Anatomy and politics / by W.E. Le Gros Clark.

  • Wilfrid Le Gros Clark
Date:
[1936?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Anatomy and politics / by W.E. Le Gros Clark. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    There àre, of course, anthropometric records available for difíerent sections of the population, giving the height and weight in relation to age. But even where these measurements have been made by careful observers they are not of much use for assessing the physical condition of individuals, since the variation is so great even in well-nourished people. It is not possible to predict the weight of a normal child by reference to its age or height. Thus nutritional indices constructed on the basis of height and weight are open to serious objection. Such are Eöhrer's index, in which P X 100 the state of nutrition= 5 , where P is the weight in grammes and H the height H in centimetres ; or Pirquet's index, v X 10 ^ which nutrition is judged sitting height to be inadequate when the ratio falls below 0 -945. In Central Europe, after the war, food was given by the American Eelief Fund to children whose index was below 0'92. Another difficulty arises from the fact that the height standard seems to be changing from year to year. This is well established to be the case in a number of European countries as well as in America and apparently affects every section of the population. A recent study by Bowles^ has shown that in the student population at Harvard University the mean increase in height has been 1 centimetre for every 12| years. A considerable amount of work on the assessment of physique has recently been carried out in America, and an important paper on physical measures of growth and nutrition has recently been published by the American Child Health Association.^ From these studies it appears that hip width rather than height is much more closely correlated with weight in children. Measurements were also taken of sub-cutaneous tissue by the use of special calipers, and of muscles such as the deltoid. With measurements of the limbs it was thus possible to get some idea of the relative development of skeletal, muscular and adipose tissues in each individual. As a result of a comprehensive survey of this kind the ACH index was elaborated by Franzen and Palmer.^ This index is based on the arm girth, chest depth and hip width. It involves, therefore, only three measurements, all of which can be made easily and with a little experience. The index is used for routine work in order to select out children who may then be submitted to a detailed clinical examination. It would be a matter of great interest to apply the ACH index to a study of children in this country for comparative purposes. What is needed most urgently, however, is some routine method by which it may be possible to detect under-nourishment in individuals rather than in groups of children and adults, and no satisfactory method has yet been evolved. Clinical assessment of nutrition has been shown to be un¬ reliable, even when made by experienced clinicians who give ample time to their examination. Growth curves in children would no doubt provide an important criterion, but this necessitates a series of observations carried out at relatively long intervals, and for this reason such a method is not very practicable. Radiography of epiphyseal development has been suggested, and a basis for such a study has been provided by the work of Wallis on children in private schools in America.^ Other 1 Kew Types of Old Americans at Harvard. Harvard Univ. Press, 1932. 2 B. Franzen. Physical Measures of Growth and Nutrition. School Health Research Monographs, No. 2. 3 R. Franzen and G. T. Palmer. The ACH Index of Nutritional Status. 4 R. S. Wallis. How Children Grow, Univ. of Iowa Studies in Child Welfare. Univ. of Iowa, Iowa City. 8