Physical degeneration : a survey of the discussion at the Anthropological Section of the British Association, meeting in Cambridge / by Vratsch.

  • Anderson, Richard John, 1848-1914.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Physical degeneration : a survey of the discussion at the Anthropological Section of the British Association, meeting in Cambridge / by Vratsch. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    6/24 (page 6)
    the people of the country are, at the time noted, built on the same principle, but possibly the reverse. People are not so favourably placed in towns for the maintenance of health. There is in these places a large infantile mortality, chiefly among the light-haired and light-eyed races; and a large adult mortality among the black-eyed and black-haired people (i.e., between 20 and 45). The light-haired are subject to rheu- matism and heart affections; the dark-haired to phthisis, cancer, and epilepsy. The ten- dency is for people in each individual race to become darker in towns. It seems on the face of it that ill ventilation and deficient food (if not food of bad quality) have much to do with the change from country to town life. Children who attend some Metropolitan (London) schools have been pronounced to be insufficiently nourished and unfitted thereby for education, and it is suggested that food should be given in schools, such as the one referred to, to those of the children who require it. It was also pointed out that late marriages tend to depreci- ate the stock in some cases (in those who are advancing socially owing to education), owing to the relatively smaller number of children, and