Determination of Height or Stature.
When we have the entire skeleton to deal with, the height or stature may be determined with a reasonable degree of certainty by allowing from one to two inches for the soft parts. Most of the proportions given in works on artistic anatomy approach mathematical exactness. For instance, if both upper and lower extremities are extended after the manner of spokes in a wheel, and a point corresponding to the umbilicus be taken as a centre, the circumference of a circle described therefrom should touch the bottom of the feet and the tips of the middle fingers. When the arms are extended horizontally the line included in the middle-finger tips equals the height in the generality of men, although in exceptional cases it may vary. The negro giant, Nelson Pickett, is reported to have been eight feet four inches high, while his outstretched arms measured nine feet from tip to tip. Ordinarily the upper part of the symphysis pubis is the centre of the body. Some anatomists contend that this important point is really below the symphysis in the average man. The length of the foot about equals that of the head. According to Quetelet, its length is just one-ninth of the body in women, a little more than one-ninth in men. The conventional representation of the human foot with a second longer toe is, according to Professor Flower (see “Fashion in Deformity”), of negro origin and does not represent what is most usual in our race and time. Statistics of measurements made in England by several observers on hundreds of barefooted children fail to show one instance in which the second toe is the longer.[575]
Taken singly the bones may enable an approximate estimate of the height of the person when alive; but it should be remembered in connection with this subject that the height is not a fixed quantity, since it differs according to upright or recumbent position, also before and after a night’s rest. Moreover, the alleged height of the deceased may have been taken in boots and is probably incorrect.
Many tables of measurements have been constructed for the purpose of determining the height from the dimensions of the bones; but the relation that exists between the total height and the dimensions of different bones varies according to age, sex, asymmetry, and individual peculiarities, hence the tables will not bear the critical examination that warrants their use with assured correctness, even in a majority of cases. The femur is the bone that gives the best results in these measurements. Isolated fragments have been included in the enumeration; the nose and the middle finger multiplied by 32 and by 19 or 20 giving the approximate height. While the foregoing calculations will not bear scientific scrutiny, they are of sufficient importance to be taken in connection with other facts in determining the probable length of the skeleton. Among the most trustworthy of these tables are those of Dr. Dwight, of Harvard University.
Determination of Age.
The age is a still more difficult matter to state precisely. Even during life one may be as much as ten years out in guessing the age of an adult, while the error may be from fifteen to twenty years in the case of a corpse. Dr. Tourdes mentions a case where the age was guessed as sixty and sixty-five in a deceased person aged eighty-five.
The state of the osseous system and the condition and number of the teeth, which strictly speaking are not bone, are among the surest guides in the determination of age. The signs furnished thereby may vary according to the periods of increase, maturity, and decline.
During fœtal life and even at the epoch of birth the bone centres are few. The distal end of the femur, the proximal end of the tibia, and the astragalus are ossified at birth. Points of ossification appear in successive order of development. The exact period at which the bones begin to ossify and the progress of bony union being detailed in standard works on anatomy, it would be superfluous to repeat them here. These changes are, however, not absolutely certain as to time and order, as the tip of the acromion process of the scapula sometimes remains ununited throughout life; the ossification of the sternum and of the costal cartilages is very uncertain, while the teeth, like certain railway trains, are only due when they arrive.
From the character of the progress of consolidation of the skeleton the age may be estimated with a reasonable approach to accuracy up to twenty-five or thirty years, which is the stationary period as regards alteration in the osseous system. Above this period it is difficult to arrive at the age. About forty the cranial sutures[576] begin to disappear, although the time of the closure of the sutures varies within large limits; the coccyx becomes consolidated; ossification begins in the thyroid cartilage and in that of the first rib (although this state of the rib is regarded by many as pathological); the lower jaw, which in the fœtus and in infancy formed an obtuse angle, now assumes nearly a right angle. As senility progresses toward decrepitude, the bones become lighter and more brittle, owing to fatty atrophy, and their medullary canal larger; the jaw returns to its infantile shape from loss of teeth and atrophy of the alveolar processes; the bodies of the vertebræ (according to some authorities) bevel off in front; osteophytes are formed, and the neck of the femur approaches the horizontal. (See Abortion and Infanticide.)