Physical efficiency; a review of the deleterious effects of town life upon the population of Britain : with suggestions for their arrest.

  • Cantlie, James, 1851-1926.
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Physical efficiency; a review of the deleterious effects of town life upon the population of Britain : with suggestions for their arrest. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    clothes all over the civilised world, and yet we do not know to-day the dimensions of his body. In estimating the physical develop- ment of our own people, in trying to discover its trend, and in comparing it with that of other races and of our colonial offshoots, Mr. Cantlie has to depend largely upon general impressions, because statistics are not available. We dis- tinguish between Pygmies and Patagonians, and have a few incomplete returns relating to the stature and weight and chest - girth of the in- habitants of our own islands; but are sadly lacking in the precise anthropometric information that ought to form the basis of sound generalisa- tion in connection with physical efficiency. Mr. Cantlie is an acute and cautious observer, and I have no doubt his general impressions are for the most part correct, but it would be satisfactory to have the evidence of the tape-measure for beliefs such as these, that the girls of the affluent classes in this country are growing taller and narrower in the pelvis, that the Germans are broader shouldered than we Britishers because of their addiction to the gymnasium rather than to sports, that Australians of the third generation manifest a change in type in being more finely drawn in their lower limbs, and that telegraph and messenger boys are bigger and healthier than