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93
lated. No differentiation was made between breast and handfed
infants. It may be that, by adopting this method, the
weight of a normal child is understated, but it appears to
me that it is likely to be as near the truth as is any process of
selection of so-called normal babies. In any event, the older
the baby becomes the more likely is the average weight
obtained to be accurate, because a certain number of weaklings
are removed by death in the early months.
The following short tables shew the result for the boys
and girls, respectively, during the first year of post-natal
growth, at intervals of five weeks. In constructing these
tables a five-weekly period was grouped, the middle of the
period being regarded as the age, i.e., in calculating the weights
of children at eight weeks, all weights were used which were
tabulated in the sixth to the tenth week period. In this
connection, however, it should be noted that in Table No.
(30, the weight of infants of three weeks is over-stated, for
the reason that the number of observations of children of
one and two weeks is very small compared with those of four
and five weeks. In these short tables the same baby may
appear more than once in each five-weekly period and to
this extent the results are vitiated. The weights given in
these tables do not quite agree with those given in Tables
No. 61 and No. 62, as is to be expected, but they approximate
very closely fo each other. In the diagrams the short
table weights are represented by lines, the full table weights
by dots.