756 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
Aryans, the round among the Red Indians, the square in the Mongols, and the 
wedge shaped in the Negro. Examining this question mechanically, it would 
seem that the longer a race had remained in an upright position the lower is the 
sacrum, and the greater is the tendency to approximate to the larger lateral 
diameter of the European female. The front to back diameter of the ape's pelvis 
is usually greater than the measurement from side to side. A similar condition 
affords the cuneiform, from which it may be inferred that the erect position in 
the Negro has not been maintained so long as in the Mongol, whose pelvis has 
as^,umed the quadrilateral shape owing to the persistence of spinal axis weight 
for a greater time. This pressure has finally culminated in forcing the sacrum 
of the European nearer the pubes, with consequent lateral expansion and con- 
traction of the diameter from front to back. From the marsupials to the lemurs 
the box-shaped pelvis remains. With the wedge-shape occasioned in the lowest 
human types there occurs a further remarkable phenomenon in the increased 
size of the foetal head accompanying the contraction of the pelvic outlet. While 
the marsupial head is about one-sixth the size of the narrowest part of the bony 
parturient canal, the moment we pass to erect animals the greater relative increase 
is there seen in cranial size, with a co-existing decrease in the area of the outlet. 
This altered condition of things has caused the death of millions of otherwise 
perfectly healthy and well-formed human mothers and children. The palaeontol- 
ogist might tell us if some such case of ischial approximation by natural mechan- 
ical causes has not caused the probable extinction of whole genera of Verte- 
brates. "If we are to believe that for our original sin the pangs and labour of 
childbirth were increased, and if we also believe in the disproportionate contrac- 
tion of the pelvic space being an efficient cause of the same difficulties of partu- 
rition, the logical inference is that man's original sin consisted in his getting 
upon his hind legs." 
This subject is not without direct applications. Accoucheurs cause their 
patients to assume what is called the knee-chest position, a prone one, for the 
purpose of restoring the uterus to something near a natural position. Brown- 
Sequard recommends, in myelitis, or spinal congestion, drawing away the blood 
from the spine by placing the patient on his abdomen or side, with hands and 
feet somewhat hanging down. The liability to spina bifida is greatest in the 
the human infant, through the stress thrown on the spine. The easy parturition 
in the lower human races is due to the discrepancy between cranial and pelvic 
sizes not having been as yet reached by those races. The Sandwich Island 
mother has a difficult delivery only when her child is half white, and has conse- 
quently a longer head than the unmixed native strain. 
At present the world goes on in its blindness, apparently satisfied that every- 
thing is all right because it exists, ignorant of the evil consequences of appar- 
ently beneficial peculiarities, vaunting man's erectness and its advantages, whilst 
ignoring the disadvantages. 
The observation that the lower the animal the more prolific (not universally 
true !) would warrant the belief that the higher the animal the more difficulties 
