TKANS ACTIONS OF SECTION H. 837 



the countryman, and lie is more liable to suffer from the products of imperfect 

 assimilation. The result often shows itself in the form of the uric acid diathesis 

 and the evils due to that condition, Bright's disease, and allied diseases. The per- 

 nicious habit of too much indulgence in tea-drinking is injurious. 



It is not the male sex alone we have to consider in this question. The mothers 

 ■of this part of future England produce an enfeebled offspring, and their develop- 

 ment is bad, and they are impaired in physique. 



Town children are more quick-witted and artful, and adroit in cunning acquisi- 

 tiveness; but that does not imply superior intellectual development. It is supposed 

 that rapid gro'wth of the nervous system retards the bodily development. I do not 

 think so. 



No satisfactory answer has been supplied to the paramoimt question, ' Is the 

 town dweller degenerating in stature of inch measurement ? ' The constant immi- 

 gration into the towns of country men and women, introducing fresh blood into the 

 old stock by marriage, and thus renovating it, renders the solution of the problem 

 ■difficult. This is a decided counterpoise to degeneracy. The statistics of the 

 Anthropometric Society rather point to a lowered stature, but they are not conclu- 

 ■sive unless they can be applied to pure town dwellers of two or three generations' 

 duration. Mr. Francis Galton measured 9,000 persons, and appears to have esta- 

 blished the fact that Cambridge students are rather taller and heavier than the 

 mean population. 



As regards the physical impairment or degeneracy of the population of 

 towns in stature, the report of the Anthropometric Committee at the Southport 

 meeting says ' few statistics are in existence which help to throw light on this 

 subject.' The measurements of height and weight of the Factory Commission of 

 1833, and the report to the Local Government Board of the employment of 

 young persons in factories in 1873, show that there is no appreciable lowering of 

 stature. 



The ' Lancet ' Commission on the Sweating System discloses a terrible state 

 of things. The daily occupations of town dwellers and their homes and workshops 

 are very insanitary, and must lead to an impoverished condition of the animal 

 economy. 



The remedies are Imperial legislation to improve the social conditions of the town 

 dwellers. Insanitary surroundings, over-crowding, uncleanliness, impurity, intem- 

 perance, must all be swept away. The children must be educated in the pure air of 

 the country. Make the parents sober and moral ; give them pure air and plenty 

 of it, and away fly pale faces, dyspepsia, crooked backs (generally resulting from 

 tuberculosis), lowered vitality, stunted development, muscular attenuation, and 

 the imperfect elimination of functional products. 



The purely physical side of human nature demands our attention. The instinc- 

 tive rush of the poorer classes into towns in quest of the means to live has greatly 

 helped to complicate the problem of relief Hardships of various kinds tend to 

 accentuate their wretchedness, and they seek solace too often in the unhealthy 

 pursuit of unrighteous habits. The problem of poverty has to be reckoned with 

 if the English race in large towns is to retain a fair standard of physical integrity. 



4. r/ie Physique of the Swiss as influenced hy Hace and by Media. 

 By Dr. Beduoe, F.B.S., V.P.A.I. 



The paper was founded on the official recruiting returns. The average stature 

 of Swiss recruits (including the rejected) between the ages of nineteen and twenty 

 is 163'5 cms., or 64'3 inches ; the lull-grown stature perhaps nearly an inch higher. 

 It is greater, generally speaking, in the districts where French or Eomantsch is 

 spoken than where the language is Italian or German. From the point of view of 

 race it is highest in the Helveto-Burgundian area, i.e. the Jura, contiguous to the 

 French department of the Doubs, where the stature is the highest in France, 

 lowest in the Kelto-Alemannic area, especially around AppenzeU, and in the Ober- 



