Final report of the Anthropometric Committee / F. Galton, Chairman.

Date:
[1883]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Final report of the Anthropometric Committee / F. Galton, Chairman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    49/74 (page 35)
    Growth of Children of both Sexes. 56. Tables XYI. to XXII. show the growth of children of fonr of the five classes into which the returns have been divided. Class T. comprises the upper and professional classes and their children, and it may be accepted as representing the best physique of this country, and used as a standard with which to compare all other classes. According to the census of 1871 this class constitutes 4*46 per cent, of the population. Class II. consists of the commercial classes, such as clerks and shop¬ keepers and their children, whose occupations are carried on in towns, and for the most part indoors, and therefore under less favourable con¬ ditions to healthy development than the constituents of Class I. Class II. comprises 1036 per cent, of the population. Class III. represents the labouring classes, such as agricultural labourers, fishermen, miners, and others who follow outdoor healthy occupations, but whose nurture is inferior to the two former classes. This class comprises 47'46 per cent, or nearly half the population of the country. Class IV. represents the mass of our town population engaged as artisans. Their trades, being carried on indoors, and requiring less physical exercise than Class III., place them under less favourable conditions as to sanitary surroundings. This class forms 26’82 per cent., or about a fourth of the population. Class V., comprising persons living in towns and following sedentary occupations under the most unfavourable conditions as to nurture and sanitary surroundings, has been omitted from the tables, as sufficient data have not been received to fairly represent it. This class constitutes 10*90 per cent, of the population. 57. The average stature and weight of each of the four classes have been worked out from the number of observations for each class, but as the several classes constitute different proportions of the general popula¬ tion the average representing the ‘ general population ’ has not been worked out from the total number of observations, but is the average of skeletons in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, with the following results:— 1 European female 6 European males Female pelvis 10 Andamanese females 7 Andamanese males Female pelvis Average Average circum¬ circum¬ ference ference of of Ratio of Stature. Pelvis. Head. Pelvis Metres. m.m. m.m. to Head. 1 -592 430 500 1 to MO 1-712 410 530 1-1-29 480 Male head 530 1-1-23 1-408 848 462 1-1 -33 1-492 337 477 1-1-42 348 Male head 477 1-1-37 Only one European female skeleton was available for these measurements, but it appeared to be in every respect a normal one. From these measurements it is obvious that the difference between the circum¬ ference of the head arid the pelvis in the adult is much less in the large European than in the small Andaman race, and it is not improbable that the relaiively small pelvis of the female Andamanese has been instrumental, in some measure, in differen¬ tiating that diminutive race. It is probably in ihis direction we must lock for an explanation of the degenerating influences of town life and sedentary occupations, as they, together with the new movement for the higher education of women, favour the productions of large heads and imperfectly developed bodies of women in this and other civilised countries, and a corresponding disproportion between the size of the head and the circumference of the pelvis.