CHAPTER II. 



Stature. 



The average stature of the 1,528 Jews examined by the 

 present writer in New York City is 164.5 ^^- (5 ^^^^ 4}i inches). 

 The maximum height is 187.5 ^^^ ^he minimum 135 cm. The 

 tallest individual was thus 23 cm., or 13.97 percent, larger than 

 the average ; while the shortest individual was 29 cm., or 17.97 

 percent of the average stature. The variation is thus seen to 

 be more active in the production of shortness of stature. As a 

 whole, the range of extreme individual variation extended over 

 52 cm., or 31.61 percent of the average height, which is not 

 large when compared with that observed in other European 

 races, but quite large when considered in connection with obser- 

 vations on Jews in various European countries. Thus, from 

 Blechman's work on the anthropology of the Jews in Russia, 

 we find that the range of individual variation was only 17.4 

 percent of the average stature ; Yakowenko found it to be, 

 among the White-Russian Jews, 18.7 percent; Weissenberg in 

 South Russia, 21.5 percent; Talko-Hryncewicz in Little-Russia, 

 23.4 percent. The only group of Jews in whom the extreme 

 individual variation of stature exceeds that observed among the 

 Jews in New York are the Galicians, reported by Majer and Koper- 

 nicki ; they show a range of 34.5 percent of the average stature. 

 Among other peoples the range of variation has been much 

 larger ; in Gould's extensive American statistics we find it to 

 extend over 108 cm. But we deal here with a conglomeration 

 of races. Pagliani, in Italy, has found a difference of 74 cm. 

 between the maximum and minimum stature, and the same 

 value has been found among conscripts in Baden, observed by 

 Ammon, while the Jews in the same locality have shown a range 

 of variation of stature of only 30 cm. — less than one half. 

 Another fact worthy of note is that not one individual of 190 

 cm. in height or over was encountered among these 1,528 Jews 



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