 8|24 6|24 5|24 4|24 2
84 |26 4|26 2|26 1|25 9|25 8|25 6|25 5|25 3|25 2|25 0|24 9|24 7|24 6|24 5|24 3
85 |26 5|26 3|26 2|26 0|25 9|25 7|25 6|25 4|25 3|25 1|25 0|24 8|24 7|24 6|24 4
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
86 |26 6|26 4|26 3|26 1|26 0|25 8|25 7|25 5|25 4|25 2|25 1|24 9|24 8|24 7|24 5
87 |26 7|26 5|26 4|26 2|26 1|25 9|25 8|25 6|25 5|25 3|25 2|25 0|24 9|24 8|24 6
88 |26 8|26 6|26 5|26 3|26 2|26 0|25 9|25 7|25 6|25 4|25 3|25 1|25 0|24 8|24 7
89 |26 9|26 7|26 6|26 4|26 3|26 1|26 0|25 8|25 7|25 5|25 4|25 2|25 1|24 9|24 8
90 |27 0|26 8|26 7|26 5|26 4|26 2|26 1|25 9|25 8|25 6|23 5|25 3|25 2|25 0|24 9
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
91 |27 1|26 9|26 8|26 6|26 5|26 3|26 2|26 0|25 9|25 7|25 6|25 4|25 3|25 1|25 0
92 |27 2|27 0|26 9|26 7|26 6|26 4|26 2|26 1|25 9|25 8|25 6|25 5|25 4|25 2|25 1
93 |27 3|27 1|27 0|26 8|26 7|26 5|26 3|26 2|26 0|25 9|25 7|25 6|25 5|25 3|25 2
94 |27 4|27 2|27 1|26 9|26 7|26 6|26 4|26 3|26 1|26 0|25 8|25 7|25 5|25 4|25 3
95 |27 5|27 3|27 2|27 0|26 8|26 7|26 5|26 4|26 2|26 1|25 9|25 8|25 6|25 5|25 3
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CALCULATIONS OF THE PONDERAL INDEX
Statures from 181 to 195 centimetres; weights from 46 to 95 kilograms
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
W k|
e i|
i l|
g i o|
h n g|
t r|
s a| Statures in centimetres
m|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
s||181| 182| 183| 184| 185| 186| 187| 188| 189| 190| 191| 192| 193| 194| 195
-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
46 |19 8|19 7|19 6|19 5|19 4|19 3|19 2|19 1|19 0|18 9|18 8|18 7|18 6|18 5|18 4
47 |19 9|19 8|19 7|19 6|19 5|19 4|19 3|19 2|19 1|19 0|18 9|18 8|18 7|18 6|18 5
48 |20 1|20 0|19 9|19 7|19 6|19 5|19 4|19 3|19 2|19 1|19 0|18 9|18 8|18 7|18 6
49 |20 2|20 1|20 0|19 9|19 8|19 7|19 6|19 5|19 4|19 3|19 2|19 1|19 0|18 9|18 8
50 |20 4|20 2|20 1|20 0|19 9|19 8|19 7|19 6|19 5|19 4|19 3|19 2|19 1|19 0|18 9
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
51 |20 5|20 4|20 3|20 2|20 0|19 9|19 8|19 7|19 6|19 5|19 4|19 3|19 2|19 1|19 0
52 |20 6|20 5|20 4|20 3|20 2|20 1|20 0|19 9|19 8|19 6|19 5|19 4|19 3|19 2|19 1
53 |20 8|20 6|20 5|20 4|20 3|20 2|20 1|20 0|19 9|19 8|19 7|19 6|19 5|19 4|19 3
54 |20 9|20 8|20 7|20 5|20 4|20 3|20 2|20 1|20 0|19 9|19 8|19 7|19 6|19 5|19 4
55 |21 0|20 9|20 8|20 7|20 6|20 4|20 3|20 2|20 1|20 0|19 9|19 8|19 7|19 6|19 5
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
56 |21 1|21 0|20 9|20 8|20 7|20 6|20 5|20 4|20 2|20 1|20 0|19 9|19 8|19 7|19 6
57 |21 3|21 1|21 0|20 9|20 8|20 7|20 6|20 5|20 4|20 3|20 2|20 0|19 9|19 8|19 7
58 |21 4|21 3|21 2|21 0|20 9|20 8|20 7|20 6|20 5|20 4|20 3|20 2|20 1|20 0|19 9
59 |21 5|21 4|21 3|21 2|21 0|20 9|20 8|20 7|20 6|20 5|20 4|20 3|20 2|20 1|20 0
60 |21 6|21 5|21 4|21 3|21 2|21 0|20 9|20 8|20 7|20 6|20 5|20 4|20 3|20 2|20 1
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
61 |21 7|21 6|21 5|21 4|21 3|21 2|21 1|20 9|20 8|20 7|20 6|20 5|20 4|20 3|20 2
