Ill] 



OF HUMAN STATURE 



97 



comes to an end * ; but it does so subject to certain important changes 

 and interruptions, which are much the same whether we draw them 

 from Quetelet's Belgian data, or from the British, American and 

 other statistics of later writers. The curve falls fast and steadily 

 during the first couple of years of the child's hfe (a). It runs nearly 

 level during early boyhood, from four or five years old to nine or 

 ten (6). Then, after a brief but unmistakable period of depression! 

 during which growth slows down still more (c), the boy enters on 



Annual increments of stature and of weight in man 

 {After Quetelet; see Table, p. 90) 



his teens and begins to "grow out of his clothes"; it is his "growing 

 age", and comes to its height when he is about thirteen or fourteen 

 years old (d). The lad goes on growing in stature for some years more, 

 but the rate begins to fall off (e), and soon does so with great rapidity. 

 The corresponding curve of increments in weight is not very 

 different from that for stature, but such differences as there are 



* As Haller observed it to do in the chick f "Hoc iterum incrementum miro 

 ordine distribuitur, ut in principio incubationis maximum est; inde perpetuo 

 minuatur" {Elementa Pkysiologiae, viii, p. 294). Or as Bichat says, "II y a 

 surabondance de vie dans I'enfant" {Sur la Vie et la Mort, p. 1). 



t This depression, or slowing down before puberty, seems to be a universal 

 phenomenon, common to all races of men. It is a curious thing that Quetelet's 

 "adjusted figures" (which I used in my first edition) all but smooth out of 

 recognition this characteristic feature of his own observations. 



