LOW PROTEIN DIETARY IN THE TROPICS 165 



moral development of men ; with a low physical standard we are 

 apt to get recruits not only small, but unsteady, wanting in 

 mental ballast as well as in muscular energy. 



(b) The Height. The average height of the adult male Euro- 

 pean, according to Quetelet's tables, is 5 feet 5 inches to 5 feet 

 6 inches. 



The average height of Bengali students we found to be 5 feet 

 5J inches. Buchanan, from an analysis of his collection of 

 28,863 heights of prisoners, would place the average height 

 slightly under the above figures viz., about 5 feet 4 inches. 



(c) The Circumference of the Chest. The average chest-girth 

 of our series of Bengali students works out to be just below the 

 minimum for admission into the British Army viz., 33 inches. 

 It is, therefore, well below the average European standard. 



Landois lays down a rule in judging good weight for height, 

 that normally developed individuals weigh as many kilos as 

 their length measures in centimetres, after subtracting the first 

 metre. This works out very well for the average height and 

 weight of Europeans Europeans 168 centimetres in height 

 should weigh 68 kilos. When we come, however, to apply the 

 rule to Bengalis, whose average height may be taken at 5 feet 

 4 inches, or 162 centimetres, we find he falls far short of the 

 proper standard. 



(d) Physical Endurance. It is difficult to obtain anything 

 like fair comparative tests between the rice-eating Bengali and 

 the European labourer, but anyone who has seen the ordinary 

 Bengali at work will not require much in the way of statistical 

 evidence to convince him of the marked superiority of the 

 European. The same remark applies also, to a certain extent, 

 to a contrast of the working capacity of the Bengali and the 

 better-fed people of Behar, Eastern Bengal, United Provinces, 

 and Punjab. The picture of the feebleness, laziness, lack of 

 energy, and sleepiness of the working coolie could hardly be 

 overdrawn. We have seen three labourers, with, of course, a 

 sirdar or overseer, take eight days to loosen the surface of a drive 

 to the depth of 2 inches ; the total surface area of the drive 

 was roughly 200 square yards. Any ordinary European labourer 

 would have finished the work in a few hours. On watching them 

 for a time, it was noticed that the three took turns to work, 

 with long intervals, when they all sat or lay about, and after an 

 hour or so of this, one would disappear for a sleep, to be followed 