62 |21 9|21 7|21 6|21 5|21 4|21 3|21 2|21 1|20 9|20 8|20 7|20 6|20 5|20 4|20 3
63 |22 0|21 9|21 7|21 6|21 5|21 4|21 3|21 2|21 1|20 9|20 8|20 7|20 6|20 5|20 4
64 |22 1|22 0|21 9|21 7|21 6|21 5|21 4|21 3|21 2|21 1|20 9|20 8|20 7|20 6|20 5
65 |22 2|22 1|22 0|21 9|21 7|21 6|21 5|21 4|21 3|21 2|21 1|20 9|20 8|20 7|20 6
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
66 |22 3|22 2|22 1|22 0|21 8|21 7|21 6|21 5|21 4|21 3|21 2|21 0|20 9|20 8|20 7
67 |22 4|22 3|22 2|22 1|22 0|21 8|21 7|21 6|21 5|21 4|21 3|21 2|21 0|20 9|20 8
68 |22 6|22 4|22 3|22 2|22 1|21 9|21 8|21 7|21 6|21 5|21 4|21 3|21 2|21 0|20 9
69 |22 7|22 5|22 4|22 3|22 2|22 1|21 9|21 8|21 7|21 6|21 5|21 4|21 3|21 1|21 0
70 |22 8|22 6|22 5|22 4|22 3|22 2|22 0|21 9|21 8|21 7|21 6|21 5|21 4|21 2|21 1
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
71 |22 9|22 8|22 6|22 5|22 4|22 3|22 1|22 0|21 9|21 8|21 7|21 6|21 5|21 3|21 2
72 |23 0|22 9|22 7|22 6|22 5|22 4|22 2|22 1|22 0|21 9|21 8|21 7|21 6|21 4|21 3
73 |23 1|23 0|22 8|22 7|22 6|22 5|22 3|22 2|22 1|22 0|21 9|21 8|21 7|21 5|21 4
74 |23 2|23 1|22 9|22 8|22 7|22 6|22 4|22 3|22 2|22 1|22 0|21 9|21 8|21 6|21 5
75 |23 3|23 2|23 0|22 9|22 8|22 7|22 6|22 4|22 3|22 2|22 1|22 0|21 8|21 7|21 6
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
76 |23 4|23 3|23 1|23 0|22 9|22 8|22 7|22 5|22 4|22 3|22 2|22 1|21 9|21 8|21 7
77 |23 5|23 4|23 2|23 1|23 0|22 9|22 8|22 6|22 5|22 4|22 3|22 2|22 0|21 9|21 8
78 |23 6|23 5|23 3|23 2|23 1|23 0|22 9|22 7|22 6|22 5|22 4|22 3|22 1|22 0|21 9
79 |23 7|23 6|23 4|23 3|23 2|23 1|22 9|22 8|22 7|22 6|22 5|22 3|22 2|22 1|22 0
80 |23 8|23 7|23 5|23 4|23 3|23 2|23 0|22 9|22 8|22 7|22 6|22 4|22 3|22 2|22 1
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
81 |23 9|23 8|23 6|23 5|23 4|23 3|23 1|23 0|22 9|22 8|22 7|22 5|22 4|22 3|22 2
82 |24 0|23 9|23 7|23 6|23 5|23 4|23 2|23 1|23 0|22 9|22 7|22 6|22 5|22 4|22 3
83 |24 1|24 0|23 8|23 7|23 6|23 5|23 3|23 2|23 1|23 0|22 8|22 7|22 6|22 5|22 4
84 |24 2|24 1|23 9|23 8|23 7|23 5|23 4|23 3|23 2|23 1|22 9|22 8|22 7|22 6|22 5
85 |24 3|24 2|24 0|23 9|23 8|23 6|23 5|23 4|23 3|23 1|23 0|22 9|22 8|22 7|22 5
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
86 |24 4|24 3|24 1|24 0|23 9|23 7|23 6|23 5|23 4|23 2|23 1|23 0|22 9|22 8|22 6
87 |24 5|24 3|24 2|24 1|24 0|23 8|23 7|23 6|23 4|23 3|23 2|23 1|23 0|22 8|22 7
88 |24 6|24 4|24 3|24 2|24 0|23 9|23 8|23 7|23 5|23 4|23 3|23 2|23 0|22 9|22 8
89 |24 7|24 5|24 4|24 3|24 1|24 0|23 9|23 7|23 6|23 5|23 4|23 3|23 1|23 0|22 9
90 |24 8|24 6|24 5|24 4|24 2|24 1|24 0|23 8|23 7|23 6|23 5|23 3|23 2|23 1|23 0
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
91 |24 9|24 7|24 6|24 4|24 3|24 2|24 1|23 9|23 8|23 7|23 5|23 4|23 3|23 2|23 1
92 |24 9|24 8|24 7|24 5|24 4|24 3|24 1|24 0|23 9|23 8|23 6|23 5|23 4|23 3|23 2
93 |25 0|24 9|24 8|24 6|24 5|24 4|24 2|24 1|24 0|23 8|23 7|23 6|23 5|23 4|23 2
94 |25 1|25 0|24 8|24 7|24 6|24 4|24 3|24 2|24 1|23 9|23 8|23 7|23 6|23 4|23 3
95 |25 2|25 1|24 9|24 8|24 7|24 5|24 4|24 3|24 1|24 0|23 9|23 8|23 6|23 5|23 4
