Another parallel that it is interesting to draw is that between the most unfortunate social class (the working class) and the degenerates. We have seen that the working class has the highest individual number of stigmata. Rossi compares them with two other categories of persons who are strongly suspected of being degenerates, or who at least must include a notable proportion of degenerates among their number, namely, beggars, as regards the adults, and orphans, as regards the children.
These classes differ in the general frequency of malformations; in fact, the chronic anomalies, taken collectively, give 17 per cent. for the labouring class and 25 per cent. for beggars. But the difference becomes strikingly apparent when we come to consider the individual number of stigmata.
| Anomalies | Labourers (per cent.) | Beggars (per cent.) |
|---|---|---|
| 3-4 | 31 | 41 |
| 5-6 | 9 | 21.3 |
And still greater is the difference between the children of labourers and the orphan children.
FREQUENCY OF ANOMALIES IN CHILDREN (PERCENTAGE)
| Anomalies | Labouring class, pauperism | Orphans, degeneration |
|---|---|---|
| Cranial anomalies in general | 32 | 39 |
| Forehead very low | 16 | 20.8 |
| Alveolar prognathism | 4 | 10 |
| Enlarged mandible | 20 | 25 |
| Plagiocephaly | 16 | 45.8 |
| Prominent cheek-bones | 16 | 41.6 |
| Facial asymmetry | 28 | 35.4 |
| Anomalies of teeth | 24 | 37.5 |
We see therefore that degeneration exerts a most notable influence upon morphological anomalies; it is far more serious than external (social) conditions.
Dr. Ales Hrdlicka, studying the distribution of malformations and deformations among poor children who were inmates of a large New York orphan asylum (634 males and 274 females) distinguishes the morphological anomalies into three categories: Those that are congenital (degeneration); those acquired through pathological causes (diseases), and those acquired through the circumstances of social adaptment, or, as the author expresses it, through habit. And to these he adds still another category of stigmata the causes of which remain uncertain.
If we examine the following extremely interesting table, we see at once that in the case of children the anomalies of form are associated with degeneration and with disease, because the anomalies acquired individually by the child as the result of personal habits are comparatively so few in number as to be quite negligible, and all of them are exclusively in reference to the trunk; in other words, a result of the position assumed on school benches.