II. 2 



GROWTH 



63 



6007. 



of spirit specimens of rabbit embryos that the mean daily 

 percentage increment is 704 between the ninth and fifteenth 

 days, but between the fifteenth and twentieth days only 212. 



The postnatal decline in the 

 growth-rate is therefore only a 

 continuation of a process which has 

 been going on for some time, per- 

 haps from the first moment at 

 which growth began. 



The human being forms no ex- 

 ception to this rule. Data of the 

 growth of the human embryo be- 

 fore birth are somewhat meagre, 

 but an inspection of the tables 

 will show that whatever the dis- 

 crepancies may be between the re- 

 sultsobtained by Fehling (Tablell) 

 and Hecker (Table IV), they agree 

 in this, that the growth-rate falls 

 with great rapidity between the 

 fourth and the sixth months, there- 

 after more slowly till the end of 

 pregnancy. This is graphically 

 represented in the curve (Fig. 36). 

 It will be observed from the 

 table (Table IV) that the rate of 

 increase of stature also declines, 

 but less abruptly. This is a point 

 to which we shall return. For 

 the study of the postnatal growth 

 of man very numerous data have 

 been collected by various observers. 

 Measurements of the body weight 



FIG. 36. Curve showing 

 monthly prenatal percentage in- 

 crements in Man. (From Minot, 

 1907.) 



have been made on Belgians by Quetelet, on Boston school children 

 by Bowditch, on the school children of Worcester, Mass., and 

 Oakland, Mass., by Boas, and on English of the artisan and the 

 well-to-do classes by Roberts. It is unnecessary to reproduce all 

 these data here, for they all show the same decline in the growth- 