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
INDEX
(_A.--Names_)
AGYBA, Hilany, 110
Alix, 319
Ammon, 217
Aristotle, 9
Auvard, Alfred, 175
BAJENOFF, N., 250
Bateson, William, 63
Beethoven, Ludwig v., 268
Bellini, 264
Bencivenni, Ildebrando, 15
Benedickt, 446
Bianco, 131
Bichat, Xavier, 183
Binet, Alfred, 184, 217, 219, 223, 230, 231, 235, 244, 250, 273, 274, 275
Bischoff, Theodor L. W., 229
Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich, 320
Bonnifay, Jules, 165, 166, 235
Borghese, Pauline, 267, 270
Botticelli, Sandro, 80
Boxich, G. T., 101, 102
Boyd, 225, 227
Broca, Paul, 1, 2, 201, 208, 210, 212, 213, 221, 228, 229, 243,
250, 251, 254, 321, 364, 377, 382
Brugia, Raffaele, 244, 271, 355
Bruno, Giordano, 340
Buffon, 110
Byron, Lord, 256
CABANIS, 135
Caianus, 110
Calcagni, Menotti, 416
Calori, 229
Camper, 370, 382
Carducci, Giosue, 15, 470
Carrara, Mario, 318
Cassan, 154
Cavalieri, Lina, 264, 267
Celli, 160
Cervesato, 153
Collignon, René, 73, 381
Correns, 50
Cromwell, Oliver, 256
Cuénot, Lucien, 51
Cuvier, 256, 260
DAFFNER, Franz, 138, 236, 237
Dante, 246, 359
Darbishire, 55
Darwin, Charles, 2, 3, 46, 264, 280, 340, 455
Davenport, Charles Benedict, 455
De Giovanni, Achille, 11-14, 17, 96, 98, 99, 101, 364, 428, 465
Deniker, Joseph, 109, 110, 211, 217, 242, 243
De Sanctis, Sante, 146, 149, 151, 156, 281, 319, 352, 408, 409, 425, 446
Dubois, Eugène, 192, 257
Duncan, 173
Dunker, 455
FAWCETTE, 217
Fenelon, 142
Féré, Ch., 301
Ferri, Enrico, 250
Ferriani, Lino, 413
Figueira, Fernandes, 113
Fraebelius, 296
GALTON, Francis, 455
Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 340
Geffroy-Saint-Hilaire, Éttienne, 46
Godin, Paul, 83, 182, 282, 298, 309, 325
Goethe, 469
Goldstein, 284, 296
Gosio, 137
HAECKEL, Ernst Heinrich, 38, 200, 343
Heinke, 455
Helguero, Fernando de, 460
Herodotus, 340
Hertoghe, 155
Höller, von, 208
Homer, 339
Hrdlicka, Ales, 84, 128, 218, 349
Humphry, 200
Huxley, 38
Hurst, C. C., 50
INGERSLEVS, 173
JAEST, 110
James, William, 140
Johannson, 217
KOCH, Robert, 159
Kollman, 210
LALOY, 40
Lamarck, 2, 46
Lange, 140
Lapique, Louis, 257
Lasegue, 146
Lebon, 230, 250
Lelut, 338
Leopardi, 244
Le Play, 452, 453
Lexis, 115
Linnaeus, 2, 320
Livi, Ridolfo, 110, 111, 129, 181, 182, 183, 215, 218, 369, 393, 397, 402
Lombroso, Cesare, 4-10, 11, 14, 17, 67, 101, 103, 244, 257, 339,
340, 341, 343, 351, 384, 411, 416, 445
Lombroso, Gina, 313
Luccheni, 15
Luciani, Luigi, 153
Ludwig, 455
MACDONALD, 85, 167
Mahomed, 135
Malpighi, Marcello, 319
Mancini, Maria, 264
Manouvrier, Léon, 74, 76, 81, 88, 90, 91, 119, 230, 257, 258, 268, 375
Mantegazza, Paolo, 261
Marconi, Guglielmo, 15
Marro, Antonio, 130, 131, 142
Massa, Signorina, 185, 293
Massini, 224, 225
Maurel, 299, 301
Mazzoni, Ofelia, 288
Meckel, 154
Mendel, Gregor, 50, 51, 53, 56, 58, 60, 62, 64, 66, 455, 460
Messedaglia, 257
Meunier, 176
Michelangelo, 340
Mill, John Stuart, 10
Misdea, Michele, 412
Moige, 148
Moleschott, Jakob, 340
Monti, 364
Morel, 6, 339
