﻿NO. I NATIVES OF KHARGA OASIS — HRDLICKA 4 1 



ischia 47.1 per cent of the total height; while among the typically 

 brachycephalic Apache these proportions were respectively 53.2 and 

 46.8 per cent. 1 In twenty apparently full blood male American 

 negroes, measured by the writer, the same proportions were respec- 

 tively 51.4 and 48.6 per cent. 



The range of variation in the relative proportions of the height 

 above and that below the ischia in the Kharga natives is remark- 

 able. Each of these proportions is evidently influenced by numerous 

 factors which do not act with equal effect on the other. 



A research into the influences capable of modifying these propor- 

 tions was possible in one important direction : the effects of the low- 

 est and the highest statures. It has been shown already that the 

 lowest statures, where not due to senility, stand often in close con- 

 nection with weaker muscles and prolonged general poor nutrition, 

 while in the case of the highest statures, the case is often the reverse. 

 And the lowest statures, as will be shown in the next table, are also 

 frequently accompanied with a subaverage relative length of the 

 lower limbs, whereas in the tallest individuals the length infra ischia 

 is perceptibly above the average. These conditions suggest that the 

 main causative agencies of low statures, and probably above all 

 chronic poor nutrition, affect adversely the length of the lower limbs 

 more than that of the rest of the body, while favorable conditions of 

 growth, especially, in all probability, good nutrition, cause in general 

 a proportionately greater development in length of the lower limbs. 

 The body supra ischia is the more stable portion, as regards length, 

 of the human organism. There are indications that these conditions 

 are not restricted to the Kharga natives, but will find a much wider 

 anthropological application. 



Physiological and Medical Observations, etc.," p. 112 et seq. 



