336 



PHYSIOLOGY 



CHAP. 



how long before we do not know, or whether they are an aboriginal 

 race. The Ba-Bingas may be regarded as forming a distinct 

 group of a special race : we cannot trace them back to the negro 

 type or regard them as the predecessors of the homo primigenius ; 

 it may one day be possible to admit the development of both short 

 and tall races to have taken place at the same time. 



The Anthropometrical Commission of the British Association 

 has recently published the average height of the different 



European nations. Anglo-Saxons 

 rank first, the English and Nor- 

 wegians measuring on an average 

 170 cm.; next come Danes, Dutch, 

 and Hungarians with 167 cm. ; 

 Swiss, Eussians, and Belgians 

 measure about five millimetres 

 less ; last of all we have Italians 

 and Spaniards, who average 165 

 cm. Verwaeck (1909) considers 

 that the average height of the 

 Belgians has varied considerably 

 during the last twenty years ; on 

 the whole it tends to increase. 

 Other morphological character- 

 istics of the human body seen in 

 certain races are steatopygia (an 

 abnormal accumulation of fat in 

 the posterior regions, Fig. 133) 

 and the apron (an abnormal de- 

 velopment of the labia minora, 

 which become pendulous ap- 

 pendages several centimetres in 

 length), characteristics seen in 

 Hottentots and Bush tribes. 



There is one class of morpho- 



Fio. 133. Afaridi Bushworaan. (G. Pritsch.) logical characteristics tO which 



we must ascribe great importance, 



namely, the characteristics of the brain. Starting from the 

 assumption that the stage of civilisation reached by different 

 races depends essentially upon the greater or lesser degree of 

 activity of the grey matter of the brain, it clearly follows that 

 the demonstrable differences in the morphological character- 

 istics of the brain may to a certain extent be regarded as 

 conditions related to the higher or lower stage of civilisation. 

 Of the various morphological characteristics of the brain, two 

 weight and shape have been the object of special study. Von 

 Bischoff drew up a table showing the average weight of the brain 

 in the different races, part of which we reproduce here. 