Morselli, Enrico, 6, 21-23, 319, 344
Mosso, Angelo, 364
Musolino, 15
NAEGELI, Karl Wilhelm von, 46, 47
Newton, Sir Isaac, 398
Niceforo, Alfredo, 19, 127, 182, 184, 253
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 251
OLORIZ, 130
PAGLIANI, 131, 296
Parchappe, 250
Pastorello, 419
Pearson, Karl, 217
Pieraccini, 120, 121
Pinard, 173
Purkinje, 319
QUÉTÉLET, Lambert Adolphe-Jacques, 10, 65, 110, 113, 117, 179, 217,
233, 234, 235, 295, 297, 391, 393, 398, 400, 454, 455, 459, 469
RANKE, 210
Retzius, Anders Adolph, 207, 208, 210, 212, 213
Rosa, 48, 49, 50
Rossi, 345, 347, 348
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 141, 355
Rubens, 80
Russell, 50
Rütimeyer, Louis, 208
SACCHI, 164
Sandler, 118
Schafer, 173
Schiller, 256
Schultze, 38
Séguin, Édouard, 33, 426, 449
Sergi, Giuseppe, 14-21, 60, 62, 109, 202, 205, 207, 208, 209, 243,
270, 323, 327, 371, 428, 450, 451
Sergi, Sergio, 221, 247, 327
Sick, 152, 153
Simon, 223
Stoppato, 153
Stratz, 86, 113
TARDE, 261
Thulié, Henri, 441
Topinard, Paul, 110, 210, 211, 243
Tschermack, E., 50
Türcker, Ada, 412
VERONESE, Paolo, 104
Verworn, 39
Vierordt, 180
Viola, Giacinto, 65, 364, 455, 461, 463, 464, 465, 468
Virchow, Rudolf, 208, 243
Vitali, Vitale, 232, 235
Vitruvius, 315
Voltaire, 140
Vries, Hugo de, 47, 50, 62, 455
WAGNER, 228
Welcker, Hermann, 200, 224, 225
Wernicke, 173
Westermarck, 217
Winckel, 172
ZANDER, 154
Zanolli, Velio, 257
Zimmermann, 314
INDEX
(_B.--Subjects_)
ABDOMEN, measurements of the, 386
Abnormal types of man, 94
Abortion due to syphilis, 157
Akkas, stature of the, 108-09
Acromegalia, 154
Addison's disease, 154
Albinism, 329
Anatomical points, 361, 373, 374, 378, 385
Anger, expression of, 279
Angles, facial, 269, 381-382
Anomalies of buccal apparatus, 336
of ear, 333-335
of eye, 333
of eyebrows and beard, 331
of hair, 330
of nose, 335-336
of pigment, 329
of teeth, 336
of thorax, 300, 301
of wrinkles, 329
Antecedents of pupil, 405 _et seq._
near biopathological, 407
remote, 406
sociological, 411
Anthropological form used in New York Juvenile Asylum, 421
Anthropology, criminal, 4-11
defined, 1
physiological, 11-14
technique of, 361-387
Anthropometer, 362-363
Ape, brain of, 229
Arms, total spread of, 69, 74, 310, 367
Arrest of development, 145-170, 295
due to alcohol, 156
due to infant illnesses, 162
due to malaria, 160-161
due to pellagra, 161
due to rickets, 164
due to syphilis, 157
Asymmetry, cranial, 196, 372
facial, 271, 282, 346, 383
functional, 271
BIOGRAPHIC chart, Commune of Bologna, 431
of Italian reformatories, 432
Pastorello's, 420
Sergi's, 429
Biographic history of pupil, 404
pedagogical advantages of, 441
of an idiot boy, 431 _et seq._
Birth-marks, 329
Brachycephalic races, 214
Brachydactylism, 317
Brachyscelia, 82-91
Brain, chemistry of, 247
convolutions of, 221-223
embryonal development of, 220-221
morphological normality in relation to age, 237
rhythm of growth of, 225-227
volume of, 229
weight of, 224
Brunettes, suppressed, 324
Buccal apparatus, anomalies of, 336
