The Descent of Man

ce to show that, at almost every stage of life, the
males in Scotland have a greater liability to
death and a higher death-rate than the females.
The fact, however, of this peculiarity being
most strongly developed at that infantile period
of life when the dress, food, and general treatment
of both sexes are alike, seems to prove
that the higher male death-rate is an impressed,
natural, and constitutional peculiarity due to
sex alone.") Dr. Stockton Hough accounts for
these facts in part by the more frequent defective
development of males than of females. We
have before seen that the male sex is more variable
in structure than the female; and variations
in important organs would generally be
injurious. But the size of the body, and especially
of the head, being greater in male than female
infants is another cause: for the males are
thus more liable to be injured during parturition.
Consequently the still-born males are more
numerous; and, as a highly competent judge,
Dr. Crichton Browne (52. 'West Riding Lunatic