Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 20.djvu/197

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EQUALITY AND INEQUALITY IN SEX.
185

of a man of the same size. The thoracic index of woman is less than that of man (Weisgerber). The man absorbs more oxygen, although he does not breathe as often. According to Quetelet, the woman, from fifteen to fifty years of age, makes one more inspiration a minute than the man. At all ages man exhales more carbonic acid than woman (Andral and Gavarret). The temperature of man is higher than that of woman. In the circulation, the pressure of the blood is stronger in the male, although the pulse is less frequent. The difference amounts to eighteen pulsations a minute in the lion, ten in cattle, twelve in sheep, and ten to fourteen in man.

The relative weight of the skeleton to the total weight of the body is less with woman; Topinard says that in the physical characters of her skeleton woman is intermediate between the infant and the masculine adult. M. Milne-Edwards has found the bones of the male a little richer in inorganic matter than those of the female, and that at thirty years the bones of the man contain more mineral matter, less organic matter, more carbonate of lime, less phosphate of lime, than those of the woman. The prevalence of the right side over the left is less with the woman (Harting). Broca has found that the clavicle of the woman is longer in proportion to the humerus; similar differences are observed between inferior and superior races.

The male individual is always larger than the female. This is observable in our domestic animals. M. Topinard fixes the average difference in height between man and woman at twelve centimetres (four and two thirds inches). Woman is also lighter than man, although she often appears larger on account of the greater development of her adipose system. Topinard says that in the whole Indo-European series woman is more prognathous than man. According to my researches the foot of woman is flatter and less arched than that of man, a fact which women of fashion try to hide by means of high heels. The female voice is always higher than that of the male, in animals and in man. Woman's voice is an octave higher than man's.

The muscular system of the male is better developed and more vigorous than that of the female. This may be observed in wild and domestic animals. The muscular force of a woman from twenty-five to thirty years of age, measured in the dynamometer, is a third less than that of a man of the same age. The movements of man are more precise than those of woman. Thus men make the best pianists. The skull of the male is more voluminous than that of the female (Sömmering, Parchappe, Broca, Morselli). Huschke estimates the difference in Europeans at two hundred and twenty cubic centimetre-. Dr. Weisbach makes the relative measurement as 1,000 to 878; Morselli, 100 to 85. The shape of the skull also varies with the sex, thai of the man being lower and longer than that of the woman. The brain of the male is heavier than that of the female, in a proportion for man fixed by Broca at 1,323 to 1,210 grammes (4634 to 4213 ounces).