^84 SCIENCE IN AFRICA 



holism of natives, though of considerable academic interest, are 

 not perhaps immediately required, because carbohydrate food to 

 give calories is always the least expensive part of a diet, and this 

 is particularly so with the type of food usually available for native 

 races. An inquiry into the general metabolism of natives is, how- 

 ever, of the greatest importance in elucidating how the African 

 differs from the known standards of Europeans. Research on these 

 lines would require accurate biological, biochemical, and bio- 

 physical estimations, involving work both in the laboratory and 

 the field, with the clinician and the pathologist assisting with the 

 provision of normal and pathological material. Such work has 

 been started at the medical research laboratories both in Kenya 

 and Tanganyika, but results have not yet reached the stage of 

 publication. 



The subject of the African's development has recently come 

 before the public notice after the publication of Dr. H. L. Gordon's 

 and Dr. F. W. Vint's preliminary results in Kenya, and of the 

 former's appeal for funds to extend the work. 



It has been recognized for many years by physical anthropo- 

 logists that the average size of the brain, like that of any other 

 measurable characteristic, varies among different population 

 groups. Dr. Gordon's work includes the further attempt to com- 

 pare the rate of brain growth among natives and Europeans. His 

 data, which are admittedly of a preliminary nature, show that at 

 ten years old the average native brain is much smaller than the 

 European, and that it grows at about half speed until at twenty 

 years it is about the size of the European brain at ten years. A 

 secondary point of more importance is that growth of the native 

 brain is arrested at the time of puberty and continues afterwards 

 at reduced rate, while in Europeans growth is accelerated after 

 the onset of puberty. 



The direct correlation between size of brain and intelligence 

 cannot be presumed, and indeed there are many experts who 

 would deny any correlation whatever, but some preliminary his- 

 tological work gives Gordon's results greater significance. The 

 work on brain measurements on living natives was coupled with 

 macroscopical and microscopical examinations by Dr. Vint (1934), 

 pathologist to the Kenya Government, who claims to have shown 



