Anthropometry

Anthropometry, the measurement of the dimensions and proportions of the human body for comparison or identification. Cranial measurements (see SKULL), so important to anthropologists, vary so much within the same tribe, as not to be of themselves sufficient data on which to rest generalisations. M. Quetelet defined the general types of mankind by measuring, with reference to such particular qualities as height, weight, complexion, and the like, a certain number of men, and selecting as the standard the most numerous group on both sides of which the groups decrease in number as they vary in type, he arrives at the typical mean man of a population. As a basis of comparison, this is infinitely more valuable than an average which may be calculated from a few individuals, and those frequently exceptional rather than normal types. See Quetelet's Anthropométrie (Brussels, 1871). The French anthropologists depend much more on anthropometry than the English, and have adopted a form of schedule containing as many as 102 different observations of a single individual. Dr René Collignon reduced these for practical use to about 20, and with five simple instruments made a series of anthropometric observations of 280 French recruits from the different provinces of France, which he read before the Society of Anthropology at Paris in June 1883—an excellent example of the value of this method. The 'anthropometric committee' of the English Anthropological Society distributed the average stature of British adult males into racial elements as follows: Early British, 66.6 inches; Saxon, 67.2; Scandinavian, 68.3; Anglian, 68.7. Similar detailed anthropometric measurements will be seen in the special anthropological journals, French, English, and German, and in the more scientific of recent books of travel. The French police systematically employ anthropometric methods for the identification of criminals, carefully recording for future use the various measurements. See the publications of the Anthropological Institute, and the article MAN.