p Considering the health of the population is a concept which embraces not only mortality and disease incidence, but also physical development. Numerous studies conducted 42 in the Soviet Union at different times attest an all-round improvement in the physical development of children, adolescents and other age groups of the population. Especially valuable are the studies that make it possible to compare the anthropometric data obtained at different periods in the same parts of the country. The following are the results of one of these studies. According to F. F. Erisman, a prominent Russian scientist who studied the physical development of adolescents in Glukhovo, a small workers’ settlement near Moscow, in 1880 the height of 15-year-old boys averaged 141 cm, while, according to G. P. Salnikova et al., Soviet researchers who studied the physical development of adolescents in the same settlement 82 years later, in 1962, the height of 15-year-old boys already averaged 162 cm. During that period they had thus “grown” 21 cm taller. According to Erisman, the boys outstripped the girls in height only at the age of 16, according to Salnikova—at 14. Contrariwise, according to Erisman, the girls outstripped the boys in height at 12 years of age, according to Salnikova—at 10.

p Similar data may be cited with respect to other parameters —weight, chest girth, etc. It seems to us, however, that the few facts cited above are enough to show the considerable improvement in the physical development of children and adolescents. Even if we take shorter periods of time we can observe an appreciable improvement in all parameters of physical development, and not only in the central parts of the country, but also in outlying districts with rigorous natural conditions. For example, studies conducted beyond the polar circle, in Murmansk, in 1964, showed that 15- yearold boys were 12.31 cm and girls of the same age 12.7 cm taller than in 1947; during the same period the boys of this age had “gained” in weight 8.35 kg and the girls 11.4 kg. Analogous figures were furnished by a study of the physical development of children and adolescents in the city of Norilsk and other parts of the Soviet Far North.

p The increase in the major parameters of physical development in children and adolescents during a comparatively short period of time has been so appreciable both in the USSR and abroad that it is referred to as the acceleration phenomenon. More and more studies are now being devoted to this phenomenon and increasingly more hypotheses are being advanced to explain it.

p Without dwelling on this problem in detail (for it needs special consideration) we should like to mention that, according to most studies of the physical development of the Soviet people, there are no essential differences relating to financial position or social status. All groups of the population— workers (both industrial and office) and peasants, wherever they may live, show clear signs of improved physical development.

No such conclusion can be made as regards a number of capitalist countries where the effects of the difference in the social status can be observed in the physical development of the population.