[Reprinted from SCIENCE, N. S.,Vol. LL, No. IS 10, 

 Pages 1SS-1S4, February 6, 1920] 



CHARLES BUCKMAN GORING 



FEW of the readers of SCIENCE will be 

 familiar with even the name of Charles 

 Goring. 1 His time was largely spent as a 

 prison medical officer. His one monumental 

 work, which may perhaps best be described as 

 the biology of the convict, is still unfamiliar 

 to all but a limited circle. 



Goring s work 2 was based on thousands of 

 data and is stringently biometric in form, but 

 he was no mere measurer, card shuffler and 

 constant computer. He knew his convicts as 

 the trained student of animal behavior knows 

 his organisms and better, for he had not 

 merely their physical measurements and an 

 intimate personal knowledge and evaluation 

 of their mental characteristics but knew much 

 of their ancestry and family associations. To 

 Goring, measurements were inviolate not to 

 be juggled with, modified or discarded because 

 they did not substantiate a popular theory. 



1 Goring was born in 1870 and died in 1919. He 

 was a student and later a fellow of University 

 College, London. He served on a hospital ship 

 during the Boer War. At the tame of his death 

 met at his post combating the influenza epidemic 

 he was Medical Officer in Chief at Strangeways 

 Prison, Manchester. Those who desire may find a 

 portrait and a more adequate appreciation in Bio- 

 metrika, Vol. XII., pp. 297-307, pi. 1, 1919. 



2 Goring, C. B., &quot;The English Convict; A Sta 

 tistical Study.&quot; 444 pp. London, 1913. Abridged 

 edition, Wyman and Co., 1915. The statistical 

 work on this volume was carried out at the Bio- 

 metric Laboratory with the cooperation of H. E. 

 Soper and with the helpful suggestion and criti 

 cism of Professor Pearson. 