CALF of leg, absence of, 311
Carnet maternel, 174-175, 273
Cells, animal, 43
vegetable, 43
Cephalic index, 207-220
at different ages, 217
for Italy, 214
nomenclature, 210-211
Cephalometry, 370
Cephaloscopy, 370
Cerebral development, influence of biological factor upon, 255
influence of economic conditions, 253
influence of exercise, 254
Cerebral hypophysis, 152, 153
Cervical pleiades, 157
Chameprosopic face, 263, 265
Chiromancy, 312, 318
Childbirth, dangerous modern, 307
Children's Houses, 123-124, 138, 143-145, 280, 288, 422, 423, 443
Chinese, civilization of, 91-92
psycho-ethnic character of, 77
Chromatic charts, Broca's, 321
Circumference, axillary, 385
of cranium, 233-242, 376
submammary, 385
of thorax, 368, 385
Club-foot, 312
Convolutions of the brain, 222-223
Coordinates, 394
Craniology, 186-283
Craniometric points, 373-374
Craniometry, 370, 373
Cranioscopic norms, 371-372
Cranioscopy, 370
Cranium, animal, 189
bones of human, 187-188
characteristics of human, 191-192
measurements of, 369-385
morphological evolution of, 197
of new-born child, 197
normal forms of, 202
ossification of, 200-201
varieties of:
acrocephalic, 207, 374
beloid, 205
clinocephalic, 207, 372
cuboid, 205
cymbocephalic, 372
ellipsoid, 203
ovoid, 203-204
oxycephalic, 372
pentagonoid, 204
plagiocephalic, 196, 372
platycephalic, 205
rhomboid, 204
scaphocephalic, 196, 372
sphenoid, 205
spheroid, 205
trapezoid, 206
trigonocephalic, 371
volume of, 220-259, 377
Criminals, non-violent, types of, 101-102
violent, types of, 102
stature in, types of, 101, 103
Cubic index, Broca's, 377
Curves, De Helguero's, 460
DEFORMATIONS, definition of, 344
due to field labour, 121
due to mining, 121
due to school benches, 122, 302, 307, 349
due to stone-breaking, 121
Degeneration, signs of:
abnormal frontal diameters, 384
kinky hair, 330
polytrichia, 330
precocious wrinkles, 330
united eyebrows, 331
social causes of, 6
Dentition, record of first, 410
Diameter, biacromial, 385
bigoniac, 379, 383
bimammillary, 385
bizygomatic, 379, 383
of cranium, maximum antero-posterior, 374
Diameter of cranium, maximum transverse, 375
minimum frontal, 384
vertical, 375
of thorax, antero-posterior, 385
transverse, 385
Diameter of cranium, increase of maximum, 231
measurement of, 374
Diastemata, 337
Diet of children, 127
Dimensions of the body at different ages, 146-147
Dismimia, 282
Dolichocephalic races, 214
Dystrophies, toxical, 162
EAR, anatomy of, 334
anomalies of, 333-335
handle-shaped, 346
Morel's, 335
Wildermuth's, 335
Education of new-born child, 442
Electricity, effect on growth of stature, 139
Embryo, development of human, 45, 72
Embryonal face, 272
Environment, adaptation to, 79
influence of, 415
Enzymes, 154, 155
Ludwig's theory of, 42
Epilepsy, 136
a factor in criminality, 445
treatment of, 446
Error, personal, 387-390, 457
Eurafrican race, 214, 270
Eurasian race, 79, 214, 323
Evolution, theories of, 46-50
Exophthalmia, 333
Experimental sciences defined, 23
Expression, facial, 276 et seq.
