The Stature
While the figure and the type of stature tend to delineate the individual considered by himself, the different measurements considered separately may guide us in our study of individuals in their relation to the race and the environment.
Among the measurements of the form, we will limit ourselves to a study of the stature and the weight, which serve to give us respectively the linear index of development and the volumetric estimate of the body taken as a whole. We shall reserve the study of the other measurements, such as the total spread of the arms and the perimeter of the thorax, until we come to the analytical investigation of the separate parts of the body (limbs, thorax).
The stature is expressed by a linear measure determined by the distance intervening in a vertical direction between the plane on which the individual is standing in an erect position and the top of his head.
It follows that the stature is a measurement determined by the erect position; on the other hand, when a man is in a recumbent position, what we could determine would be the length of body, which is not identical with the stature.
In fact, a man on foot, resting his weight upon articulations that are elastic, and therefore compressible, is a little shorter than when he is recumbent.
If we examine the skeleton (see Fig. 9), we discover that the single synthetic measure that constitutes the stature results from a sum of parts that differ greatly from one another. To be specific, it is composed of the long and short bones of the lower limbs; of flat bones, such as the pelvis and the skull; of little spongy bones, such as the vertebræ; all of which bones and parts obey different laws in the course of their growth. Furthermore, intervening between these various bones are soft, elastic parts, known as the articulations, which, starting from below, succeed each other in the following order:
- Calcaneo-astragaloid, between the calcaneus and the superimposed astragalus.
- Tibio-astragaloid, between the astragalus and the superimposed tibia.
- Of the knee, between the tibia and the femur.
- Of the hip, between the femur and the os innominatum.
- Sacro-iliac, between the os iliacum and the sacrum.
- Sacro-vertebral, between the sacrum and the last lumbar vertebra.
- Of the vertebræ, consisting of 23 intervertebral disks, that is to say interposed between the vertebræ, which include the following: 5 lumbar, 12 thoracic, 7 cervical.
- Occipito-atloid, between the first cervical vertebra, called the atlas and the os occipitale of the cranium.
Accordingly, there are thirty articulations in all; and of these, 23 are the intervertebral disks, which constitute, taken together, a fourth part of the complex height of the vertebral column.
Furthermore, the height of the body cannot be considered simply the sum of the component parts, since these are not superimposed in a straight line. As a matter of fact, if we examine the vertebral column, we see that it is not straight as in the case of animals, but exhibits certain curves that are characteristic of the human species, and must be taken into consideration in their relation to the erect position. In fact, the vertebral column presents two curvatures, the one lumbar, and the other cervical, which together give it the form of an S. These curvatures are acquired along with the erect position, and are not innate; one of the points of difference between the skeleton of the new-born child and that of the adult is precisely this, that the former has a straight vertebral column.
A fact of no small importance to note, since in the course of growth a certain determined form of normal curve, and no other, ought to establish itself; otherwise, abnormal deviations in the vertebral column will become established. And for the very reason that it is plastic and destined to assume a curve, the vertebral column may very easily be forced into exaggerating or departing from its morphological destiny. In such a case, the resulting stature would be inferior to what it should normally have been.
Accordingly, the stature is the resultant of the sum of anatomical parts and of morphological conditions.
Hence it is a linear index not only of biological man, that is, of man considered in relation to his racial limitations; but also of social man, that is, of man as he has developed in the struggle for adaptation to his environment.
The limits of stature, according to race. Stature is an anthropological datum of great biological value, since it is a definite racial characteristic and is preserved from generation to generation by heredity. The first distinguishing trait of a race is the height of the body in its natural erect position. It is also the first characteristic that strikes us when a stranger comes toward us for the first time. And that is why we make it the leading descriptive trait: a person of tall, or of low stature. If, for a moment, we should picture to ourselves the legend of Noah's Ark—quite incredible, because emigration and embarkation of all the known species would have required more than a century of time (it is enough merely to think of the embarkation of the tortoises and the sloths!), and the necessity of an ark as big as a nation, what must inevitably have struck Noah and his sons would have been the stature of the individuals belonging to each separate species.
The stature is the linear index of the limit of mass.
Among the human races the variations in stature are included between fairly wide oscillations: coming down to facts, the average stature of the Akkas is 1.387 m. (4 ft. 6½ in.) for the males; and that of the Scotchmen of Galloway is 1.792 m. (5 ft. 10½ in.). Accordingly between the average heights of the two races that are considered as the extremes, there is a difference of 40 cm. (15¾ in.); but since the averages are obtained from a complex mass of normal measurements, some of which are above and others necessarily below the average itself, we may assert that the "normal human individuals" may differ in stature to an extent of more than half a metre; the oscillations of normal individuals on each side of the racial average being estimated at about 10 cm. (3.937 in.).
