Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/286

In my first quotation, alimentation, respiration, innervation, and circulation, are spoken of, but no word of the development of sex, the very thing our author is writing about. Now, the normal evolutions of Nature, either physically or psychologically, are never paroxysmal. If the forces which direct development find expression in paroxysm, it constitutes disease and not health. It is almost impossible to conceive of a woman who is developed from a child in one year; and yet, this sudden transformation is generally regarded as a fact in the genesis of woman. In regard to the sudden increase of the pelvic diameters, I cannot but consider it as an "event viewed unequally," as the late Prof. Czermak said. I am not aware of the existence of any measurements of the pelves of children approaching puberic life which give the least color of evidence to this assertion. On the contrary, it is opposed to the common order of growth in plants and animals. The transverse and antero-posterior diameters of the cavity of the pelvis in the two sexes differ about one inch, roughly stated. If this difference is objected to as too great, there is still an admitted difference which would render such an increase of bone formation as a sudden development impossible. The opinion of Mr. Gray, that pelvic development is a post-puberic phenomenon, makes it necessary to explain some very absurd conclusions which legitimately follow. Such a condition would ascribe functions, which are the most perfect expressions for high structural development, to infantile organs. If there are those who still insist that Mr. Gray is right, they must admit the violation of a physiological law: that the organs within the pelvis have outgrown the capacity of the cavity containing them; that there exist adult organs in an infantile pelvis. Such a state of things in a healthy animal is impossible, if we accept the evidence of universal experience. The cavities of the cranium, the thorax, and the pelvis, have a steady and relatively equal development. In the accepted description of the sudden onset of ovarian life, and the equally rapid anatomical accommodation of the osseous and soft parts, mental changes are described as present which are as profound and important as those attending pelvic development. But it has never been thought necessary to describe any increase in cranial capacity to accommodate these objective mental phenomena. Even a new mental attribute is believed to be developed (Meigs), that of modesty, and it is therefore as reasonable to expect, to a limited extent, cranial as well as pelvic increase. Stated in this way—and it is a fair statement—it does not seem possible to accept Mr. Gray's opinion as an anatomical fact. Women do not necessarily cease to develop because of the establishment of the ovarian function. As a rule, women will increase in stature until the twenty-fifth year. It is an equable growth, a cementing, a binding together, and final completion. I regard this fact as evidence of the steady and gradual structural and functional evolution existent during the formative years of childhood, and prolonged into the child-