osteometry; the measurement of the bones 105 



Although in averages this character is sufficiently striking, yet there 

 are very large individual differences. Fischer found, for instance, among 

 six negro radii, extremes of 39 and 85°; and among twenty-five South 

 Germans, those of 22 and 67°. 



The Bones of the Hand 



Of all parts of the human skeleton it is safe to say that the bones of 

 the hand and foot are anthropometrically the least known, and that in 

 spite of the fact that, as always among highly differentiated parts, it is 

 to be expected that they would reveal important racial differences*. 

 The reason for this lack is mainly to be found in the paucity of available 

 material. Few anthropological collections contain complete sets of 

 hand and foot bones. In the case of those obtained from dealers, either 

 attached to skeletons, or obtained separately, there is no guarantee that 

 all the bones of a set came from a single individual and are not "com- 

 posites," put together from several sources, and hence valueless for 

 anthropometry. Again, it is very seldom that in an excavated skeleton 

 these small and fragile parts are found complete, or even approximately so, 

 since the lightness and smallness of the most of these parts allow them 

 to become scattered by the action of worms and insects, and by various 

 other sources. 



To remedy this great defect, and supply material for his own univer- 

 sity, Dr. Wilhelm Pfitzner of the University of Strassburg macerated and 

 prepared with his own hands a collection of nearly 2000 human hands 

 and about the same number of feet, not daring to entrust to a trade 

 preparator any portion of the work.f Thus this place, and this alone 

 thus far, possesses a priceless collection of just the material needed for 

 anthropometric examination of hand and foot skeletons, but even here 

 the collection is derived wholly from the local Alsatian population, repre- 

 senting but a small part of Europe. Adachi, in Tokyo, has been able 

 to collect valuable data concerning the Japanese, but by the study of far 

 fewer individuals, and when Uhlbach recently studied anthropometrically 

 the hands and feet of Hottentots, he was obliged to content himself 

 with these parts from only six individuals, and had it not been for the 

 painstaking excavations by his friend and teacher, Fischer, he could not 

 have gotten even these. 



Granting, however, that material is not lacking,, a distinct problem 

 presents itself in the fact of the multiplicity of single bones which together 

 make up the unit whose proportions are especially to be studied. That is, 



* Geo. S. Huntington, in a lecture delivered before the Galton Society, New 

 York, Dec, 1918 (unpublished). 



f Pfitzner, W. : Beitrage zur Kenntniss des menschlichen Extremitatenskelets. 

 VIII. Die morphologischen Elements des menschl. Handskelets. Zeitschr. f. Mor- 

 phol. und Anthropol, Bd. II. 1900, pp. 77-157 and 365-678. There are other im- 

 portant papers upon the subject by this author, but this, the last of the series, has an 

 excellent bibliography, and will serve to direct the reader to the subject in general. 



