The Growth of Children. 88 



American pareiitap^e dependent upon differences of race and 

 stock, and liowfar are tlicy due to other conditions accident- 

 ally associated in this community witli these differences? 

 Owing to the fact that emigrants to this country belong 

 almost wholly to the poorer classes of the communities from 

 which they come, it is evident that in this city children of 

 American parents must belong to families of greater average 

 wealth, and live, therefore, in greater comfort than children 

 whose parents were born in foreign countries. It is import- 

 ant, therefore, to inquire what effect comfort and misery have 

 upon the growth and development of the human race. Most 

 of the investigations bearing directly upon this point have 

 reference to the influence of these conditions on the size of the 

 full-grown individual, and not on that of growing children. 

 Thus Villerme* concludes, as the result of his investigations, 

 that '' the stature is greater and the growth sooner completed, 

 all other things being equal, in proportion as the country is 

 richer and the comfort of its inhabitants more sceneral." On 

 the other hand, Boudin,f from an examination of the meas- 

 urements of recruits to the army in different departments of 

 France, arrives at the conclusion that stature is, to a great 

 extent, " independent of comfort and misery, and is, on the 

 contrary, closely connected with race." Villerm^'s results, as 

 far as the duration of the period of growth is concerned, have 

 also been disputed l)y Dr. Gould, J who has shown most con- 

 clusively that in the United States, where " misery, in the 

 sense of excessive poverty, affecting the supply of nutriment, 

 physical protection from the weather and needful rest, hardly 

 exists, the epoch of full development appears to be later than 

 in an}^ other country," the maximum height being attained 

 between the thirty -first and tliirty-fourth years. The effect 

 of privations and exposure in preventing the attainment of 



* Quoted by Dr. Gould. Investigations in tlie Military and Anthropological Statistics 

 of American Soldiers. U. S. Sanitary Commission, p. 120. 



t Recueil de memoires de M6decine, de Chirurgie et de pharmacie militaires. Paris, 

 18G3. Vol. IX, p. 181. 



X Loco citato. 



