On the growth of the recruit and young soldier : with a view to a judicious selection of "growing lads" for the army, and a regulated system of training for recruits / by William Aitken.

Date:: 1862

Credit: On the growth of the recruit and young soldier : with a view to a judicious selection of "growing lads" for the army, and a regulated system of training for recruits / by William Aitken. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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$Addenda II.— \_8ee page 44.] The experiments of James Forbes (now Prin- cipal of the University of St. Andrew's) were made upon students in the university of Edin- burgh, when he was Professor of Natural Philo- sophy there. The students experimented upon were upwards of 800 individuals, between the ages of fourteen and twenty-five, and illustrated clearly the law of physical development with age. Natives of Scotland, England, and Ire- land were distinguished. The weights v^^ere ex- pressed in pounds, including clothes ; the height in inches, including shoes ; strength was deter- mined in pounds by Regnier's dynamometer. Compared with the observations of Quetelet, the progress towards maturity in Britain seemed greater in the earlier years (fourteen to seventeen) than in Belgium, and slower after-$