" O. Rosenbach ("Bemerkungen ueber das Problem einer
Brunstzeit beim Menschen," _Archiv fuer Rassen und
Gesellschafts-Biologie_, Bd. III, Heft 5) has also argued in
favor of a chief sexual period in the year in man, with secondary
and even tertiary climaxes, in March, August, and December. He
finds that in some families, for several generations, birthdays
tend to fall in the same months, but his paper is, on the whole,
inconclusive.
Some years ago, Prof. J.B. Haycraft argued, on the basis of data
furnished by Scotland, that the conception-rate corresponds to
the temperature-curve (Haycraft, "Physiological Results of
Temperature Variation," _Transactions of the Royal Society of
Edinburgh_, vol. xxix, 1880). "Temperature," he concluded, "is
the main factor regulating the variations in the number of
conceptions which occur during the year. It increases their
number with its elevation, and this on an average of 0.5 per
cent, for an elevation of 1 deg. F." Whether or not this theory may
fit the facts as regards Scotland, it is certainly altogether
untenable when we take a broader view of the phenomena.
Recently Dr. Paul Gaedeken of Copenhagen has argued in a detailed
statistical study ("La Reaction de l'Organisme sous l'Influence
Physico-Chimiques des Agents Meteorologiques," _Archives
d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, Feb.
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