196 H. M. Sinclair 



faced, and seated in contented contemplation of its folds of 

 flesh. During the past several years there has V)een a marked 

 increase in the rate of orowtli of children, although in England 

 and the ILS. the adult male height has remained unchanged. 

 It has not been shown that this increase in rate is necessarily 

 advantageous; indeed it may be undesirable since the long 

 time taken to reach maturity is characteristic of the human 

 genus". Morant (1950) has assembled an impressive number 

 of data from which he has concluded that the maximum mean 

 height of British men is attained earlier but is not greater than 

 it was a century ago. 



These conclusions of Morant have been criticised by Boyne 

 and Leitch (1954). The layman of course feels convinced 

 that Englishmen are now taller than their ancestors; they hit 

 their heads on beams of old houses and surviving suits of 

 armour are too small for the average man. But the argument, 

 weak as it is, from the size of armour might be fallacious 

 because of the tendency for small suits to survive. First, if 

 the smaller suits were in fact inconveniently small they would 

 be used less and would wear out later. Secondly, as ancestors 

 moved from castle to manor to house to cottage, the smallest 

 suits would tend to remain in the family since they would 

 need less cleaning, occupy less room and be less valuable 

 as scrap metal. 



Over a century ago Edmonds (1832) produced "a new 

 theory of the cause producing health and longevity". He 

 believed that hardship in youth tended to decrease the rate of 

 maturing, and estimated that an increase of a year in the 

 duration of infancy could increase the life-span by seven 

 years. In lower animals various workers have shown that 

 underfeeding during the growing period delays maturity and 

 lengthens life. Kellogg and Bell (1903) prolonged by this 

 means the time required for metamorphosis by silkworm larvae, 

 and Pictet (1905a, b) did the same in butterflies; Chapman 

 (1920) prolonged the life cycle of Tribolium co7ifusum by 

 inanition. Northrup (1917) found that inadequate feeding 

 of Drosophila during the larval period prolonged this period 



