Manchester Memoirs, Vol. hi. (191 2), A^^. 5. 9 



has reached 15 or 16. He comes with a good bodily 

 frame, a good record of character and intelligence, and it 

 is quite easy to miss detecting the exact point where his 

 development has been interfered with, and to think with an 

 apparently fully grown physique we have an individuality 

 unimpaired by early disease. 



Physical growth may be influenced by damage to 

 groiving tissues caused by acute infectious diseases in early 

 life. Of all tissues in the body the brain is, perhaps, the 

 most sensitive to factors which impair or impede growth 

 during infancy and early childhood, though I admit that 

 the lungs and the chest are also very sensitive to injurious 

 influences, particularly at a later period. If such advan- 

 tageous conditions occur during the later growth of the 

 boy that there is apparent disappearance of all the 

 injurious factors which at one time influenced growth, 

 innate vigour may re-assert itself, and we get the pheno- 

 menon of an exceptionally good physical build with an 

 exceptionally delayed brain development — a man in frame, 

 but a boy in mind. This is not uncommon. Some of 

 the most marked instances of this condition I have found 

 in boys who had suffered from chronic ear trouble, causing 

 abscesses which spread to the bones of the skull, and 

 interfering for the time being with the brain development. 

 I am not sure how far the recovery will be complete in 

 these cases. It certainly does not take place during 

 school life. 



It is very difficult to estimate the full extent of the 

 ultimate damage done to the various tissues by the acute 

 infections of early childhood. It is certain that these 

 diseases prevail less extensively than was the case 40 to 

 50 years ago, and that among the middle classes, when 

 they do occur, it is at a later period of life than when 



