UNITED STATES ARMY REJECTION EXPERIENCE, 1912-1915 

 PORTO RICANS 



Per Cent. 

 Examined 



1. Underweight 4.73 



2. Insufficient Chest Development 1.40 



3. Eye Diseases and Defects of Vision 1.22 



4. Defective Development 1.13 



5. Venereal Diseases 1.05 



6. Flatfoot 0.96 



Limited in numbers, as these statistics are, for the Filipino and the 

 Porto Rican recruits, they are nevertheless of exceptional value in 

 emphasizing the probability that the anthropometric standards ap- 

 plied to this class of applicants were those used generally for the Army 

 of the Continental United States, though for racial and other reasons 

 quite inapplicable in view of material variations in physique. The 

 results leave no question of doubt as to the fact that many Filipino and 

 Porto Rican recruits were unnecessarily rejected because of non-con- 

 formity to anthropometric standards based upon a heterogeneous mass 

 of recruiting material of totally different racial origins. It requires to be 

 kept in mind, of course, that undernourishment is probably more com- 

 mon among Porto Ricans and Filipinos than among white and colored 

 recruits of the mainland of the United States, and that particularly in 

 the case of the Porto Ricans, the former excessive frequency of anemia 

 and of uncinariasis have a direct bearing upon the relatively exception- 

 ally high rejection ratio for underweight. * 



The entire recruiting material is suggestive of the need of decidedly 

 more qualified consideration of questions of normal physique and ab- 

 normal departures from rational standards of physical development 

 and bodily proportions, if serious errors are to be avoided, both in the 

 direction of accepting recruits really unfit for military service in the 

 field and in the direction of rejecting men thoroughly qualified, except 

 in possibly minor details, for service demanding even the extraordinary 

 stress and strain of modern warfare on land and sea. 



* The results of Some Anthropometric Measurements of Students of the University of 

 Porto Rico, by Fred K. Fleagle, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, have been published 

 in the Bulletin of the University of Porto Rico under date of January, 1917. The 

 measurements include 1,412 students, of whom 616 were males of an average age of 19.59 

 years. The measurements are of special value in that they are for single years and for 

 three successive dates, including twenty separate anatomical factors aside from height and 

 weight. An interesting comparison is made with the corresponding measurements of Chilean 

 boys by single years of life, 16-20, inclusive. 



With special reference to Filipinos, see the Racial Anatomy of the Philippine Islanders, 

 by R. B. Bean, published by J. B. Lippincott & Company, Philadelphia, 1910. 



The physical standards applicable chiefly to the native-born are more or less inapplicable 

 to Orientals. See in this connection some recent statistics on the height, weight and chest 

 measurements of healthy Chinese in the China Medical Journal, for May, 1918. See, also, 

 the tables on the Average Physical Condition of the applicants examined for admission to 

 the Imperial Japanese -Navy, Annual Report, 1909-11, Tokio. 



so 



