THE INC A INDIANS. 487 



physical agents, even on the highest man himself shall offer the fol- 

 lowing example : 



M. D'Orbigny, in his description of the Inca Indians of South Amer- 

 ica, remarks, " It has always been observed that the trunk is case of the 

 longer in proportion than among other Americans, and that, Inca Indians. 

 for the same reason, the extremities are, on the contrary, shorter. We 

 endeavored, at the same time, to explain this fact by the greater devel- 

 opment of the chest. It would appear that any part of the body may 

 take a greater extension from any adequate cause, while other parts fol- 

 low the ordinary course. An evident proof of this fact may be found in 

 the phenomena of imperfect conformation, in which a certain part of the 

 body, in consequence of deformity, does not assume, in external appear- 

 ance, its complete natural development, as we see in the trunk of a dwarf, 

 while this defect does not prevent the extremities from acquiring those 

 proportions that they would have had if the trunk had received its full 

 growth. This accounts for the want of symmetry in the persons of 

 dwarfs, and for that length of the upper and lower limbs so much out of 

 proportion to the body. If we admit this fact, difficult to contest, why, 

 in the case in question, may we not as well admit that the chest, from a 

 cause which we shall explain, having acquired a more than ordinary ex- 

 tension, might naturally lengthen the trunk without causing the extrem- 

 ities to lose their normal proportion, which would make it appear, as in- 

 deed it would be, longer than among other men where no accident can 

 have altered the form common to the race ? 



" Let us return to the causes which occasion in the Incas the great 

 volume of chest which has been observed in them. Many considera- 

 tions have led us to attribute it to the influence of the elevated regions 

 in which they live, and to the modifications occasioned by the extreme 

 expansion of the air. The plateaux which they inhabit are always com- 

 prised between the limits of 7500 to 15,000 feet above the level of the 

 sea. There the air is so rarefied that a much greater quantity must be 

 inhaled at each inspiration than at the level of the ocean. The lungs 

 require, in consequence of their great necessary volume, and of their 

 greater dilatation in breathing, a cavity larger than in the lower regions. 

 This cavity receives from infancy and during the time of its growth a 

 great development entirely independent of that of the other parts. "We 

 were desirous of determining whether, as we might suppose a priori, the 

 lungs, in consequence of their great size, were not subject to extraordi- 

 nary modifications. Inhabiting the city of La Paz, upward of 11,000 

 feet above the level of the ocean, and being informed that in the hospital 

 there were constantly Indians from the populous plateaux still more ele- 

 vated, we had recourse to the kindness of our countryman, M. Burnier, 

 physician to the hospital, and he permitted us to make a post mortem 



