PEOCEEDINGS 
ratal Prtstrafetf? ^wtjr. 
Vol. III. 
MARCH, 1868. 
No. 3. 
GENERAL MEETING. 
Thursday Evening, March 5th, 1868. — Mr. S. H. Swayne, 
M.R.C.S., occupied the chair. 
The minutes of the previous meeting having been read and confirmed, 
the resolution passed at the last meeting for an alteration in the rules, 
by which ladies will be eligible for election as members of the Society, 
was unanimously agreed to by the members present. 
Dr. Beddoe made some remarks on the methods of measuring the 
Human Body for ethnological and other purposes. The general drift of 
his discourse was to show the difficulties that lie in the way of establishing 
satisfactory and uniform systems of measurement, and the nugatory results 
of much laborious and conscientious work that has been done in this 
department, owing chiefly to the want of definition and agreement in the 
systems employed — For example, the measurements of the girth of the 
chest obtained at British recruiting stations are almost useless for scientific 
purposes, although the directions given by the Department appear all that 
could be wished: in this case the variations depend chiefly on the different 
degrees of tightness with which the measuring tape is applied. The 
existence of the variations, and their approximate magnitude, is demon- 
strated by such facts as the following, — equal numbers of men, born in 
the same province, and yielding the same average height and weight, gave 
an inch or even two inches more of girth at one recruiting station than at 
another. 
