Evening Star Newspaper, May 26, 1929, Page 93

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, MAY 26, 1929 —PART 7. ——— Human Race 1,000 Years Hence A Forecast by Dr. Ales Hrdlicka, . Swmithsonian Anthropologist. By RENE BACHE. Ales Hrdlicka, physical anthropoloist of the Smithsonian Institution, says that, as the generations pass, women will be- come more and more beautiful. Future evolution will accomplish this as well as other physical improvements in women. Evo- lution is still going on and will continue. The girls of today show a higher average of beauty than those of any previous generation. It is partly due to their better health, but in large measure to a progressive improvement of the human species. Man is a plastic creature, not less so now than in former ages, and is destined to undergo much further molding, with bodily and other alterations. Women will change; they will become dif- ferent in various respects. A thousand years from now, says Dr. Hrdlicka, their eyes will be deeper set, their noses narrower, their mouths smaller and their chins more promi- nent. They will grow taller, with a tendency to slenderness in youth, Their breasts will be smaller, their legs longer, their arms shorter, perhaps; their hands and feet narrower and their fingers and toes more s!>nder. Their lit- tle toes will be further dirinished. FEMININE beauty is on the increase. Dr. YHE men, a thousand years from now, will have undergone corresponding changes. They will be much handsomer than the men of today. In both sexes the forehead will be more de- veloped, with less protrusion of the lower part of the face. As man has progressed upward, this tendency has been continuous. With less use of the chewing muscles, due to prepared - foods, the jaw will become smaller and the face Jess massive. Already, owing to narrowing of the jaw, the teeth are overcrowded. As time goes on, people’s faces will gain character as well as greater handsomeness. The psysiognomy will become more lively and ex- pressive. The brain will increase in size, though not much, and the skull will in all likelihood be- come thinner. The intestine is likely to be shortened, with a lessening of its capacity. As food is more refined and made more digestible, the necessity for a spacious intestine will cor- respondingly diminish. All of these changes will come about through the further progress of evolution. “But,” says Dr. Hrdlicka, “these expecta- tions apply only to the main stream of human- ity. The rest will be left behind. So far as we can see, there is no promise of eventual equality of races. The gap between the front and rear ranks will probably increase rather than de- crease. There will always bz masters and serv- ants. devoted to a study of man’s history through past epochs, but little though has been given to what he may be expected to become. It is a most interesting fleld for speculation. “Doubtless, the progress of the advancing parts of the human race will be toward greater mental power and efficiency. There will be further refinement of the brain and sensory support and deprived of the muscular exercise contemplated for it by nature, has become weakened, hence the frequency of fallen arches and other disabilities of that member, which may be expected to make more and more trou- ble from generation to generation in the future. “MAN today is a developing continuation of his past. He is still struggling with his environment, controlling it more and more successfully; and he still changes. He lives Girls of today show a higher average of beauty than those of any preceding generation, but a thousand years hence they will have attained even more attractive faces and figures, predicts Dr. Hrdlicka. “A vast deal of attention has recently been N o TR, & Dr. Ales Hrdlicka, physical anthropologist of the Smithsonian. He says that man is a plastic creature and that he will undergo further molding in the centuries to come. Tomorrow’s Homo Sapiens— 1. More Beauti ful Men and W omen. 2. Greater Mental Power and E - clency. 3. Geniusand Talent - to Keep on Rising. 4. Average of Hu- man Life to Be Longer. 5. Taller and More Slender Figure. 6. Forehead More Developed; Face L.ess Massive. Brain to Increase in Size and Bald- ness Will Be More Prevale(zt. " particular specialties today. * -all surprising. They rose too high to be over« . advance in mental endowments and mental ef< giant after giant. It may be admitted that * individual geniuses of the past, great intellec- tual skyrockets, are not excelled in their own Nor is thagt at taken and passed in such a relatively short - period as has elapsed since the first written history. “No subject has occupied human attention more than the future after death. But how about the future of the human race on the earth? Science has given a vast deal of study to its past history, but has bestowed littls thought upon what may happen to man during the endless stretches of time ahead of him. “In this regard some fears have been ex< pressed. Eugenists see danger in the rapid and unrestricted breeding of the least dasirabla classes. In the view of vital statistics, the dan< ger lies in a general overpopulation of the world. “There is even apprehensive thought of gen- eral degeneration and an oncoming senility of the human race. Just as an individual man grows old, with impairment of his faculties and a lessening of his physical and mental efficiency, so conceivably might all of mankind . degenerate. " “I can foresee no such happening. If there be danger to the future of mankind, it lies in the birth rate. “The people “est gifted with desirable inheritance traits are producing off- spring in diminishing numbers. Large brains and large families do not seem to go together. But genius and talent will keep on rising, in the main, from lower strata, as they have done heretofore. “Man has ever paid for his advance, is pay- ing now and will pay in the future. Digestive and other functional disorders will increase as time goes on. Mental derangements will probe ably be more frequent. Teeth, mouth, nose, eyes and ears will call for more and more ate tention. Feet, progressively weakened by dee pendence on artificial support, will give more trouble. “Childbirth may not be easier or less painful, despite improvement of medical skill and meth< od. The average human life will be longer, but, due to that very fact, heart troubles, apo- plexy, cancer and senile weaknesses of all sorts will tend to be more comman. “If the best equipped human beings, physicale ly and mentally, could breed among theme selves, the way toward development of a dise tinct higher variety of man would bz open. But it is conceivable that nature might not approve such an arrangement, and that i might turn out unfavorably for man himself, 3 AD we complete knowledge of man’s past we could deduce to some extent the fu- ture of the race. We do know that less than 30,000 years have elapsed since he first came nearly to resemble the human being of today. Those 30,000 years represent less than once tenth—perhaps less than one-twentieth—of tha entire period of man’s existence on the earth. “Human infancy was very long. If man has existed 350,000 years, a very moderate estimate, his infancy and childhood may be said to have covered more than 300,000 years. His progress was slow, very slow, but always a progress, never a regression. The great wonder is how he sustained hime self during this long, dangerous, almost help- less period of his dawning consciousness and Con''nred on FI% Page,