Thus Anthropometry began to map out definite lines of research, and detailed studies were made of arms and legs, hands and feet, curves and angles, brains and viscera; while, shorn of its extravagant claims, craniology took its legitimate place as one in a series of bodily measurements. One of the earliest workers in measurements other than that of the skull was Charles White (1728-1813).
His contribution to Somatology was a series of measurements on arms; and he discovered that the fore-arm of the Negro is longer, in comparison with his upper-arm, than that of the European, and that that of the Ape is relatively longer than that of the Negro. On account of these measurements on the living (no less than fifty Negroes were measured), White has been claimed as the founder of Anthropometry. Soemmerring (1755-1830), however, had made use of measurements in his comparison of the anatomy of the Negro with the European.
Measurements and Observations of Living Populations.
About the middle of the nineteenth century observations on the living were made, in addition to Anthropometry; investigations were undertaken, not of the skulls and bones of the dead, or even of the head-forms and body-measurements of the living, but of the forms of such features as the nose and ear, pigmentation of the skin and eyes, and the like. As early as 1834 L. R. Villermé had started investigations on the various classes of the population of Great Britain, comparing the dwellers in the country with those of manufacturing districts and large cities, mainly in the interests of hygiene; and later he examined the size and health of children working in coal-mines.
In 1861 the venerated Dr. John Beddoe published a study of hair and eye colour in Ireland, and he has continued his researches in this fruitful field from time to time in various parts of the British Isles, and to a less extent on the continent of Europe.
But it was on the continent that this method of investigation was most ardently prosecuted; and the story of its political origin may here be briefly recounted, since the results were of great service to the science of Anthropometry.
During the bombardment of Paris, in the Franco-Prussian War, the Natural History Museum suffered some damage through shells; and soon afterwards the director, de Quatrefages, published a pamphlet on La Race Prussienne (1871). This was to show that the Prussians were not Teutonic at all, but were descended from the Finns, who were classed with the Lapps as alien Mongolian intruders into Europe. They were thus mere barbarians, with a hatred of a culture they could not appreciate; and their object in shelling the museum was “to take from this Paris that they execrate, from this Babylon that they curse, one of its elements of superiority and attraction. Hence our collections were doomed to perish.” A reply was made by Professor Virchow, of Berlin, and the battle raged furiously. The significance of this controversy to Anthropometry lies in the fact that its immediate result was an order from the German Government authorising an official census of the colour of the hair and eyes of 6,000,000 school children of the Empire—a census which served at once as a stimulus to and a model for further investigators.
This census had some amusing and unexpected results, quoted by Dr. Tylor[[29]] as illustrating the growth of legends:—
[29]. Pres. Add. Brit. Ass., 1879.
No doubt many legends of the ancient world, though not really history, are myths which have arisen by reasoning on actual events, as definite as that which, some four years ago, was terrifying the peasant mind in North Germany, and especially in Posen. The report had spread far and wide that all Catholic children with black hair and blue eyes were to be sent out of the country, some said to Russia; while others declared that it was the King of Prussia who had been playing cards with the Sultan of Turkey, and had staked and lost 40,000 fair-haired, blue-eyed children; and there were Moors travelling about in covered carts to collect them; and the schoolmasters were helping, for they were to have five dollars for every child they handed over. For a time popular excitement was quite serious; the parents kept their children away from school and hid them, and when they appeared in the streets of the market town the little ones clung to them with terrified looks.... One schoolmaster, who evidently knew his people, assured the terrified parents that it was only the children with blue hair and green eyes that were wanted—an explanation that sent them home quite comforted.