Illness History and Physical Growth

Textbooks in such fields as pediatrics¹and child psychology²often include unqualified statements expressing the view that disease retards growth. Actually, there appears to be a paucity of published investigations relating to the problem, and existing materials are neither sufficiently comprehensive nor sufficiently conclusive to warrant such a broad generalization. Representative studies on the relationship between physical growth and illness are those by Bowditch,³Woodbury,⁴Turner and others,⁵Palmer,⁶Hardy⁷and Jeans and Stearns.⁸Seven infants under 1 year of age were studied by Jeans and Stearns, a 2 year old child by Bowditch, a large sample of children under 6 years by Woodbury and fairly large samples of elementary and high school pupils in the remaining three investigations. Differential observations were obtained. Bowditch found loss in weight in his subject over periods up to one month in relation to measles, an