2 LABORATORY MANUAL OF ANTHROPOMETRY 



out the fact that a total height obtained from an articulated skeleton 

 depended too much upon the preparator who put the bones together, and 

 hence disregarded this uncertain measurement in favor of one involving 

 the length of a single long bone, or of two combined. He thus substi- 

 tuted for Humphrey's standard, now the length of the femur, now that of 

 the radius, or again the combined lengths of humerus and radius or femur 

 and tibia, with each of which, in turn, with a value of 100, the lengths of 

 the other long arm and leg bones was compared. 



The next great advance in treating the general subject of racial 

 anthropometry was the realization of the fact that many of the bones 

 could be measured practically as well in the living subject by ascer- 

 taining the precise location of their termini by palpation; also that cer- 

 tain integumental landmarks, not associated with the skeleton, such as 

 the umbilicus and the nipples, were of considerable value in the study 

 of proportions. This line of work, the anthropometry of the living 

 subject, developed naturally in the field, as osteometry had developed in 

 the museum, and was the direct result, of the series of great scientific 

 voyages, like those of the Novara and the Challenger, characteristic 

 of the last third of the Nineteenth Century. Naturally in the develop- 

 ment of physical ethnology the facial features had long received much 

 attention, and had become the subject of careful measurements, with aver- 

 ages and indices, and the extension of this work to the rest of the body 

 naturally followed. 



During this epoch, in 1882, to be precise, a young anthropologist, 

 M. Alphonse Bertillon, noticing the individual character of bodily 

 measurements, saw in them important data for the solution of the many 

 difficulties which, up to this time, confronted the Judicial arm of the 

 French Government, that of establishing the individual identity of crimi- 

 nals, and inaugurated the famous system of "Bertillonage," based upon 

 eleven easily taken measurements, a system that has now for many years 

 yielded the most satisfactory results, and is still in general us , although 

 now being rapidly replaced by the Finger-print System of Galton and 

 Henry.* 



The investigators of this period began by measuring the distances 

 between landmarks directly, that is, the lengths of the long bones from 

 end to end, as had been previously done with the shorter distances of the 

 head and face, but it was soon seen that if the subject were standing 

 erect, with heels together, in military position, it was necessary only to 

 ascertain the distance from the floor of each terminus, and obtain the 

 various required lengths by subtraction of one height from another, 

 thus sparing time to both subject and operator in the work of measuring, 

 at best a tedious process. This was naturally possible only when arms 

 and legs were held "straight," i.e., perpendicular to the floor, so that it is 

 always necessary for the subject to stand as erect as he can. Aside from 



* Wilder and Wentworth: "Personal Identification." Badger, Boston, 1918. 