If we should see a little Akka 4 ft. 4 in. (1.33 m.) in height alongside of a Scotchman 6 ft. (1.83 m.) high we should say "a dwarf beside a giant." But such terms are pathological and should never be employed to indicate normal individualities. As a matter of fact dwarfs and giants are as a class extra-social and sterile; normal individuals, on the contrary, represent the physiopsychic characteristics of their respective races. Consequently we may say that normal people have a low stature, or a high stature; or if it is a question of extremely low stature (such as that of the Akkas) we may make use of the term pigmies or of the pigmy race, in speaking of such individuals. Sergi has proved the existence, among the prehistoric inhabitants of Europe, of various pigmy races.
In the field of anthropology the scientific terminology ought always to be based upon certain determined limits. The authorities indicate the normal extremes of individual stature, beyond which we pass over the into realm of pathology, incompatible with the survival of the species; and even in the pathological cases they determine the extreme limits, obtained from the individual monstrosities that have actually existed in the course of the centuries, and that seem to indicate the furthest limits attained by the human race.
Deniker, in summing up the principal authorities, assigns the following limits:
| Statures less than 1.25 m. | Normal statures, range of oscillations among the races | Statures from 2 m. upward | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lowest individual extreme | Exceptionally low individual stature | Extreme low racial average | Extreme high racial average | Exceptionally high individual stature | Highest individual extreme | ||
| Nanism | 1.25 m. | 1.35 m. | Akkas 1.387 m. | Scotchmen of Galloway 1.792 m. | 1.90 m. | 1.99 m. | Gigantism |
The pathological extremes that would seem to indicate the limits of stature compatible with human life would seem to be on the one hand the little female dwarf, Hilany Agyba of Sinai, described by Jaest and cited by Deniker,[13] 15 inches high (0.38 m.—the average length of the Italian child at birth is 0.50 m. = 19½ in.), and on the other, the giant Finlander, Caianus, cited by Topinard[14], 9 ft. 3½ in. in height (2.83); the two extremes of human stature would accordingly bear a ratio of 1:7. On the other hand, Quétélet[15] gives the two extremes as being relatively 1:6—namely, the Swedish giant who was one of the guardsmen of Frederick the Great, and was 2.523 m. tall (8 ft. 3 in.); and the dwarf cited by Buffon, 0.43 m. in height (16¾ in.).
When there is occasion for applying the terms tall or low stature to individuals of our own race, it is necessary at the same time to establish limits that will determine the precise meaning of such terms. Livi[16] gives as the average stature for Italians 1.65 m. (5 ft. 5 in.), and speaking authoritatively as the leading statistician in Anthropology, establishes the following limits:
STATURE OF ITALIANS (LIVI)
Averages Determining The Terminology of Stature
| 1.60 m. and below, low statures. | 1.65 m. and all between 1.60-1.70, mean statures | 1.70 m. and above, tall statures. |
The individual extremes among the low statures tend to approach the average stature of the Japanese race (1.55 m.), and those among the high statures approach the Anglo-Saxon average (the Scotch = 1.79 m.)
There is much to interest us in studying the distribution of statures in Italy.
In Livi's great charts, he has marked in blue those regions where the prevailing percentage of stature is high (1.70 m. and upward), and in red those where the low statures prevail (1.60 m. and below); and the varying intensity of colouration indicates the greater or lesser prevalence of the high or low statures.
Thus it becomes evident in one glance of the eye that tall statures prevail in northern Italy and low statures in the south; while the maximum of low stature (indicated by the most intense red) is found in the islands, and especially in Sardinia.
In the vicinity of the central districts of Italy (the Marches, Umbria, Latium) the two colours fade out; this indicates that here all notable prevalence of stature, either tall or low, ceases; consequently we have here, as the prevailing norm, the mean stature (1.65 m.).
Anyone wishing to analyse the natural distribution of stature, has only to study these charts by Livi, which are worked out with great minuteness. If a study of this sort, extending over the entire peninsula, seems too great an undertaking, it is at least advisable for a teacher to acquaint himself with the local distribution of stature; in order that when it becomes his duty to judge of the stature of pupils in his school he will have the necessary idea regarding the biological (racial) basis on which so important an anthropological datum can oscillate.
Livi's charts, based upon the male stature, correspond almost perfectly with my own regional charts based upon the average statures of the women of Latium. Both Livi and I find that in the region of Latium the tall statures prevail north of the Tiber, especially toward the confines of Umbria; while the lowest statures are found in the neighbourhood of the valley of the Tiber, toward the sea (Castelli Romani). That is to say, the stature becomes lower from north to south, and from the mountains toward the sea. Furthermore, there exist certain nuclei of pure race, such as at Orte and in Castelli Romani, where we may find the extremes of average stature, which for women are found to be 1.61 m. at Orte, and 1.47 m. at Castelli Romani; while the extreme individual statures, according to my figures, oscillate between 1.42 m. (Castelli) and 1.70 m. (Orte). It would be helpful to the teachers of Rome and Latium, if they would acquire some idea regarding the racial types of the district, by studying my work on the Physical Characteristics of the young Women of Latium, which is the only work on regional anthropology taken directly from life that so far exists in anthropologic literature.[17]
The Stature in Relation to Sex.—It is sufficient to point out that the stature varies normally between the sexes, so that the average figures differ by about 10 centimetres (nearly 4 in.) in the direction of a lower stature for woman.