192 
PROFESSOR KARL PEARSOK, MATHEMATICAL 
rule for deducting 2 centims. seems based partly on a comparison of Bertillon’s 
measurements for men, with his own selection from Bollet’s material, which give 
mean heights 165 centims. and 167 centims. respectively, and partly on the measure¬ 
ment standing and reclining of six men and four women.^ Now the reader should 
notice that in our method of reaching the reconstruction equations, we are not con¬ 
cerned with the amount to be subtracted from an individual stature, but with the 
mean living stature of the population which Bollet has sampled. Now there is a 
quantity which has very remarkable constancy, namely, the sexual ratio for stature. 
The mean male is to the mean female stature in a great varietv of races and classes 
as 13 to 12.t If, therefore, Bollet’s women are the same class as his men, we 
should expect their living stature to have had a mean = yf, that of the men 
= yf (165) = 152'3 centims. We have seen that from the registers of Bertillon 
the mean stature of women between 20 and 40 was 154’5 centims. ; these probably 
include a considerable number of stout tramps or vagabonds, not a fair sample of those 
who would find their way into the Lyons Hospital. Tenon measured in 1783 60 
women of the village of Mussey, and obtained a mean stature of 150'6 centims.^ If 
we take the mean of these groups we find 152‘55 centims. as the mean stature for 
French women of the lower classes ; this differs by less than 3 millims. from the result 
already suggested by using the sex ratio. I am, accordingly, inclined to hold that the 
best that can be done at present is to take 152'3 centims. as the mean stature of 
Frenchwomen of the class sampled by Bollet. 
The next stage in our work is to consider the difference in length of the long bones, 
as measured in the dissecting room by Bollet and his assistants, and as they w'ould 
be measured in the case of a primitive race wdiose bones had been exhumed, and then 
been preserved and dried before measuring. Bollet merely observes that he kept 
several of his bones for some months, and, the cartilage being then dry, they measured 
on the average 2 millims. less.§ On the strength of this, Manouvrier,]] and he is 
followed by PvAHON, add 2 millims. to the length of each prehistoric bone when recon¬ 
structing the stature. Now I am doubtful wdiether this gives a really close enough 
result. Bollet measured the bones in the dissecting room, the cartilages were still 
on, and the animal matter in the bones, but in the case of prehistoric and ancient 
bones this does not at all represent the state of affairs. Nor are they merely such 
bones with the cartilage dry ; the cartilage, together with the animal matter, has 
entirely gone. There are accordingly two allowances to be made [a) for the cartilage, 
and ( b ) for the disappearance of the animal matter and drying of the bone. 
* ‘ Memoires de la Societe d’Antliropologie de Paris,’ vol. 4, p. 384, 1892. 
t Rollet’s corpse statures give a sexual ratio = 1'079. 
+ “Notes manuscrites relatives a la stature de I’liomme, recueillies par Yilleeme,” ‘Annales 
d’Hygiene,’ 1833. 
§ Rollet, loc . cit ., p. 24. 
II Manouvrier, he. cit., p. 386. 
