HUMAN STATURE. 



able. Innumerable proofs of this truth may be found by com- 

 paring nation with nation. But it may be rendered still more 

 strikingly apparent by comparing together the inhabitants of 

 different provinces of the same country, or even those of different 

 divisions of a large city. 



47. It is well known that, by the laws of France, the army is 

 recruited by conscription, in carrying out which means are inci- 

 dentally supplied of ascertaining with great precision the sanitary 

 condition and bodily development of the population. The capital 

 of that country, containing upwards of a million of inhabitants, is 

 distributed into quarters, called arrondissements, which differ one 

 from another in relation to wealth or poverty, even more than do 

 the various quarters of London. Thus while in the north-western 

 arrondissements misery and want are rare, in some others, such as 

 the 6th, the llth, and the 12th, they prevail to a great extent. 

 In the former, 45 in every 100 conscripts are found unfit for mili- 

 tary service, chiefly because of insufficient stature, and the remain- 

 ing 55 have an average height 5 feet 6^ inches, while in the latter 

 quarters, where poverty is more prevalent, 52 in a 100 are rejected, 

 and the remaining 48 have an average height of only 5 feet 6 inches. 



48. Statistical returns sufficiently exact and regular to indicate 

 the average progressive growth of the human body, though rare, 

 are not unattainable. In Belgium, for example, where the average 

 stature is somewhat greater than in France, it has been found 

 that the average height of new-born infants is 191 inches, and at 

 the end of the first year it is increased to 27 inches. 



In the second year the growth is less rapid, and in every suc- 

 ceeding year becomes less and less so, until the full growth has 

 been attained. The annexed diagram, however, fig. 19, will con- 

 vey a more exact notion of the mean progressive growth than could 

 any mere numerical statements. It is due to M. Q,uetelet, to 

 whose physical and statistical researches science is otherwise so 

 largely indebted. The successive years in the age of an individual, 

 from the moment of birth to the age of thirty, are indicated in the 

 horizontal line, and the corresponding average heights in the 

 vertical column. 



It appears, therefore, that at the moment of birth the infant has 

 a stature equal to about 2-7ths, and at three years old, about half 

 of its ultimate height. 



At the moment of birth, the average height of boys exceeds that 

 of girls by about the 20th of an inch, and this difference increases 

 with their growth. Nevertheless, the results obtained by M. Quetelet 

 must be received merely as first approximations ; the observations 

 and inductions necessary to establish general and certain laws being 

 much more numerous than any which statistical records have yet 



77 



