16 Anthropological Investigations. 



The number of physically inferior children is not easy to ascertain. 



We have two distinct criteria by which to determine an abnormal 

 subject, namely, the gravity of the atypical characters the individual 

 presents, or simply the number of these characters. Neither of these 

 criteria is entirely satisfactory. We have not the knowledge to be 

 able to judge of the exact significance and gravity of every abnor- 

 mality; and, on the other hand, the simple number of irregularities 

 on a body does not express their import and hence the real state of 

 the body. However, the latter criterion, which deals with the 

 numbers and not the gravity of the abnormalities, is to be here 

 preferred as about equally efficient to the first and very much more 

 simple and certain. 



How many atypical characters ought a subject to have in order 

 to be considered an exception among the average children? There 

 is no pre-established standard for this, and the formation of our 

 standard will be quite arbitrary. On the basis of general scientific 

 principles, and as a result of a thorough study of the subject in 

 question, I think it will be safe to mark all those children as excep- 

 tional in whom more than one-half of the parts of the body exam- 

 ined presented each one or more abnormalities. 



There were of such children 62, or 9.8 per cent., among the white, 

 and 8, or 12. 1 per cent., among the colored boys, and 16, or 5.8 per 

 cent., among the white, and 1, or 3.8 per cent., among the colored 

 girls. 



There is not much difference — at least no difference which we 

 have not already observed — according to the color of the children; 

 but there is a decided difference between the males and the females 

 of both the whites and the negroes, the females showing a much 

 smaller proportion of subjects with numerous abnormalities. 



The percentages of children in this class are not very extraor- 

 dinary. It should be noticed that if we take away the two extremes, 

 the physically entirely normal individuals and those with many 

 abnormalities, that we have remaining fully four-fifths of all the 

 children examined as those with intermediary conditions. Should 

 we, for the sake of illustration, express the physical condition of the 

 children by such terms is fine, medium and bad, the fine and bad 

 would embrace in all 192 individuals, while 808 would remain as 

 medium. 



