Final report of the Anthropometric Committee / F. Galton, Chairman.

Date:
[1883]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Final report of the Anthropometric Committee / F. Galton, Chairman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    64/74 (page 48)
    Conclusion. 67. Attention has been called to some of the principal points of interest in the data collected by the Committee, bnt in many respects the tables have been left to speak for themselves ; and it is not improbable that a stndy of them will lead some persons to conclusions differing more or less from those given in this Report.1 68. The original returns, which the Committee recommend may be placed in the charge of the Anthropological Institute for preservation and future examination, comprise many statistics which could not be introduced into this Report on account of the time and labour required for their analysis and tabulation. 69. The Committee believes that it has laid a substantial foundation for a further and more exhaustive study of the physical condition of a people by anthropometric methods, and that its action will prove it has been useful as an example to other scientific societies and to individuals in stimulating them, as well as directing them, in the methods of making statistical inquiries relative to social questions. The medical officers, managers, or superintendents of many colleges, schools, and charitable in¬ stitutions have been induced to keep registers of the physical proportions of those under their charge, which will in a few years become valuable records, not only of the physical condition of the inmates of their institutions, but of the sanitary conditions under which they have lived; they will also be available for the further study of the subjects specially treated of in this Report. The Collective Investigation Committee of the British Medical Association propose to carry on the work of this Committee in a direction which it is most needed, namely, by issuing an album in which persons may methodically record at frequent intervals their height, weight, and other physical qualities, together with points in their personal and medical history. The Committee hopes that this habit will be largely adopted and encouraged by the members of the British Association. 70. The Committee has to express its thanks to the numerous contri¬ butors to their store of facts, whose names and contributions have been published from time to time in their interim reports, and to numerous friends who, although not contributors themselves, have induced others to give their assistance. 1 The inquiries relative to breathing capacity were abandoned in 1879 on account of the unsatisfactory nature of the returns received previous to that year. The apparatus were faulty. The statistics relating to eyesight were dealt with in the Report for 1881, and the returns since received are not sufficient to require a further discussion of the subject. The subject of colour-blindness was taken up by a Special Committee of the Ophthalmological Society after it had been inaugurated by this Committee, and it was given up on that account. The very interesting report of the Special Committee is published in the first volume of the Trans, of the Ophthal. Soc. 1881.