ITALIAN ANTHROPOMETRY. 427 



of 145 mms. (57*1 inches) or less. There can be no doubt 

 that a great part of those thus rejected for deficient stature, 

 probably the majority of them, were also goitrous, but Dr. 

 Livi contents himself with the moderate estimate that 40 

 per cent, of the young male population are thus afflicted. 

 The effect of this in lowering the average stature of the 

 recruits presented for examination is great, so great that 

 their average stature in Aosta is only 1603 mms. (63 # i 

 inches), which is simply identical with that in the district of 

 Cosenza, among the dwarfish Calabrians. Yet the type of 

 stature, as Livi calls it, the stature, that is, as determined 

 by what we call race or heredity, and exhibited by healthy 

 persons, is comparatively tall. The curve of stature, though 

 beginning very early, and rising irregularly with many 

 oscillations, does not actually culminate below 1650 mms. 

 (65 inches), whereas that of Cosenza culminates somewhere 

 about 1600 mms. (63 inches). And the percentage of tall 

 men (1700 mms.) among the soldiers from Aosta is 19*5, 

 about the average of Piedmont, and of short men (under 

 1600 mms.) 1 8" 1, whereas the figures for Cosenza are 11*5 

 and 23 - 2. 



Livi carries on the comparison, matching other pairs of 

 districts, healthy with unhealthy, goitrous with non-goitrous, 

 as Sondrio with Benevento, and Clusone with Foligno. 

 The results are strictly analogous ; and he shrewdly remarks 

 that the previous rejection of the pathologically dwarfish or 

 diseased leaves behind a mass of material all the better 

 fitted for investigation into the influences of race and media. 



The effects of malaria and of pellagra on the stature 

 are much more difficult to ascertain. Livi singles out the 

 district of Grosseto, on the -low, marshy coast of Tuscany, 

 as probably the most malaria-infested in the whole country ; 

 but there is nothing very remarkable therein as to stature 

 or complexion, and the proportion of conscripts rejected is 

 below the average of the kingdom ! There is room here 

 for further investigation. One has heard or read much 

 about physical degeneracy in fever-stricken districts like the 

 Sologne, but countervailing examples may easily be found, 

 such as the proverbial beauty and fine development of the 



