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Quetelet has studied the weight of the human body at differ- ent ages from the point of view of his theory of averages. At the same age the male is heavier than the female, except about the age of twelve, when the weight is the same. Woman reaches the maximum of her weight later than man. The weight is greater among boys and girls who do not work in factories. Quetelet takes the average man as the type of both stature and weight. These results hold only in determined aggregates, or between analogous aggregates.
2. The human stature. The human stature is limited in its varia- tions by the environment and by hereditary influence. Heredity tends to maintain its forms or characters, if the conditions of the physical or social environment are not modified. Among the causes of variation, one may note residence in the town or the country, professions, food, climate, sickness. Galton has observed the stature and weight of children attending the public schools in England. Fifty were reared in London, 296 in the country. The stature of the latter exceeded that of the former by 3 centimeters, and the weight of the country children exceeded that of the city children by 3 kilograms. 1
If weight and size in comparative anatomy have only a sec- ondary value, if the largest animals approach the smallest in adjacent species, it is not entirely true from the point of view of the sociological characters of the human species. The weight and stature of man have the effect of indexes in the social realm. Man approaches the anthropoids in this respect. The chimpan- zee is about 1.30 meter; the orangs, depending upon the spe- cies, range from I to i.6om.; the gorilla, from 1.40 to 1.75111. The human adult stature varies from I to 2 m. In France, the average adult stature is 1.65111. From the table given by Topi- nard, 2 it is shown that the highest averages belong to the Tchuel-
1 Concerning the influence of food, DARWIN (The Descent of Man, p. 31) says : "When we compare the differences in stature between the Polynesian chiefs and the lower orders within the same islands, or between the inhabitants of the fertile vol- canic and low barren coral islands of the same ocean, or again between the Fuegians on the eastern and western shores of their country, where the means of subsistence are very different, it is scarcely possible to avoid the conclusion that better food and greater comfort do influence stature."
- Anthropology, pp. 253 ff.
