Body-build and its inheritance

Part I

BUILD, ITS DEFINITION AND ITS ONTOGENY.

A. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.

If a hundred men of about the same stature be compared, it is seen that they vary greatly in weight. At the same time they vary in form, and especially in bulk. This variation is popularly recognized by the variety of terms applied to build. It may be of interest to pause a moment to consider popular terminology relating to build. We have, first, terms expressing a marked deviation below the normal build. We speak of persons as “slender,” “thin,” “gaunt,” “slim,” “slight,” “spare,” “lank,” and “spindling.” These terms are not exactly synonyms. “Lank” implies angularity; “gaunt” connotes the ravage of disease; “thin” connotes a loss of weight; “slight” connotes lightness and smallness of bone; “spindling” is used especially of youth in the period of rapid growth preceding adolescence; “slim” has a faint connotation of insufficiency; “slender” best expresses the idea which we shall want to use in this work where we have a relatively small interest in stature and where we wish to avoid connotation of disease, developmental changes, etc. In other languages there exists a series of terms which similarly differ slightly in connotation. Thus, in French, there is “maigre,” in German “mager,” which often connote a loss of weight through disease, “dünn,” which connotes loss of a former more nearly average weight, and “schlank,” which is close to the English “slender.” On the other hand, the English language contains a variety of terms applicable to deviation in build above the average. Thus we have the words “stout,” “portly,” “fleshy,” “corpulent,” “thick-set,” “obese,” “chubby,” and “fat.” The word “stout” usually carries a connotation of vigor. The term “portly” connotes large size with a tendency to excessively great circumference. “Fleshy” is nearly synonymous with “portly” but has less connotation of majesty of size. “Corpulent” usually carries a connotation of abdominal enlargement. “Thick-set” implies a large bony frame. “Obese” frequently connotes excessive, strictly pathological, increase of build. “Chubby” is applied especially to infants. “Fat” connotes excessive production of fat in the body, as opposed to an unusually large muscular development. Perhaps of all of these terms “fleshy” is as satisfactory as any as an expression for build without connotation in respect to degree or source of great weight, whether due to fat, muscle, or bone. In the German language there are the terms, “plump,” and “schwerfällig,” which serve to express large build. In the French language there are the terms, “gros,” “obese,” and “embonpoint,” which is near to the English equivalent “stout” or “fleshy.” In the present work the term “fleshy” is used, despite its slight suggestion of muscular development merely, largely because it begins with a different letter from slender. The word “slender” will be used for the other extreme of build. It has been found convenient to indicate those terms by their initial letters “S” and “F” respectively.