An introduction to child-study / by W.B. Drummond.

  • Drummond, W. B. (William Blackley), 1868-1937.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An introduction to child-study / by W.B. Drummond. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    entire weight of their bodies. Out of sixty children less than an hour old on whom Dr. Robinson tried the experi- ment, all but two were able to hold themselves suspended for at least ten seconds, while twelve held on for half a minute, and three or four for nearly a whole minute. This clinging power increases for two or three weeks. Dr. Robinson regards this power as a survival from a time when children clung to their mothers, whose hands were occupied in climbing from branch to branch. It is well known that young apes cling to their mothers in this way. Readers of Wallace’s Malay Archipelago will remember how the young orang-outang which Mr. Wallace captured clung so tightly to his beard that he had the greatest diff- culty in getting free. If ability to cling tightly was once a matter of vital importance, one may imagine that the feet must have shared the responsibility with the arms. Such a supposi- tion is distinctly borne out by an examination of the infant’s foot. Inspection shows that the great toe is set slightly apart from the others, and that it has a wide range of mobility. Indeed, it can, with great ease, be brought into apposition with any of the other toes. There will be noticed in many infants a furrow on the sole of the foot running in the direction of its long axis, and most marked in the fore part of the foot. This furrow becomes much deeper if the foot is doubled over, as it were, so as to bring the great toe and the little toe into apposition. The furrow is, in fact, a flexion fold similar to the lines on the palm of the hand. This fold seems usually to disappear before adult life is reached. Its presence in infants seems referable to a time when the apposition of the great toe © to the others, still easily effected by passive manipulation, could be carried out as a voluntary movement. Even yet the infant has a much greater power of voluntarily moving