RACE IN RELATION TO FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION 



OF STATURE 



Apparently the intensity of the variation in stature increases with 

 the age as indicated by the dispersion or standard deviation. The 

 skewness remains negative up to age 21, but from that age onward it 

 is positive. According to Mr. Arne Fisher, "The figures seem to 

 iridicate that bodily growth in respect to height to all practical purposes 

 is completed between the ages of 20 and 21, and that from this period 

 onward the statistical parameters remain practically constant." This 

 conclusion, however, might be modified if the details for single years 

 of life subsequent to age 24 were available. The anthropometric values 

 for adult ages are of a much higher degree of practical utility than has 

 thus far been recognized. The most notable contribution to the study 

 of this important aspect of physical anthropology is the results ob- 

 tained by the Medico- Actuarial Committee from the experience of 

 American life insurance companies. The scientific value of these results, 

 however, is materially impaired by the fact that the measurements rep- 

 resent a heterogeneous group, just as this was the case with American re- 

 cruits previously to the present war. Indifference to the factor of race or 

 racial inheritance of bodily physical proportions impairs aggregate data 

 representative of widely varying types of mankind. Comparing the 

 frequency distribution of the heights of American males as ascertained 

 by the Medico-Actuarial investigation with the heights of United States 

 Army recruits, it becomes apparent that either the measurements were 

 wanting in accuracy, or, as is more likely, that the results represent a 

 compound curve consisting on the one hand of males above average stat- 

 ure typical of the native United States population, Scotchmen, Scandi- 

 navians, etc., and males of short stature typical of Southern European 

 races. A compound frequency curve for such heterogeneous elements 

 cannot possibly be relied upon as trustworthy for scientific and a variety 

 of practical purposes unless the relative racial distribution is known 

 with at least approximate accuracy. A critical examination of the 

 corresponding curve for Italian recruits exhibits a somewhat similar 

 phenomenon. Obviously the inclusion of the short-type recruits from 

 the southern provinces with the relatively tall-type recruits from the 

 northern part of Italy in one curve yields results practically applicable 

 to neither group but representative of a non-existing type, which, of 

 course, is scientifically misleading. 



In the United States Army the racial aspects of army recruiting 

 have been limited to the whites and the negroes, or persons of 

 African descent, the Indians and the Filipinos. The essential statistical 

 facts of the recruiting physique of the whites and of the negroes are 

 presented in the following series of tables : 



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