GENETIC TYPE AND THE ENDOCRINES 15 



The Pekingese and the French bulldog, which are among 

 the several breeds exhibiting achondroplasia, have wide, 

 rounded heads with nose and muzzle that are short and set 

 back, giving the flat-faced physiognomy. The legs of the 

 Pekingese are short and show a peculiar twisting due to 

 spiral rather than straight long bone growth. This twisting 

 is very noticeable in the fore legs, the hind legs showing it 

 to a slight degree only. The extreme shortness of legs causes 

 the body of the animal to appear unusually long. In the 

 French bulldog, the legs are not noticeably achondroplasic 

 but the tail is decidedly short and twisted, a result of dis- 

 torted growth with ankylosis of caudal vertebrae. In the 

 Pekingese, the tail escapes the modification almost completely, 

 being well developed and carried curled gracefully over the 

 rump. 



The human stocky dwarf is round headed or brachycephalic. 

 The nose bridge is flat and the palatal region shortened, 

 causing the mandible to protrude beyond the upper jaw and 

 producing the so-called "undershot" condition. The face is 

 characteristically wide and flat with sunken nasion, making 

 the appearance commonly termed "dish-faced." Such a 

 physiognomy is comparable in every detail to the face of the 

 bulldog and the Pekingese. 



The coccygeal vertebrae are fused and bent in direction in 

 some human dwarfs and resemble the like condition in the 

 bulldogs. We possess the skeleton of such a specimen in the 

 collections at Cornell University. 



The extremities of the human achondroplasic are short 

 and considerably bowed and twisted. As a rule the proximal 

 segment of both extremities, the humerus and femur, are 

 more shortened than the forearm and leg; the hands and feet 

 may lie simply stocky and wide in appearance yet the long 

 bones in both are comparatively short. The posture of the 

 hands and feet tends to abduct or outspread the digits to 

 varying degrees. The arms and hands of the achondroplasic 

 person are moved in a characteristic manner. The hand can- 

 not be brought to the mouth without abducting and raising 



