The future of anthropometry / by Charles S. Myers.

  • Myers, Charles S. (Charles Samuel), 1873-1946.
Date:
[1903?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The future of anthropometry / by Charles S. Myers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and of speaking, for example, of mesaticephalic, and of brachycephalic types co-existing in any one people under examination. This conception of types is implicitly founded on the hypothesis that at one time there existed races, each of which exhibited a separate type. And so, in consequence of the extreme and irregular variations of individuals from the mean or average of their people, has arisen the familiar modern dictum of anthropologists that at the present day no pure race exists. Thus far has anthropometry progressed with the task of taking an average of every seemingly useful measurement on every people of the globe. Assuming that she has completed this task, what results has she obtained by her knowledge ? Basing her faith in measurement as a sure means of ethnic identification, she has found the variation of individuals from the mean to be so wide, that again and again, even her ablest exponents have been grossly deceived in their attempts to identify ethnologically a bone or bones from the measurements by which the various forms and dimensions of bones are expressed. It is small wonder that this has resulted in a hopeless distrust of anthropological measurements. Modifications of method have been vainly tried in order to improve this disappointing condition of affairs. One reason for the failure was held to lie in the complex nature of many of the measurements which had been chosen. It was said, for instance, that the comparison of maximum head- lengths among different races is absurd, since the maximum head-length is the expression of several independent variables, e.g., the projection of the occiput and the prominence of the glabella. By another it was suggested that no two bones should be measured together, that the bones composing the skull, for example, should be individually measured, each, perhaps, from its own centre of ossification. Others affected to find the remedy in dispensing with indices, basing their conclusions on absolute measurements only. There came also the well known endeavour of Sergi to banish anthropometry altogether from the department of comparative human craniology. By now, however, he shows signs of yielding the isolated position which he originally took up as to the utter worthlessness of indices, while he has induced most anthropologists to agree with him as to the ethnological value of the study of the configuration of bones. Need it be urged how mischievous is such an attempt to replace linear or angular measurements by a study of outlines, if based upon the expectation that mathematical considerations may be thereby ousted from physical anthropology ? To judge of an outline of face or skull by the eye, to set it down as beloid, ellipsoid,, or what not, is to foster an utter lack of reliability in anthropometric results. Bor a very short experience of Sergi’s methods is sufficient to prove how, in practice, the various forms described by him shade insensibly into one another. If we are to know the degree of nearness or of remoteness borne by each skull or bone to the type-forms, is it not clear that these various forms must be expressed in mathematical language ? Outlines, of course, are not as simply amenable as . lengths and breadths to numerical representation, but that they are ultimately