Form and Types of Stature
The Form.—Fundamental Cannons regarding the Form.—Types of Stature, Macroscelia and Brachyscelia; their physiological Significance.—Types of Stature in relation to Race, Sex, and Age.
A few years ago, when anthropology first began to be studied, the skull was taken as the point of departure; because in the analytical study of the human body it represents the principal part. Indeed, the same thing was done by Lombroso, when he applied anthropology to the practice of psychiatry and later to the study of criminals. It is a matter of fact that degenerative stigmata of the gravest significance are to be found associated with the skull; and this he could not fail to take into account, because of its bearings upon criminal anthropology.
But to-day anthropology is reaching out into vaster fields of science and striving to develop in diverse directions, such as those of physiology and pathology; and revolting from the collection of degenerative details, it undertakes to study normal man in regard to his external form as related to his functional capacity, or else the man of abnormal constitution, who in his outward form reveals certain predispositions to illness; and starting on these lines, it proposes to investigate principally the metamorphoses of growth, through the successive periods of life.
From this new point of view, it is not any single malformation, but the individual as a whole in the exercise of his functions, who assumes first importance. The study of the cranium (formerly so important as to be the basis of a special science, craniology), becomes only one detail of the whole. As a matter of fact, the brain, which is what gives the cranium its importance, is not only the immediate organ of intelligence, but it is also the psychomotor organ; and as such exercises control over all the striped muscles, and is morphologically associated with the development and the functional powers of the whole body.
It follows that, the larger the body, the bigger brain it needs to control it, independently of the question of intelligence. Therefore the first point of departure should be eminently synthetic, and should include the morphological personality considered as a whole.
One of the properties of living bodies is that of attaining a determinate development, whose limits, both in regard to the quantity of its mass and the harmony of its form, are defined by that biological final cause which is implanted in the race and transmitted by heredity. Consequently every living creature has determinate limits: and these constitute a fundamental biological property.
The causality of such limits has not yet been determined by scientific research; nevertheless it is a phenomenon over which we must pause to meditate. If the philosopher pauses to contemplate the immensity of the ocean from the sea shore, marvelling that the interminable and impetuous movement of the waves should have such exact and definite limits that it cannot overpass by so much as a metre the extreme high-water line upon the beach, we may similarly pause to meditate upon the material limits that life assumes in its infinitely varied manifestations.
From the microbe to the mammal, from the lichen to the palm, all living creatures have inherited these limits, which permit the zoologist and the botanist to assign to each a measure as one of its descriptive attributes.
This is the first attribute which we must take into consideration in the study of anthropology: namely, the mass of the body, and together with the mass, its morphological entirety. The Italian vocabulary lacks any one word which quite expresses this idea, [and in this respect English is scarcely more fortunate[7]]. The stature which represents to us the most synthetic measure of the body in its entirety (a measure determined by the vertical linear distance between the level on which the individual's feet are placed, up to the top of his head as he stands erect), does not represent the entire body in the sense above indicated. It may rather be considered as a linear index of this entirety. The French language, on the contrary, possesses the word taille, which may be rendered in Italian by the word taglia [and in English by the word form[8]], provided that we understand it to signify the conception of the whole morphological personality.
No single measurement can express the form; the weight of the body, indeed, may give us a conception of the mass but not of the shape; and the latter, if it needs to be determined in all its limits, requires a series of measurements, mutually related, and signifying the reciprocal connection and harmony of the parts with the whole; in other words, a law. We may establish the following measurements as adapted to determine the form, in other words, as fundamental laws: the total stature, the sitting stature, the total spread of the arms, the circumference of the thorax, and the weight. Of these measures, the two of chief importance are the stature and the weight, because they express the linear index and the volumetric measure of the entire body. The other measurements, on the contrary, analyse this entirety in a sweeping way: thus, the sitting stature, in its relation to the total stature, indicates the reciprocal proportions between the bust and the lower limbs; the perimeter of the chest records the transverse and volumetric development of the bust; and the total spread of the arms denotes a detail that is highly characteristic in the case of man: the development of the upper limbs, which, while they correspond to organs of locomotion in the lower animals, assume in the case of man higher functions, as organs of labour and of mimic speech.
Such measurements constitute a law, because they are in constant mutual relationship, when the normal human organism has reached complete development. The stature, in fact, is equal to the total spread of the arms; the circumference of the thorax is equal to one-half the stature, and the sitting stature is slightly greater than the perimeter of the chest. As regards the weight, it cannot be in direct proportion to any linear measure; nevertheless, an empirical correspondence in figures has been noted that may be recorded solely for the purpose of aiding the memory: the normal adult man usually weighs as many kilograms as there are centimetres in his stature, over and above one metre (for instance, a man whose height is 1.60 metres will weigh 60 kilograms, etc.).
To make these laws easier to understand, we may resort to signs and formulæ. Thus, if we denote the stature by St, the total spread of the arms by Ts, the circumference of the thorax by Ct, the essential or sitting stature by Ss, and the weight by W, we may set down the following formulæ, which will result in practice in more or less obvious approximations:
St = Ts; Ct = St/2; Ct = Ss
And for the weight, the following wholly empirical formula:
W = Kg(St-1 m.).
