Abstract
DR. MAURICE GRONIER devotes his inaugural thesis (Thase de Paris, No. 163; 1940) to the anthropological features and peculiarities of disease of the inhabitants of southern Algeria. The Arab population is characterized by a fairly high average stature, distinct dolichocephaly and leptorhinia, while the Mzabite population is distinguished by a higher stature, a relatively long trunk, a tendency to mesocephaly and a higher nasal index. The dentition of these populations is remarkably good, there being an exceedingly low percentage of caries. In addition to widespread malaria, parasitic invasion of the skin and alimentary canal and especially trachoma, the points in which the natives of southern Algeria show a striking contrast with Europeans are as follows: the absence of the nervous complications of syphilis in spite of the prevalence of that disease, the low incidence of diseases of the liver, the rarity of appendicitis, the frequency of pain in the region of the solar plexus, the prevalence of the osteo-articular and glandular forms of tuberculosis and the frequency of cataract in elderly persons.
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The Populations of Southern Algeria. Nature 145, 1013–1014 (1940). https://doi.org/10.1038/1451013e0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1451013e0