Build in Relation to Menstrual Disorders and Obesity12

THE SEARCH for relationships between human configuration and human disease have intrigued physicians since the beginning of medical history. Such relationships are always elusive, especially when symptoms so common as obesity and menstrual disorders are referred to a variable so complex as body build. Nevertheless, demonstration of at least a limited relationship between symptoms and physique has been possible in this paper. A first step in the study was the choice of standards of build. The constants established on school children by Gray and Ayres (i) were used for girls up to 19 years of age, and those for working women by Bayer and Gray (2) were used for the women of 20 years of age and older. The standards for working women are especially appropriate, since they were established for the present purpose, from the measurements of women having the same socio-economic status as the patients reported on in this paper.