362 Life mul IxtterH of Frauci* Gallon 



1883. Frank went to the Britixli Atisociation at Southport in Septeuilx-r. In the curly 

 part of the year ho corrccttnl proofs of his luquirits into JIunutn Facu/ly, which was published 

 oy Haxter. He aliio workiMl.hclpwl by Crooui-Roberttwn, at inujins of nie<i8uring the sensations. 

 ' ''ii' August Fortnightly he wrote an article on Mo<lical Life Histories, offering Prizes up to 

 He spent much time on the details. His Record of Family Faculties hius just come out, 

 Al>.o the Life- H uitory Album, which he txlited. He was Chairumn of the AnthrojxtMjetric 

 Committee of the British Association, which publislied this year its fourtii and liniil Report, 

 and also Ciiairmun of the Ixx-al Scientific .S<H-ietie^ Ckjmmittee. 



1HS4. .More and more home seems the most fitting place for me and for Frank as he is 

 always full of otxupatiou. This last year he has iM'en chiefly occupied in abstracting niid 

 collating from the Family Records for which he offere<l prizes to the amount of X500. About 

 150 of these Records were sent in by May 15th, and the statistics they afford will Ije food for 

 many a month and jtosnibly years. Then Frank took great interest in establishing an Anthro- 

 pometric laboratory at the International Health Exhibition, South Kensington, and gave no 

 end of time and money to its prosecution ; he gained, however, full recognition from Sir James 



Paget and others, whose opinion he cared about In the summer my great desire to go abroad 



».is stoppe<l by cholera in the south of France and after long debate Frank .settled on the 

 i!ii:,'lish I.Akes, and I was (juitc willing in default of my pet scheme, which I especially had 

 cherished, as there was no English British Association to spoil our holiday, it being held at 

 Montreal." 



The Record tells us indeed as much as we know of the whole matter, 

 namely, that in some way the medical profeasion di-sajiproved of the prizes, 

 and that they were then ottered to laymen, who to a con.sideralilf extent 

 responded'. 



The interval, however, Ijetween the FortnUjIitlij [)uper of IHSli and tlio 

 appeal to laymen for family records was well employed, and Galton having 

 got in touch with several leaders of medical opinion over the medical registers 

 obtained their aid in preparing his Life-IIistoi-y Album. It may be well to 

 deal with these matters before we return to the Anthropometric Laboratory. 



' In the announcement of the prizes of December, 1883, this not« occui-s after the state- 

 ment of conditions, etc. : "The above conditions are in lieu of those provisionally sketched 

 out by Mr Galton in the Fortniyhtly Revxf.w of August, 188.3, for the purpose of eliciting 

 8Ugg(>stions, and which were subsequently sidmiitted in a more elalx)rate form to many members 

 of the medical profession. Their present shape is fixed in acconlancxj with tlu; balance of 

 opinions elicited by these preliminaries, which was in favour of throwing them oj)en to general 

 competition and not to merlical men only, as at first intende<l." This is obviously only a 

 formal explanation, and does not indicate the nature of the opinions against confining the 

 scheme to men who were in a much better position than the layman to rccoi-d family ailments 

 and the causes of death. Possibly the article in the Forljiig/itly rather inipe<led than aidwl his 

 plans ; possibly the medical profession of those days resente<l the intrusion of an out-sider into 

 what they might consider to be their own domain, even if they had not cultivated this portion 

 of it, and showed no haste to do so. There is also another |H)int which ha.s much weight with 

 me : (>alton even to the time of his death had a great l)elief in working his projects thn>ugh 

 commilU'es. 1 think it aros<! by rea.son of an innate mo«lesty which was always seeking advice 

 fr<jm others and accepting their opinions as worth more than his own. Thesi- committees often 

 became unwieldy, were composed of incongruous and irresponsible elements, and on more than 

 one occasion perverted or destroyed Gallon's original scheme. It is conceivable that the Liftv 

 History Hul>-(k)mmitteo of the Collective Inve-stigation Committee of the British Medical 

 Association, of wiiieh Galton was Chairman, contained elements of this character. Anyone 

 who haA endc«a>'oured like the writer to pick out from Oalton's Record of Family Faculties 

 a definite disease like phthisis by aid of it« numerous lay synonyms or rather intentional 

 pwMiiInnynix will 1»». nipidly convinced that the widening of the field of candidates wius not 

 "'  'ge. I had alreatly writttui tliis noU^ when I chance<l to turn up (ialton's 



p' '  rid edition of the Lifo-History Album (p. ix). He there lulmits to tlie full 



Uie evil of working through a committee, but alas ! it did not cure him of the habit. 



