however competent he may otherwise be for military duty. The 

 medical significance of emaciation, venereal disease, rupture and even 

 flat feet is by no means "readily apparent" in the large majority of 

 cases. The ascertainment or even suspicion of shortness of breath, 

 dimness of vision or an irregularity of the pulse is not within the 

 province of the judgment of the average layman, however conscien- 

 tiously he may apply himself to the duty of physical and medical 

 examination assigned to him as a matter of army routine. 



THE SPHERE AND FUNCTION OF PHYSICAL 



ANTHROPOLOGY 



In the words of Dr. Ales Hrdlicka, in charge of physical anthro- 

 pology at the Smithsonian Institution, "Physical, i. e., anatomical, 

 anthropology is one of the main branches of the extensive science of 

 mankind. It is that part of anthropology in which are studied varia- 

 tions in the human body and all its parts, and particularly the 

 differences of such variations in the races, tribes, families, and other 

 well-defined groups of humanity. Physical anthropology accumulates 

 facts concerning these variations in every part of the earth and seeks 

 their causes and significance. On the basis of such knowledge and with 

 the help of other sciences it endeavors to trace man's evolution, to 

 show his biological history, as well as the processes of differentiation 

 actually going on in him, and to outline the tendencies of his physical 

 life for the future." The inadequacy of our existing information on 

 so important a branch of the extensive science of mankind was clearly 

 brought out by Dr. Hrdlicka in an exhibit on physical anthropology 

 contributed to the Panama-California Exposition in 1915. The most 

 important scientific result of this exhibit was the emphasis placed upon 

 the factor of individual physical variation, which comprises the differ- 

 ences among normal full-blooded representatives of one race or group, 

 a difference which is regional as well as local, and extends from 

 part to part of the body, being relatively limited in such char- 

 acteristics as the color of the skin, eye or hair, but al- 

 most endless in the details of physiognomy and the various pro- 

 portions of the body. The inadequacy of the existing amount 

 of information on the physical anthropology of the civilized races 

 is so much the more deplorable because the practical application of the 

 data to such questions as the normal growth of children, the normal 

 development of the body during early adolescence, the physical adapta- 

 tion of workmen to highly organized industrial functions, and last but 

 not least the physical requirements for military service depends for 

 its best solution upon the ascertainment and perfection of normal 

 bodily averages, which at present are wanting in scientific conclusive- 

 ness to a lamentable degree. * If, therefore, the measurements which 



* The principal references, in addition to those previously quoted on general anthropology 

 and anthropometry, are the following: On the Stature and Bulk of Man in the British Isles, 



14 



