Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1899-06-29
HUMAN STATURE.
curious Facts About TIT Is Possible
to Add to the Height.

/ AOAC imam III lhGu VI 81 W huhhdh
stature, said well-known physician
IN answer to a question of the writer.
This is one respect in which nature
insists on having her own way, and
am quite sure that under no conditions
would it be possible to raise a race OF
giants. Nature is always at work corr
'ecting any tendency to extremes,
though here and there someone es-
:apes her notice and grows into giant
DR. dwindles into dwarf. You might
think the tall parents would have taller
children than themselves, but little
observation will prove that this is not
30. Nature always seems to be striving
70 reach and maintain medium
neight, so that as rule tall parents
nave shorter children than themselves,
ana snort parents raise taller children;
the two extremes meeting in few
generations at the average height.
But something can certainly be done
II the attempt be made early. Prac-
tically man does all his growing be-
lore he is eighteen and a woman be-
fore she is sixteen, although l have
known cases where a man has grown
perceptibly in stature until long past
thirty.
After all, stature is largely a ques-
ton OF length Of legs. If you take
three men, one of six feet, another Of
five feet six inches and third of five
feet, there will be only the smallest diff
ference in the length of the body, and
in fact the short man may have the
longest body of the three. But the long
man will have an advantage of ten
inches in length Of leg over the short
man.
The margin for growth in the legs is
90 per cent more than in the body
This means that the legs of an adult
are five times as long as when he was
born, his body three times, and his
head twice its original length.
1t is thus, you see, very largely a
question of legs, and to the legs we
must look for any great increase in
stature. As you may know, each leg
bone Is in early youth in three distinct
pieces, which later unite into one bone.
II you could devise any means of pre-
venting this unison or delaying it for
few years, there is no question that
although you would destroy the pro-
portion and symmetry of the body
Nothing checks growth more than
illness, and by avoiding it you help
growth very substantially, especially in
the very early years. l think you will
md that most men and women who
are dwarfs have suffered from repeated
illnesses in the first few years of their
lives, and have been unable to make
up the leaway.
Anything which promotes health
promotes growth, and the only royal
road to stature and symmetry is in the
direction of fresh air, nourishing food
and judicious exercise. You see what
the emancipation of our daughters had
already done for their stature. In the
old days, when girls were shut out
from almost every form of outdoor -
ercise, it was unusual to see one high
er than five feet six inches. Now that
they cycle and swim, and play golf and
tennis as unrestrainedly as their broth
ers, they shoot up like young saplings
to five feet nine inches, and even six
feet. l quite believe that in another
generation the average height of wom-
en- will be quite two inches more than
in the last generation.
1t is curious to observe how the aver
age height of men varies, with the
class to which they belong The wealthy
and professional classes are quite three
! inches to four inches taller than the
poor, working classes, and the inter
mediate stages are marked by the de-
gree of prosperity Of the class to which
a man belongs, so that while an aver
age factory worker is about five feet
/ five inches, a skilled artisan will be
five feet six inches; laborer, five feet
seven inches; a tradesman, five feet
eight inches; and a lawyer or doctor,
five feet nine inches.
Briefly, then, my advice is, If you
want your children to be tall-that is,
to attain their full natural growth
guard against illness of all kinds, let
them be in the fresh air and sunshine
as much as possible, encourage every
kind of open air exercise in modera-
ton, with a course of gymnastics to
make them straight and supple, feed
them on plain and nourshing food,
and send them to bed early.
Human science can do nothing more
than this to make them tall, although
elevators" may add fraudulent inch
or two.-Tit-Bits