The development of the child / by Nathan Oppenheim.

  • Nathan Oppenheim
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The development of the child / by Nathan Oppenheim. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    36/320 (page 22)
    makes at birth nearly one-half of it. This means that the length of the face and head in the young child is relatively smaller than in the adult. A similar rule cannot be made for the circumference, for even in early childhood this measurement is almost equal to that of the adult. The lack of proportion between the differ- ent dimensions of the face at various times is thus made clearly apparent, and the purely provisional nature of youthful forms is thus very clear. The upper and lower jaws also are very interesting, on account of their lack in infancy of permanent proportions. They begin to ossify early in foetal life, and keep on developing and changing all through the years of child- hood, until after puberty, when the final formation gradually makes itself evident. The upper jaw is really the most important part of the face, and at the same time it is the part which, naturally enough, is least developed at birth; therefore it undergoes the most salient changes before it comes to rest. As every one knows, changes in one part necessitate changes in all related parts, so that there is no one portion that one may look upon as really stable. Again, one may take as an example the layer of car- tilage which acts like a cushion between those im- portant parts of the skull, the basi-occipital and the basi-sphenoidal bones; this substance does not allow them to unite until after the twentieth year. Thus their final condition is essentially different from what