46 BODILY CHARACTERISTICS. 



twice a week lias distinctly less impassioned nerve 

 tlian he who needs to shave twice a day if he spends 

 his evenings in society. 



In judging of the figure, or skeleton-structure, still 

 more caution is needed. It is important to note that 

 carrying weights habitually in early life, early exhaust- 

 ing habits, or labour, or ailment, or injury, and of course 

 advancing years, tell unequivocally on the bony frame- 

 work. Slight rickets in childhood increasing the 

 spinal curves of boys and girls is not at all rare. 

 More or less dorsal convexity and stoop is frequent in 

 hereditary lung trouble. When marked skeleton 

 curves are associated with abundant hair growth it 

 will usually be found that one of these causes has been 

 at work. It is well to note here what seems to me an 

 important difference between the convexity left by 

 rickets and that belonging to phthisical proclivities : 

 in the latter there is no change in nerve action, no 

 lessened intensity of passion ; it is quite otherwise 

 with the curves of rickets, for these are often associated 

 with diminution of feeling. The explanation is 

 obvious. Certain chemical elements are identical in 

 bone and in nerve substance; if, in early life, they 

 are deficient in one they are deficient in the other 

 hence arises a thwarted transmission of parental traits 

 of character. I have observed one compensation in 

 the slightly ricketty conformation : slow ossification 

 leaves a large frontal skull and larger corresponding 

 brain, and with them frequently an unusual intel- 

 lectual agility. 



Now and then the whole body is inclined forwards 

 from the hip a posture which must not be confounded 

 with the true dorsal curve. It must not however be . 

 supposed that the characteristic dorsal convexity. 



