Ill] OF GROWTH IN INFANCY 115 



the same curves meet us again and again in the growth of other 

 organisms. The pre-natal growth of the guinea-pig is just the 

 same*. We have the same essential features, the same S-shaped 

 curve, in the growth by weight of an ear of maize (Fig. 19), or the 

 growth in length of the root of a bean (Fig. 20); in both we see 

 the same slow beginning, the rate rapidly increasing to a maximum, 

 and the subsequent slowing down or "negative acceleration "f." 

 One phase passes into another; so far as these curves go, they 

 exhibit growth as a continuous process, with its beginning, its 

 middle and its end— a continuity which Sachs recognised some 

 seventy years ago, and spoke of as the "grand period of growth J." 

 But these simple curves relate to simple instances, to the infant 

 sheltered in the womb, or to plant-growth in the sunny season of 

 the year. They mark a favourable episode, rather than relate the 

 course of a lifetime. A curve of growth to run all life long is only 

 simple in the simplest of organisms, and is usually a very complex 

 affair. 



Growth in length of Vallisneria^, and root ofbean\\ 

 and weight of ntaize^ 



8 790 93 74 



It would seem to be a natural rule, that those offspring which 

 are most highly organised at birth are those which are born largest 



* See R. L. Draper, Anat. Record, xviii,"p. 369, 1920; cf. Needham, op. cil., 

 p. 1672. 



t *^f. R. Chodat et A. Monnier; Sur la courbe de croissance chez les vegetaux. 

 Bull. Herbier Boissier (2), v, p. 615, 1905. 



X Arbeiten a. d. bot. Instit. Wiirzburg, i, p. 569, 1872. 



§ A. Bennett, Trans. Linn. Soc. (2), i (Bot.), p. 133, 1880. 



II Sachs, I.e. 



^ Stefanowska, op. cit. ; G. Backman, Ergebn. d. Physiologie, xxiii, p. 925, 193j 



