518 THE STATURE OP MAN AT VARIOUS EPOCHS. 



of gigantic size do appear from time to time, a systematic study of 

 the subject should be undertaken and would yield invaluable results. 

 The research begins by investigating the significance and reason for 

 the existence of these monstrous beings, and ends by learning why 

 they can not reproduce and perpetuate colossal creatures like them- 

 selves. 



Two sciences, anthropology and medicine, control the study of 

 the subject, and the progress of our knowledge in the matter is due 

 to both of them. The present article will deal with the subject 

 chiefly from the anthropological standpoint, more especially in the 

 light thrown upon it by contemporaneous anthropological research. 

 The part which medical science played in explaining the causes of 

 aberrations from the normal size is sufficiently definite and limited 

 to warrant separate examination without inconvenience to the 

 student. A word or two about it here will, therefore, be enough. 



Anthropologists have applied the rule and compass to the study 

 of primitive man, and they have measured in whole and in part the 

 remains of our ancestors that lived in tlie geologic ages, the humble 

 hewers of stone from the Quaternary age up to the dawn of the 

 present era. Popular fancy exaggerated their size immoderatel}^, 

 for anthropologists, through the implements of an exact science, 

 have found that instead of being giants they were men of only 

 mediocre height. Anthropologists have also unearthed skeletons of 

 men that lived since the beginning of the historic period, and meas- 

 urements here, too, have proved that the average height of man 

 shows no tendency to diminish. Scientists, then, by careful methods 

 of measurement have furnished evidence in favor of the truth that 

 Jean Riolan tried to establish as early as the beginning of the seven- 

 teenth century, and which he clearly expresses in the title of one of 

 his works published in 1G18, Discourse on the Height of Giants, 

 in which it is shown that in all times, even the most ancient, the 

 tallest men and the giants were no bigger than the giants of the 

 present day. 



To come back to the bearing of medical science upon the subject, 

 it is medicine which has most recent Iv thrown light upon the question 

 of giants, and medicine maintains tliat to it belongs the studv of 

 giants in the present day, the i-are few that now and then apjiear. 

 Giants are men AA'hose development instead of pursuing a normal 

 course has undergone a morbid deviation, and Avhose mitrition has 

 been perverted. They are dystrophic. Their great stature shows 

 that one i^art has gained at the loss of another; it is a symptom of 

 their infei'iority in the struggle for existence. Their condition is not 

 only a variation from the ordinary conditions of development — that 

 is to say, they are '' congenital monsters," the study of which belongs 

 to the science of teratology — but it is a variation also froui a state of 