Extra-social types, 103-105
Eye, anomalies of, 333
Mongolian, 333
Eyebrows, oblique, 331
united, 331
FACE, chameprosopic, 262
embryonal, 272
evolution of, 272
human characteristics of, 260
leptoprosopic, 262
limits of, 259 _et seq._
mesoprosopic, 263
orbicular, 263
skeleton of, 188-189
symmetry of, 383
Facial norm, 378
Family monograph, Le Play's, 452
Final causes, 40-42
Fingers, proportion between, 316
Flat-foot, 311
Fontanelles, cranial, 197
Form, the, 67-75, 361-369
canons of the, 74 et seq.
definition of, 69
fundamental laws of, 69
Freckles, 329
Frontal index, 232
GALLOWAY, stature of Scotchmen of, 108-109
Gastrula, 45
Generation, hygiene of, 173, 176
Genius, man of, 264, 469, 476
Germinal potentialities, 63, 64
Gigantism, 104
Glands of internal secretion, 151-155, 163, 164
Goniometer, Broca's, 382
Gray hair, 326, 330
precocious, 330
Growth, defined, 81
effect of psychic stimuli on, 140-145
need of heat for, 132
of brain, due to alimentation, 245
due to cerebral exercise, 245
in woman, 227
rhythm of, 225, 226, 227
of head, rhythms of, 274
of limbs, 309
of neck, 282
of pelvis, 306
of stature, 112-114
of thorax, 294
HAIR, curly, 327, 328
form of, 327-329
kinky, 327, 328
pigmentation of, 323-325, 327
smooth, 327
vortices, 330
wavy, 327, 328
Hair-roots, line of, 330
Hand, the, 312-319
dimensions of, 315
functional characteristics of, 316
in figurative speech, 313-314
in relation to other dimensions of the body, 315
psychological types of, 314
Heart, the, 285
Heredity, phenomena of, 50
Hexadactylism, 317
Hybridism, human, 60-65, 78, 79, 351, 467, 471
phenomena of, 51-67
Hygiene of generation, 173, 176
Hymn to bread, 126
Hypermimia, 281
Hypersthenic type, De Giovanni's, 99-100
Hyposthenic type, De Giovanni's, 96-98
Hypothyroidea, 153
ICHTHYOSIS, 329
Index, cephalic, 207-220, 376
of ear, 380
facial, 380-381
of nose, 380
ponderal, 368
of segments of limbs, 310
of sexual mass, 257
thoracic, 299, 385
of visage, 263
vital, 296, 368
Indices, formula of, 367
Individual liberty of pupil, 123
Infantile atrophy, 153
types, 147-151
Infantilism, 146-164
due to alcohol, 156-157
anangioplastic, 162
due to denutrition, 162
dystrophic, 155-162
hereditary causes of, 155
hypertrophic, 162
myxedematous, 153, 155-156
pathogenesis of, 151 _et seq._
due to syphilis, 157, 158
due to tuberculosis, 159
Intelligence, human, what it is, 252
human, how to diagnose it, 253
cerebral volume in relation to, 250
Invagination of cells, 43
Iris, pigmentation of, 325
Italians, stature of, 110-111
JAPANESE, stature of, 110
Joints, loose and stiff, 311
Juvenile delinquents, antecedents of, 413
psycho-physical character of, 413
teachers' notes on, 414
Knock-knees, 312
Kyphosis, 303, 306
LATIUM, young women of, 65, 78, 111, 216, 466
Leg, calf of, 311
curvature of, 312
Leptoprosopic face, 262
Liberty of children, 144
Light, effect on growth of stature, 136, 138
Limbs, the, 308-319
growth of, 309
index of segments of, 310
malformations of, 310
measurement of, 386
Limitations of mass, 40-42
Little's disease, 312, 408
Livi's charts, 110, 393
Lordosis, 303, 306
Lungs, the, 286-287
MACROCEPHALY, 243
Macrodontia, 337
Macroglossia, 338
Macroplastic type, 119
Macroscelia, 77, 88-90
Malformations, 331-350
distribution of, 344-350
of cranium, 195-6
of limbs, 310
origin of, 355
synoptic chart of, 332
Marie's disease, 154
Marriage, proper age for, 118
precocious, 117
Maternal diaries, 409
Mean averages, 391
Measurement of abdomen, 386
of cranium, 375-377
of face, 378-385
of limbs, 386-387
of stature, 362-366
of thorax, 385
of total spread of arms, 367
Medial man, theory of the, 65, 454-470
Mediterranean race, 79, 214, 264, 270, 323
Melanosis, 329
