i S 2 PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 



can be severely criticised, and it lacks the support of palaeontological evidence. A 

 second group of authorities regards the pygmies as varieties of the larger tribes of the 

 respective localities in which they are met with, and a general appeal is made to their 

 environment as the source of influences which have determined their persistence. 

 Account is taken especially of conditions affecting nutriment. But pygmies are not 

 necessarily starvelings, so that care must be taken to avoid laying stress on this partic- 

 ular argument. The third group of investigators holds the view that pygmies are 

 neither " ancestral forms/' nor stunted variants of their more bulky congeners, but 

 that they constitute a distinct type of mankind, a collateral stock which has become 

 modified in different areas, but which was nevertheless a parental form common to the 

 modern pygmies. The evidence actually available at the present time seems to favour 

 the two latter views almost equally. In the absence of any kind of experimental 

 research, these problems will probably not receive a more definite elucidation. And 

 even the excellent methods of employing anthropometric data for racial comparisons 

 suggested by such recent writers as Drs. Mollison l and Czekanowski 2 provide ap- 

 proximations to solutions but not the actual solutions of these problems. 



Apart from all the foregoing instances are the sporadic cases of pygmies appearing 

 in the midst of a population of the larger Hominidae. Such instances are studied 

 advisedly from a pathological rather than from a purely biological standpoint. Refer- 

 ences are made to the irregular activity of glandular organs and to other deep-seated 

 interferences with the normal processes of growth. And it is legitimate to foresee an 

 epoch in which the accession of precise physiological knowledge will admit of descrip- 

 tions expressing these aberrations in chemical terms. 



Giants. The study of giants will be found to present in its trend features similar 

 to those just mentioned as influential in the case of pygmies of sporadic appearance. 

 In default of races of truly gigantic stature, the chief material for researches is provided 

 by sporadic examples of giants. But the materials are not exhausted thus; for certain 

 cases are now brought into line with giants, on account of their presenting some of 

 the characters typical of the latter, even though they may lack the prime feature, viz. 

 excessive stature. 



The literature of giantism is full of suggestions as to the pathological nature of this 

 condition. And as in the case of pygmies, reference is made to general processes of 

 nutrition, as well as to the activity of certain glands. The recent work of Professor 

 Geddes 3 is particularly illuminating on the relation between the growth of the skeleton 

 and that of the sexual glands. And these researches have the particular merit of 

 adducing the evidence of experimental tests devised and executed with a view to 

 ascertaining the validity of conclusions based in the first instance upon purely anthro- 

 pological data. Thus Professor Geddes has been able to indicate with precision the 

 chief factors concerned in the processes of excessive growth: he is able to classify 

 examples of giantism according to the absence or presence of certain specified factors. 

 He has contributed very largely to provide this study with a sound physiological 

 basis. It should be added that this work contains suggestions bearing on certain 

 features of other examples (such as the curious form and proportions of some of the 

 limb-bones of Homo primigenius) which have long awaited elucidation. 



Other observers have directed their investigations to the pituitary body in particular. 

 The frequency with which this obscure glandular organ is enlarged in giants has been 

 recognised for some years, but the exact mechanism of the processes involved is not 

 yet fully known. 



Andamancse and Malay Aborigines. The human races threatened with extinction 

 in the near future present a very special interest to anthropologists, and while the 

 urgency of the matter is to be deplored, it is satisfactory to realise that investigators 



1 Mollison, Archiv fur Anthropologie, 1907. 



2 Czekanowski, Archiv jilr Anthropologie; Korrespondenzblatt; Jahrgang xl, No. 6, 1909; 

 ibid., 1910, p. 101. 



3 Geddes, Proc. Roy. Soc. of Edinburgh, vol. xxxi, Part I, No. 6, 1910. 



