WEIGHT INCREASE AND INCREASE IN STATURE. 83 



school-children, to whom the summer season brought 

 an increase in outdoor life and a respite from school 

 work, as well as a change in meteorological conditions. 

 Yet if season is here the important condition it follows 

 that the children in the northern hemisphere have, like 

 plants, a growing period the reverse of those in the 

 southern ; but on this point there are as yet no observa- 

 tions. The various and careful observations of Camerer 1 

 have shown that a child of ten years is 700 grms. 

 lighter and 2 cms. taller in the morning after a night's 

 rest, and that during the day it is losing in stature and 

 gaming in weight. Of course in this case not all the 

 apparent gain in stature is lost during the following day, 

 neither is it probable that the loss in weight at night 

 reduces the total weight to the point at which it was the 

 morning before, but it is extremely difficult, on account 

 of the many sources of error, to directly determine these 

 increments within such short intervals, and for these 

 reasons we really know nothing of daily increase in 

 weight or stature. With this review of general growth 

 the matter must be left, in order that the more special 

 questions relating to the nervous system may be taken 

 up. 



1 Camerer, Jahrb.f. Kinderh.^ Leipzig, 1893. 



