A PRELIMINARY RKPOR'l ON ANTH'UOP()METRY 

 IN THE UNITED~ STATES. 



By Edward Mussey Hartwell, Ph.D., M.D., 

 Director of Thysical Training in Public Scuools of Boston, Massachusetts. 



The writer has adopted tlie above title for this paper since 

 his chief purpose, at this time, is to call attention to the 

 number and variety of the publications whicli relate to 

 anthropometry in the United States, without attempting a 

 complete or critical analysis of any of them. It is also proper 

 to note that the appended Provisional List includes several 

 titles of books and articles which have been' published in 

 Europe by American writers, and a few titles of articles 

 relating to an thro pome tr}- in America by European writers. 



In this paper the term anthropometry is used in the sense 

 originally attributed to it by Quetelet, which includes the 

 measure of the different faculties of the human being; 

 although antlmrpometnjcal^^ 



been pursued, for the mos t part, for the sake _of determining 

 ]jro por tions of the body and its parts. 



Considered as a whole, the American literature on anthro- 

 pometry consists lai'gely of descriptive and tabulated reports 

 of tlie results reached by individual observers in compara- 

 tively narrow and disconnected fields of investigation. A 

 very considerable amount of material has been amassed, but 

 much of it is so heterogeneous as to remind one of a heap of 

 nuggets of crude ores of different kinds, which, to yield true 

 metal, must needs be sorted, roasted, and refined. Neverthe- 

 less, in spite of some vagueness of aim and considerable diver- 

 sit}^ of methods, a sufficient amount of valuable material has 

 been published in relation to the growth and development 

 of children and adolescents to warrant an earnest and labo- 

 rious attempt to sift, collate, and recast it in such wise as to 

 make it available for tlie purposes of the vital statistician. 



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