Evening star., 1935-11-02

Growth has a self-accelerator.
Such is the finding of Carroll E.
Palmer and Lowell J. Reed of the Public
Health Service and Johns Hopkins Uni
versity based on the growing rate of more
than 1000 boys and girls between and
IA years Of age in the public schools of
HagerStown. Md.
These children were measured annually
for four years. After the sixth year, it
was found. there was a Slight but steady
decline in the growing rate for both sexes
up to at least the tenth year. Some
children grew more in year than others.
The statistics were for growth rates, not
for actual incrementS in stature. More
over it was found, the growth rates
seemed to depend upon age. The rela-
tive gains of tall and short children we're
approximately the same. The former
did not grow faster, in relation to their
normal heights, than the latter.
But when girls reach a height be-
tween so and 81 inches and boys
height between SO and 54 inches the
growth rate, which has been slowing up
for four or five years, takes a sudden
squirt. 1t is as If some automatic gadget
had been set off. Thenceforth. until the
girl reaches q height of between SIS
and Sc inches and the boy height of
between 60 and 81 inches, the acceler-
ated growth rate no longer is dependent
on age, but on actual stature. The talleSt
grow fastest and the shortest grow slow
est. The average gain declined with
each inch of the average height of the
group measured.
Once the end of the squirt is reached,
the growth rate once more declines
sharply and this decline continues until
the end of the normal growing period.
There is no longer the close dependence
of growth rate upon height attained.
The phenomenon Of the sudden
growth squirt at about the twelfth year
long has been known to psychologists.
1t is known as the "adoleScent squirt"
1t is one of the most notable events on
the road from childhood to maturity.
The causes of this squirt are obscure,
but in the past they have been consid-
cred as purely a phenomenon of age
advancement.
The Hagerstown experiment indicates
strongly that age, per Sc, has nothing
to do with the adoleScent squirt. Chill
dren of both sexes reach the critical
height that sets off the growth-acceler-
invariably the squirt starts at that height,
regardless of age. 1t is as if the elonga-
tion of the body stretched rubber band
which snapped back against some one
OF the endocrine glands-which, in turn,
proceeded to pour it's growth promoting
substance into the blood
Thus, the StatiSticianS intimate, rela-
tive stature may be a better index OF
an individuals comparative maturity
than the number of birthdays.
Extensive excavations have been con-
Quoted by the Smithsonian Institution
this Summer at the oldest known habi-
tation site in the New World-the SET =
ment or camp site of makers OF Folsoll
spear points in the lowest foothills OF the
Rocky Mountains in Northeastern
Colorado.
DR.. Frank H. H. Roberts, jr, OF the
Bureau of American Ethnology, who
directed the work, has just returned to
Washington with a large collection of
artifacts obtained by digging trench
270 feet long and 10 feet wide through
the area occupied by the ancient
Americans.
The Folsom man himSelf-hunter of
extinct bison and mammoth at period
believed to have folle$ed shortly the