Effects of Gymnastic Training on American Women. 47 



AN ANTHROPOMETRICAL STUDY OF THE EFFECTS OF 

 GYMNASTIC TRAINING ON AMERICAN WOMEN. 



By Claes J. Enebuske, A.M., Ph.D., 

 Principal of Instruction in the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics. 



Ill order to trace the results of gymnastic training, the 

 students of the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics are 

 measured at regular intervals during the school year. The 

 first measurements are taken at the beginning of the school 

 work in the autumn ; the last measurements are taken at the 

 close of the school in the spring. At the beginning of each 

 month those items which are most susceptible to change under 

 the influence of the training are remeasured, and the change 

 in which has most direct influence upon the working capac- 

 ity and resistive power of the student, so far as is manifest in 

 gymnasium work. The measures taken each month are the 

 weight, lung capacity, strength of legs, back, chest, left and 

 right forearm. At the beginning and close of the work 

 53 different measurements are taken in all, namely, the stand- 

 ing height, the length, breadth, depth, girth of various parts of 

 the body, taken at distinct anatomical landmarks. Besides 

 these a series of tracings of the form of the chest are taken 

 at the beginning and close of the year. These are made by 

 means of the anthropometric machines, constructed for this 

 purpose by Demeny in Paris. They consist of, 1st, tracing 

 of thorax in horizontal section, with chest in inspiratory — 

 repose — and expiratory position ; 2nd, tracing of the median 

 profile of the trunk with chest in inspiratory, repose, and 

 expiratory position ; 3rd, the antero-posterior curve of the 

 back ; 4th, the mid-spinal line. 



Ill the present paper we wish to present a part of the 

 results attained by the study of the measurements of one 

 hundred junior students of the school.^ The first observation 



* The measurements have been made by Miss M. Anna Wood, of Wellesley College, and 

 Miss Margaret S. Wallace, of the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics. 



