GROWTH. 53 



ments, such as the girth around the chest or the abdomen at the 

 level of the umbilicus, the height of the subject when sitting, and 

 other measurements. Pediatricians have not, however, accepted any 

 of these generally. To show at a glance whether the individual is well 

 nourished or poorly nourished we need some mathematical expression 

 of relationship between either weight or height and one or more 

 girths. In other words, some quantitative device is needed for con- 

 firming the personal opinion, which is only too frequently based upon 

 superficial inspection. 



For an entirely different purpose, i. e., primarily to compute the 

 body-surface of our subjects by the extremely ingenious linear formula 

 of Du Bois, 1 we made a large number of measurements of various parts 

 of the body. Many of these are, it is true, not those conventionally 

 recorded by anthropometers, but a number do give indications of 

 growth and are of general as well as special value. Of the numerous 

 measurements required by the Du Bois linear formula, we believe we 

 are warranted in publishing only two, namely, the circumferences at 

 the nipples and at the hips and buttocks. Consequently, in tables 12 

 and 13, in addition to the age, height, and weight of each child, we 

 have given these two circumferences. 2 These are included in our 

 tables as much for the benefit of the future biometrician as for our own 

 immediate use. The circumference at the umbilicus seemed to us too 

 dependent upon accidental conditions (such as food in the stomach and 

 gas in the intestines) to bring it into the same anthropometrical order 

 of value as either of the other measurements, although obviously the 

 chest measurement has its own inherent errors. 



Finally, we have recorded in the last three columns of these same 

 tables the results of our study of body-surface measurements by two 

 different methods. The surface areas by the Du Bois linear formula 

 were obtained primarily to throw light upon the possible relationship 

 between body-surface and basal heat-production. While we firmly 

 believe that this relationship has been very much overestimated and 

 its significance certainly grossly misunderstood, it still remains a 

 fact that as a general index of growth the body-surface may, the- 

 oretically at least, be of a somewhat higher degree of importance than 

 the body-weight. 3 



1 Du Bois and Du Bois, Arch. Intern. Mod., 1915, IS, p. 868. 



2 The data given in tables 12 and 13 were not used in plotting our various charts showing the 



relationships between age, weight, height, and body-surface (except in the case of 8 boys and 

 4 girls especially noted in the tables). The values in these tables represent individual 

 measurements in every case and not average values. The selection of data for each child 

 was made on the basis solely of an increase in body-weight of 1 kilogram. The values, 

 therefore, differ somewhat from those for similar body measurements given in tables 26, 

 27, and 28 (pages 112, 116, and 120) which represent chiefly average values. 



3 For a consideration of the significance of the relationship between body- weight and the two- 



thirds power of the body-weight with other morphological measurements, see Dreyer and 

 Ray, Phil. Trans., 1909-1910, 201, ser. B., p. 133; ibid., Phil. Trans., 1911, 202, ser. B., 

 p. 191; Dreyer, Ray, and Walker, Proc. Roy. Soc., 1912-1913, 86, ser. B., pp. 39 and 56. 

 See also Benedict and Talbot, Carnegie Inst. Wash. Pub. No. 201, 1914, p. 168. 