Stature.—Among all the measurements relating to the form, the principal one is the stature. It has certain characteristics that are essentially human. What we understand by stature is the height of a living animal, when standing on its feet. Let us compare the stature of one of the higher mammals, a dog for instance, with that of man. The stature of the dog is determined essentially by the length of its legs, while the spinal column is supported in a horizontal position by the legs themselves. Such is the attitude of all the higher mammals, including the greater number of monkeys, notwithstanding that these latter are steadily tending to raise their spinal column in an oblique direction, in proportion to the lengthening of their forelimbs, which serve them as a support in walking—a form of locomotion half way between that of quadrupeds and of man. Man alone has permanently acquired an erect position, that renders the bust ( = sum of head and trunk) vertical, and leaves the upper limbs definitely free from any duty connected with locomotion, thus attaining the full measure of the human stature, which is the sum of the bust and the lower limbs. Thus, we may assert that one fundamental difference between man and animals consists in this: that in animals the spinal column does not enter into the computation of stature; while in man, on the contrary, it is included in its entirety. Consequently, in man the stature assumes a characteristic and fundamental importance, because part of it (that part relating to the bust) represents, as a linear index, all the organs of vegetative life and of life in its external relations.
If we examine the human skeleton in an erect position (Fig. 9), it shows us the varying importance of the different parts of its structure, according as they are destined to protect, or simply to sustain. At the top is the skull, an enclosed bony cavity; and this arrangement indicates that it is designed to contain and protect an organ of the highest importance. By means of the occipital foramen, this cavity communicates with the vertebral canal, also rigorously closed, that is formed by the successive juxtaposition of the vertebræ. Such protective formation is in accord with the high physiological significance and the delicate structure of the organs of the central nervous system, which represent the supreme control over physiological life and over the psychic activities of life in its external relations. Below the skull, the structure of the skeleton is profoundly altered; in fact, the framework of the thorax is a sort of bony cage open at the bottom; still, the external arrangement of the bones renders them highly protective to the organs they enclose, namely, the lungs and the heart—physiological centres, whose perpetual motion seems to symbolise the rhythm and consequently the continuity of life.
Fig. 9.
Continuing to descend, we come to a sort of hollow basin, the pelvis, which seems merely to contain, rather than protect, the abdominal organs: the intestines, kidneys, etc. Such a structure seems to be in accord with the minor physiological importance of these organs, whose function (digestion) is periodic and may be temporarily suspended, in defiance of physiological stimuli, without suspension of life. In the lower part of the skeleton, on the contrary, the arrangement between the soft and bony tissues is inverted: the long bones of the limbs constitute the inner part; and they are covered over with thick, striped muscles, organs of mechanical movement for the purpose of locomotion. Here the function of the skeleton is exclusively that of support, and in its mechanism it represents a series of levers.
Accordingly, the structure of the skeleton also shows us how the stature is composed of parts that differ profoundly in their physiological significance; life as a complete whole, the living man, is contained within the bust, which holds the organs of the individual, vegetative life; those of life in relation to its environment, and those of life in relation to the race, namely, the organs of reproduction.
Deprived of arms and legs, man could still live; the limbs are nothing more than appendages at the service of the bust, in all animals; they serve to transport the bust, that is, the part which constitutes the real living animal, which without the limbs would be as motionless as a vegetable, unable to go in pursuit of nourishment or to exercise sexual selection.
The embryos of different animals, of a dog, a bat, a rabbit and of man (as may be seen in Fig. 11) show that the fundamental part of the body is the spinal column, which limits and includes the whole animal in the process of formation.
If we next examine the embryonic development of man, as shown in Fig. 13, we may easily see how the limbs develop, at first as almost insignificant appendages of the trunk, remaining hidden within the curve of the spinal column; and even in an advanced stage of development (15th week), they still remain quite accessory parts in their relation to the whole.
Having established these very obvious principles, we may ask ourselves: of two men of equal stature, which is physiologically the more efficient? Evidently, that one of the two who has the shorter legs.
In other words, it is of fundamental importance to determine the reciprocal relation, in the stature, between the bust and the lower limbs, that is, between the height of the bust and the total height of the body.
Fig. 10.—Gastrula of a sponge.
External surface. Internal section.
(Showing the inner and outer primary layers, and the mouth orifice.)
Fig. 11.
Dog. Bat. Rabbit. Man.
(From the work by E. Haeckel: Anthropogeny.)
Fig. 12.
Four skeletons of anthropoid apes. Man.
The height of the bust was called by Collignon the essential stature, a name that indicates the biological significance of this measurement. It may, however, also be called the sitting stature, from the method of taking the measure, which equals the vertical distance from the level on which the individual is seated to the top of his head. The other is the total stature.
Fig. 13.
14 days, 3 weeks, 4 weeks, etc. (natural size).
Accordingly, in anthropology we may define the physiological efficiency of a man by the relation existing between his two statures, the total and the essential. If we reduce the total stature (which for the sake of brevity we will call simply the stature) to a scale of 100, we find that the essential stature very slightly exceeds 50, oscillating between 53-54; yet it may fall to 47 and even lower, or it may rise above 56. In such cases we have individuals of profoundly diverse types, whose diversity is essentially connected with the proportional differences between the several parts of their stature.
Hence, we may distinguish the type of stature; understanding by this, not a measure, but a ratio between measures, expressed by a number; that is, "the type of stature is the name given to the ratio between the essential stature and the total stature reduced to a scale of 100." The number resulting from this ratio, since it indicates the ratio itself, is called the index of stature (See "Technical Lessons: on the Manner of Obtaining and Calculating the Indexes"). Manouvrier has distinguished the type with short limbs and preponderant trunk, by the name of brachyscelous; and those of the opposite type, that is, with long legs, by the name of macroscelous; reserving the term mesatiscelous to designate the intermediate type.
These types differ not only in the reciprocal relation between the two statures, but in all the recognised laws of the form. The brachyscelous type has a circumference of chest in excess of half the stature, because the trunk is more greatly developed in all its dimensions; and the total weight of the body exceeds the normal proportion in relation to the stature. The contrary holds true of the macroscelous type; their trunk, being shorter, is also narrower, and the circumference of the chest can never equal one-half the stature, while the total weight of the body is below the normal.