Outlines of human osteology / by F.O. Ward.

  • Frederick Oldfield Ward
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Outlines of human osteology / by F.O. Ward. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    (taking into consideration the shorter as well as the taller varieties of the species) is five feet six inches. This is increased, in the living subject, by the muscles and integu- ments, to about five feet seven inches. Variations in height of more than nine or ten inches above or below this mediuni standard are anomalous; that is to say, at four feet nine inches a man's stature may be considered dwarfish, while at sis feet five inches he becomes a giant. Bourgery cites, as extreme instances of dwarfish and giant stature, a Congo negro, nine feet high, seen by Vander- broeck ; and a dwarf, aged thirty-seven years, sixteen inches high, mentioned by Birch. The average height of the adult European male skeleton (to which, in this work, our attention has been principally du-ected) is five feet eight inches, or, with the integuments, five feet nine inches. In a man of this stature the total height of the body is eight times that of the head. In all varieties of the species, whether tall or short, barbarous or civihzed, the height of the female is, on an average, inferior by about 1-llth to that of the male. Varieties of height usually depend in a greater degree on the limbs than on the trunk; for which reason it is that tall and short persons, when sitting, often appear of nearly equal height. Vitruvius mentions some curious facts with reference to the proportions of the human body. If the body be laid on a flat surface, with the legs extended, as in the erect posture, and the arms stretched out at right angles on either side; and if then a parallelogram be formed, by drawing two lines jJarallel to the median j^lane, one on each side, touching the tips of the fingers, and meeting these at right angles by two transverse lines, one in contact with the crown of the head, the other with the soles of the feet; this jjarallelogram, thus exactly includ- ing the body, will, in a well-i^roportioned individual, be found to be a perfect square. If the arms be now raised till the tips of the fingers are in a hue with the top of the head, and if the legs be separated till they would form, with a line joining the feet, an equilateral triangle; then, around the navel as a centre, a circle may be described, which shall touch the tips of the fingers above and the soles of the feet below, thus including the body exactly within its circumference. Mr. Joseph Bonomi, sculptor, in conjunction with myself, tried the truth of these rules on two individuals of ordinary projjortions, and we found them verified with surprising accuracy. It is difficult to
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