Mendel's laws, 50-59
Mesoprosopic face, 263
Metabolism, 40-42, 124
Method, importance of, in experimental sciences, 23-30
Methodology, statistical, 391-403
Microcephaly, 243
Microdontia, 337
Microphthalmia, 333
Mongolians the most brachyscelous race, 77
Monkey-like traits:
flat hand, 317
lack of certain lines in palm, 318
Monkey-like, long forearm, 310
thin lips, 336
Morphological adaptation of hand, 314
combinations, De Giovanni's, 65
evolution of cranium, 197
Morphology of body at various ages, 146-147
of the brain, 247
importance of, 338
Mortality, curve of general, 115
infant, in relation to vital index, 296
in Italy, 293
Morula, 44
Mother's love, psychic stimulus of, 142
Multicellular organisms, formation of, 42-46
Muscles of head and face, 277-278
of thorax, 285
Mutations, De Vries' theory of, 47
Myxedematous idiocy, 153
NAILS, the, 317
Nanism, achondroplastic, 103-105
Neanderthal skull, 192
Neck, the, 282-283
Norm, facial, 378
frontal, 372
lateral, 372
occipital, 372
of profile, 379
vertical, 371
Nose, anomalies of, 335-336
Nutrition, influence of, on school children, 418
OLIGODACTYLIA, 316
Onycogryposis, 317
Orientation, line of, 265
Orthognathism, 268, 271
Ovum, human, 44
PALATE, cleft, 272
ogival, 338, 352
Palms, lines of the, 318
Papillary lines, 319
Paralysis, infantile, 408
Parasites, social duty towards, 168
Parasitism, stigma of, 314, 317
Peasant, class stigma of, 271, 326, 346
Pedagogical method, need of reform in, 123, 144, 302
Pellagra, symptoms of, 161
Pelvis, 304-307
growth of, 306
rotation of, 307
sexual differences in, 305
skeleton of, 304
Personal error, 387-390, 457
Photogenic conditions, 136-138
Phototherapy, 136
Pia Barolo society, 131
Pigments, the, 320-331
during growth, 323
Pigmentation of hair, 326
of iris, 325
of skin, 325
Pigmy races, 109
Pithecanthropus, skull of, 192
Plagiocephalic cranium, 196, 372
Plagioprosopy, 271, 383
Platyopic profile, 271
Playthings, children's natural contempt for, 143
Pleasure, expression of, 279
necessary to human existence, 141
Polytrichia, 330
Polydactylism, 317
Ponderal index, 181
evolution of, 183, 184
method of computing, 181-183
Pregnancy, too frequent, 173
Profile, Egyptian, 270
Greek, 269
low types of, 271
norm of, 379
proopic, 271
Roman, 269
Progeneism, 267, 385
Prognathism, 267, 268, 385
Prophatnia, 385
Prosopometry, 379-385
Prosoposcopy, 378-379
Protoplasm, 38
Psychic stimuli, effect on health of children, 144
test, De Sanctis', 425
Puberty, change in pigments at, 323, 326
growth of jaw at, 274
of limbs at, 310
of nose at, 274
influence of climate on, 135-136
of cold on, 132
of direct sexual stimuli on, 131
of heat on, 135
of nutrition on, 130-132
of psychic stimuli on, 134, 141, 142
repose preceding, 115
of Russian girls, 135
of women of Lapland, 135
relation of growth of brain and face to, 230
Pulmonary capacity, 288-294
QUÉTÉLET'S binomial curve, 398
RACE, Eurafrican, 214, 270
Mediterranean, 79, 214, 264, 270, 323
Rachitic rosary, 302
Racial types in Europe, different characteristics of two principal, 353
Rewards and punishments, fallacy of, 123, 144-145, 432, 441, 443
Rhythm of brain growth, 232-236
of facial growth, 274
of stature, triennial, 113
Rickets, 97, 103, 164-166, 244, 268, 296, 302
foetal, 103
SCHOOL benches, deformations due to, 122, 302, 307, 349
records, 411
School-sanatorium, 160
Scientific philosophy, Morselli's, 21
Sea-shore, benefit to children, 136-137
Seriation, 396
importance of, 455
Sexual education, 356
function, dignity of the, 126
morality, 117, 126, 473-476
Sitting stature, 365-366
at different ages, 85
Skeleton, human, 71-72
articulations of, 107
of face, 188-189
of limbs, 308
