DEPARTMENT OF GENETICS. 143 



tion of the results and wrote the text of the report during 1920. The 

 completed report was issued from the Government Printing Office in 

 December 1920. 



The report comprises 635 pages. It discusses stature, weight, chest 

 circumference, and build for 1,000,000 draft recruits and 19 other meas- 

 ures for 100,000 veterans. The report indicates that the average sta- 

 ture of the population of the United States has diminished about half 

 an inch during the past 50 years (doubtless due to excess immigration 

 of short races) ; that men from Texas were the tallest and those from 

 Connecticut shortest ; that of any "section" the "Southern highlanders" 

 are the tallest, and next the men of the Ozark mountains; while Rhode 

 Island and the eastern manufacturing cities contain expremely short 

 people, each due to the racial stock formed there. The average stature 

 of negroes was practically the same as of whites. 



Weight proved to be greatest in Alaska and the northern tier of 

 States; the French Canadian sections showed the least average weight. 

 In chest circumference the tall Southerners of Scotch origin were 

 least, and the stocky Finns and agricultural Russians greatest. In 

 general, the Nordic races in America have relatively longer legs and 

 shorter trunks than the Mediterraneans. The Nordics have broad, 

 shallow chests; the Mediterraneans narrow but deep chests. The ne- 

 groes, of the same average stature as whites, have longer arms, longer 

 legs, narrower pelvis, higher thoracic index (relatively broader chest), 

 larger, shorter necks, and greater weight than the whites. Varia- 

 bility of dimensions was calculated for all races, and correlation of 

 parts. Eye and skin pigmentation deepens from the northern tier of 

 states to the Gulf of Mexico. 



Physical dimensions were studied in relation to disease. Tall men 

 are especially prone to have varicose veins, variocele, pulmonarj^ tuber- 

 culosis, cardiac disorders, and goiter, both simple and exophthalmic. 

 Short men have especiall}^ high incidence of defective teeth and re- 

 fractive errors of the eye (characteristics of short races). Heavj'- men 

 have an excess of varicose veins and flat feet; men of hght weight have 

 an excess of tuberculosis and heart disease. Chest circumference is 

 large in men with asthma. High variability in any group results 

 when it combines two or more dissimilar classes, e. g., the short racial 

 group of myopics (largely Russian Jews) and others of average stature; 

 chest circumference of asthmatics who are far advanced in the disease 

 and those who are not. \\Tiere size and defect are intimately bound 

 together as cause and effect, variability is low. Weight and lung 

 tuberculosis, weight and mitral stinosis, varicose veins and stature are 

 thus connected. Thus variability of a group of dimensions associated 

 with a disease is inversely related to their interdependence as cause 

 and effect. 



