The Growth of Children. 65 



Repriiiteil troiii tlie Kii/litk Annual Ji(j)orf of (he Stale Hoard of He<iltli of Massachusetts. 



THE GROWTH OF CHILDREN.* 



By Dk. II. P. BowDiTCii. 



On the 24th of September, 1872, at a meeting of the Boston 

 Society of Medical Sciences, a communication was made of 

 which the following report was published in the " Boston 

 ^Medical and Surgical Journal " for December 19, 1872: — 



" Dr. Bowditch exhibited a diagram showing the rate of growth, in 

 height, in the two sexes. The curves of growth were so drawn that 

 the abscissas gave the age in years, and the ordinates the height in 

 feet and inches. They represented the average measurements on 

 thirteen individuals of the female and twelve of the male sex. The 

 measurements were all taken annually during the last twenty-five 

 years, and the individuals were all nearly related to each other. An 

 examination of the curves shows the following facts : — 



" 1. Growth is most rapid during the earliest years of life. 



" 2. During the first twelve years boys are from one to two inches 

 taller than girls of the same age. 



'' 3. At about twelve and a half years of age girls begin to grow 

 faster than boys, and, during the fourteenth year, are about one inch 

 taller than boys of the same age. 



" 4. At fourteen and a half years of age boys again become the 

 taller, girls having at this period very nearly completed their growth, 

 while boys continue to grow rapidly till nineteen years of age. 



'' The tables and curves of growth given by Quetelet show that in 

 Belgium girls are at no period of their lives taller than boys of the 

 same age, though at twelve years of age their weight is precisely the 

 same as that of boys, and decidedly less both before and after that 

 period. Measurements taken among the lower classes, in Manchester 

 and Stockport, show that, during the thirteenth and fourteenth years, 

 girls are superior to boys of the same age, both in height and weight. 



* The investigation, of which the results are given in this Report, was originally under- 

 taken under the auspices of the health department of the Social Science Association, but 

 in view of the extended character which the inquiry gradually assumed in its progress, and 

 of the direct bearing of the (juestion on the sanitary condition of the people, it was decided 

 to make it the subject of a report to the State Board of Health. 



