194 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 
Even the worst estimates of the present-day physique, when compared 
with such records as exist of the former inhabitants of the British Isles, 
afford little evidence of a deterioration of stature in members of a particular 
racial type, but rather of a change in their relative proportion in the total 
population. In neolithic times, so far as can be gleaned from skeletal 
remains, the average stature of adult males was about 63 inches with a few 
taller individuals interspersed, who were perhaps of the ruling caste ; the 
Saxons averaged about 66 inches, the Norwegians and Danes were a little 
taller. The stocks in each district remained in comparative isolation until 
the advent of roads and railways and the demand for labour in new areas 
caused a greater degree of intermixture. Even now, rural areas which 
had originally a predominant Nordic occupation contain a taller and fairer 
population ; in the cities the degree of intermixture has proceeded to such 
an extent that there is relatively little relation between stature and hair 
colour. Throughout the medieval period, stature remained little affected 
so far as can be judged from clothes, implements and armour, which would 
suit the larger number of the present-day people and would indeed be too 
small for the better built. In the eighteenth century there were many 
recruits whose stature was only about 63 inches. 
Records of children of Lancashire operative and labouring classes, 
taken in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, when compared 
with similar figures at the present day show little change until the last few 
years. Since the initiation of the School Medical Service, it has become 
evident that a gradual improvement is in progress. In London elementary 
schools there has been a gain of a full half-inch in stature since 1904, while 
in the public schools average gains of an inch or more are recorded. The 
changes in weight are even more general and significant. It is noteworthy 
that the average weight of the crews in the Oxford and Cainbridge boat 
race, who were always chosen from the pick of the undergraduates, has 
increased nearly a stone in the last sixty years. 
Comparisons which have been made between children who have 
suffered from illnesses and those who have had none of importance, show 
the greater stature of the latter class and indicate one of the ways in which 
urbanisation exerts malign effects and also the advantages of care in 
childhood. Many children fail to attain their full stature on account of 
morbid factors which may act on the growing bones directly, as in rickets, 
or indirectly through malnutrition resulting from infectious ailments, 
catarrhs or actual privation. The predominant factor in the determination 
of stature is of course heredity, but where the soil and climate are unpro- 
pitious and poverty prevails the physique of all the inhabitants is depressed 
irrespective of their racial type. Collignon and others have shown that 
those removed from such districts in early life recover their normal stature, 
while those brought into the unfavourable surroundings are proportionately 
dwarfed. 
Taking a more general survey, the health of a people under varying 
conditions may be measured by the variation in the duration of life as to 
which data are available for recent years and to some extent for the past. 
The duration of human life appears to have steadily increased from the 
earliest times. So far as can be judged from skeletal relics, early man did 
not live much beyond early adult life, though some individuals, such as the 
old man of Cromagnon, attained to old age. The words of the Psalmist 
