Abstract
The existence of dwarfs has been recognised
since very early periods of history. Instances are
alluded to in the writings of Homer, Herodotus, Pliny
and. Aristotle. The ancients, it would appear, had
some knowledge of the existence of five different
pigmy races in the old world, and it is interesting
to note that their speculations as to the location
of these tribes have been largely confirmed by modern
exploration. Coming down to more recent times, we
find that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
dwarfs were kept at court and were the associates of
princes at a time when it was thought beneath the
dignity of the latter to converse freely with those
below them in rank.
Various classifications of dwarfs have been
adopted from time to time. They have been divided
into true dwarfs - where the stature .is symmetrically
diminished in all its proportions - and micromelic
or short limbed dwarfs, which latter class has again
been subdivided into two groups - one in which the
whole four extremities, and another in which the
lower limbs alone are affected. But as our subject
is not restricted to cases of actual dwarfism, it
seems better to adopt a broader basis of classification, such as:
I. Cases of stunted physical development,
due to the existence of some definite
pathological change.
II. Cases where no such pathological change
is discoverable.
As examples of the first class, we may instance
the rickety dwarf; of the second, any of the pigmy
races of mankind. But between these well- defined
extremes, there is a borderland where it is by no
means easy to draw a line where the definitely pathological
begins.