period lasts from March and April to July and August. Then
follows the third period, which continues until November and December.
During this period increase in height is very slight, being at its early
minimum; increase in weight, on the other hand, at the beginning of the
period (in September and October), is rapid and to the middle of December
very considerable, daily increase in weight being three times as great as
during the winter months. Thus it may be said that the spring sexual
climax corresponds, roughly, with growth in height and arrest of growth in
weight, while the autumn climax corresponds roughly with a period of
growth in weight and arrest of growth in height. Malling-Hansen found that
slight variations in the growth of the children were often dependent on
changes in temperature, in such a way that a rise of temperature, even
lasting for only a few days, caused an increase of growth, and a fall of
temperature a decrease in growth. At Halle, Schmid-Monnard found that
nearly all growth in weight took place in the second half of the year, and
that the holidays made little difference. In America, Peckham has shown
that increase of growth is chiefly from the 1st of May to the 1st of
September.[168] Among young girls in St. Petersburg, Jenjko found that
increase in weight takes place in summer. Goepel found that increase in
height takes place mostly during the first eight months of the year,
reaching a maximum in August, declining during the autumn and winter, in
February being _nil_, while in March there is sometimes loss in weight
even in healthy children.

In the course of a study as to the consumption of bread in Normal schools
during each month of the year, as illustrating the relationship between
intellectual work and nutrition, Binet presents a number of curves which
bring out results to which he makes no allusion, as they are outside his
own investigation. Almost without exception, these curves show that there
is an increase in the consumption of bread in spring and in autumn, the
spring rise being in February, March, and April; the autumn rise in
October or November. There are, however, certain fallacies in dealing with
institutions like Normal schools, where the conditions are not perfectly
regular throughout the year, owing to vacations, etc. It is, therefore,
instructive to find that under the monotonous conditions of prison-life
precisely the same spring and autumn rises are found. Binet takes the