NEW TYPES AMONG MEN 181 



Several facts seem to oppose the idea that the change from 

 country to city is the cause of the changes in head-form. In the 

 first place, the Jews, in whom the head assumes the most distinctly 

 new shape, are the very immigrants whose former life is most like 

 that of their new homes. The South Italian who has lived, or at 

 least worked all day, under his own vines and then is suddenly 

 dropped into a New York tenement and a New York factory 

 suffers a tenfold greater economic and industrial change than 

 that experienced by the Jewish tailor or shopkeeper who has 

 always lived in a stuffy room in the midst of a closely packed 

 village. In the second place, the change to city life offers no 

 explanation of the peculiar conditions in Europe where the form 

 of the Jewish heads agrees so closely with that of the non-Jewish. 

 Yet this fact can scarcely be separated from the phenomena in 

 New York. Therefore it seems necessary to fall back on some 

 other explanation. 



The explanation which seems to me most reasonable is that the 

 changes in head-form are due to the conditions of the air, including 

 not only what we commonly call climate, but also the indoor air 

 and ventilation. I am well aware that already the reader has 

 said to himself that I am doing exactly what I have accused Boas 

 and Fishberg of doing. I am letting myself be influenced by a 

 mode of thought which has become habitual. I grant this freely. 

 No man, no matter how unbiassed he may attempt to be, can dis- 

 sociate himself from the ideas which have been in his mind for 

 years. I can only say that from 1910 when I first heard of Boas' 

 results until early in 1918 I refused to let my climatic predilec- 

 tions persuade me. Then, for quite a different purpose, I as- 

 sembled the biological facts presented in the last chapter. They 

 seemed to indicate conclusively that extremes of heat, cold, and 

 dryness may cause distinct and far-reaching changes in animals 

 of many types. Therefore I was forced to believe that in man 

 the same thing may happen. 



The changes in head-form and probably in the stature of the 