of pelvis, 304
Skin, the, 320-344
Solitary confinement, 141
Sorrow, expression of, 278
Space, empirical relation to stature, 139
Specific gravity, of body, 178
of brain, 229
Spirometry, 288-294, 385
Stature, 106-171
of abnormals, 167
according to sex, 80 _et seq._
of American children, 128
brachyscelous type of, 75
cycle of, 363
definition of, 70, 106, 362
in relation to dimensions of thorax, 295-297
effect of nutrition on, 124-132
of erect position on, 120
of heat on, 132-136
essential, 73
mean average, of European, 459
growth in, during first year, 112-113
index of, 84, 366, 367
involution of, 114
of Italians, mean average, 392
Stature, Livi's charts of, 110-111
macroscelous type of, 76
maximums and minimums, compared
with cranial circumference, 238-242
measurement of, 362
parabolic curve of, 112, 114
pathological variations of, 145-170
of rachitic children, 165
racial limits of, 108-111
in relation to sex, 111-112
rhythm of, 86
summary of, 170-171
terminology of, 110
total, at different ages, 85
triennial rhythm of growth of, 113-114
types of, 67 _et seq._
abnormal, 91
according to age, 81
in art, 80
according to race, 77
according to social conditions, 79
summary of, 105-106
variations in, according to age, 112-118
according to seasons, 138
due to mechanical causes of adaptation, 119-124
night and morning, 119
transitory, 120
Sterility of dwarfs and giants, 104
due to precocious marriage, 117
due to work in rice-fields, 121
Stigmata of degeneration, 342
among beggars, 348
among orphans, 348
Stimulants poisons for children, 127
Studious children, denutrition of, 185
physical inferiority of, 25, 159, 185, 293
Sun-baths, 137
Superiority, social, 258
of women, moral, 259
Suprarenal capsule, 152, 154
Surprise, expression of, 279-280
Syndactylism, 317
Syphilis, abortion due to, 157
symptoms of, 157-158
TASMANIAN, civilization of, 92-93
most macroscelous race, 77
Teacher of the future, the, 360
of abnormal pupils, 449
responsibility of the, 116
Teeth, anomalies of the, 336
first and second dentition, 336
Temperaments, De Giovanni's doctrine of, 12-14
Thermal gymnastics, 133-134
Thermic conditions of schools, 132-135
Thoracic index, 299
perimeter, 368
Thorax, the, 284-303
anatomical parts of, 284-286
anomalies of shape of, 301
descent of, 294
dimensions of, in relation to stature, 295, 297
growth of, 294
measurement of, 385
physiological importance of, 286
shape of, 299
triangulation of, 295
Thought, expression of, 280
Thymus gland, 152, 153
Thyroid gland, 152-153
Toe, opposable big, 311
Tongue, the, 338
Total spread of arms, 367
Tuberculosis, 291
Type of civilized man, 468
UVULA, double, 338
VERTEBRAL column, normal curves of, 107-108
Visage, index of, 263
normal, 262
Roman, 263
Vital index, 296, 368
Voice, education of the, 287-288
WARMTH, fallacy of demoralizing effect of, 133-134
Weight, the, 172-185, 368
of brain, 224
the, as exponent of health, 172
of new-born child, 172
of child, effect of too frequent pregnancy on, 173
of child, effect of mother's age on, 173
child's gain in, 174
and growth of separate organs, comparative, 180
child's loss in, significance of, 176
increase according to sex, 179
Women, fallacy of pretended cerebral inferiority of, 256
Wrinkles, anomalies of, 329
precocity of, 326, 329
Transcriber's Notes:
Simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors were corrected.
Punctuation normalized.
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2)/(denominator 1+denominator 2).
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by the expression under the root bar in parenthesis, e.g. [*cube
root](8)=2.
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