7. Research Projects.PDF
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Page | 1 Anthropometric Laboratory The Anthropometric Committee (1875-1883) When the Belgian Adolphe Quetelet (1796-1874) published his book on Anthropometry in 1870 under the title Anthropométrie, his work was already known in England, and was gradually getting adopted. Quetelet was the first to use human measurements as a means of defining what should be considered ‘normal’ and ‘average man’, already from the 1830s, with his first book on the subject appearing in 1835 under the title Sur l’Homme et le Développment de ses Facultés (‘On Man and the Development of his Faculties’). This was largely based on his study of school children, of which he measured their heights and weights, in an attempt to find a correlation between the two and specifically how both height and weight increased with age (Smith 2019, 7). Both the founding of the Statistical Section of the British Association (1833) and the Statistical Society of London (1834) are attributed to Quetelet’s work, having been also elected as ‘a foreign member of the Statistical Society of London and credited as a founder’ (Smith 2019, 6). His book was also translated in English and published in 1842 (Smith 2019, 7). It was not however until 1875 that the British Association for the Advancement of Science (itself founded in 1831) that it founded an Anthropometric Committee aiming to ‘describe the physical condition of the population of the British Isles, and, to a degree, that of other places and peoples around the world’ (Jordan 2013, 10). Quetelet’s work was very influential for Charles Roberts, who became one of the most important anthropometrists working with the Anthropometric Committee, which he joined in 1876 (Jordan 2013, 10). Roberts was not only aware of Quetelet’s studies and his books, but he wrote his own anthropometric study in 1878 under the title ‘A Manual of Anthropometry’, crucially perhaps after having failed to attract much attention from the publishing world in his own translation of Anthropométrie, an indication that this kind of study was still not popular in England in the early 1870s. His own anthropometric book appeared to have been almost an exact copy of Quetelet’s book, even down to illustrations, failing to make any additional original contribution to Anthropométrie and justifying this plagiarism as scientific: ‘the measuring process had to be uniform across nations’ (Smith 2019, 11). Francis Galton was also attracted to the idea of using measurements to conduct ‘large-scale anthropometric investigations in Great Britain’ (Lundgren 2013, 453) and this inevitably brought him in touch with Charles Roberts. He became a member of the Anthropometric Committee which he chaired between 1878 and 1883 when it concluded its work (Smith, 17-19) and worked closely with Roberts during that time, becoming an influential member (Lundgren 2013, 454). Nevertheless, the two of them appear to have Page | 2 seen anthropometry as a means to interpret completely different issues. For Roberts, it was primarily a way of understanding social problems; of understanding how environmental factors produce signs of deterioration (Smith 2019, 11-12). In one particular study between 1872 and 1873, he concentrated on children working in factories with those in rural areas, concluding that industrialization was essentially responsible for ‘national decline’ (Smith 2019, 12). In other words, it was not heredity responsible for the decline, but rather environmental factors (Smith 2019, 13). Worth noting is also that Roberts, with his knowledge of anthropometric studies, intervened in parliamentary work in at least two occasions: On the 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Bill, where he offered his expertise as to the age when girls ‘attained sexual maturity’, but also on the Royal Commission on Secondary Education of 1895, ‘arguing for improved physical recreation in secondary schools’ (Smith 2019, 13). Galton on the other hand appeared to have wanted to use anthropometrics to prove theories on heredity. He leaves hardly any doubt as to what anthropometry was for. In his 1890 article on ‘Why do we measure Mankind?’ he explicitly describes it as a way of selecting those who exhibit some kind of natural superiority as opposed to those who have ‘natural incapacity’ (Galton 1890, 238). He clearly discussed anthropometry as a possible means for employers to select those capable for the job offered, and as a way of everyone to be able to understand their ‘natural incapacities’, and save them ‘from efforts doomed to be wasted’ (Galton 1865, 333). For Galton, anthropometry is a method of ‘throwing light on hereditary peculiarities’ (Galton 1865, 338). Despite the fact that the two men were using anthropometrics to prove different theories, this did not prevent them from working together. As well as working on the Anthropometric Survey of the British Association between 1878 and 1883, they also needed each other for the accumulation of enough data to prove their theories. And while Roberts was certainly active in this respect, collecting data for his anthropometric studies (in his study on children for example Roberts measured thousands of them (Smith 2019, 11-13), Galton appears to have been somewhat non-participatory, joining Roberts in theory but not participating in the collection of data, almost exuding an air of superiority as the Committee’s Chairman, which ‘cloathe[d] [him] with an authority that an unknown individual would lack’ (Galton 1908, 213) by considering his position in this study as purely advisory (Galton 1908, 214, and Smith 2019, 19). The committee produced 6 reports during its years of existence, with the last one being in 1883 (Jordan 2013, 12-16). Galton himself appears to have been appointed in the committee replacing William Farr as Chairman, after the committee’s recommendation, with Page | 3 Quetelet also joining by 1871 (Jordan 2013, 13). By the time of the last report produced in 1883, the committee reported that almost 53,000 individuals have been participating in its surveys, which appeared to have been ‘supplementary to that of the National Census’ (Jordan 2013, 13). A general fear that measurements ‘would be used for conscription’ (Smith 2019, 9) as well as the intimacy that taking these measurements implied (Smith 2019, 10) made it very difficult to make anthropometry attractive to the public. Galton himself noted in the 1890s that the public’s indifference for anything that had to do with science (and in this case, with the idea of making their data available for someone else’s research) could only be reversed by making the scientific study for which the measurements were needed more fun and relevant to their everyday lives (Galton 1890, 236). It was, however, down to the scientist to find fun ways of making this happen. He imagined his reader as wondering: ‘If anybody can show me that all this measuring will be useful to myself, I will undergo it with pleasure; otherwise not’ (Galton 1890, 236). And so he found a way to make the measurement collection fun, by adding an anthropometric laboratory in the 1884 International Health Exhibition, which itself already had an element of a fun fair. The 1884 International Health Exhibition and Galton’s Anthropometric Laboratory. The 1884 International Health Exhibition provided for Galton the opportunity to set up an Anthropometric Laboratory for the first time. Taking place in South Kensington between Exhibition Road and Queen Gate, next to the South Kensington Museum, the exhibition was an opportunity for the four million visitors to understand the importance of the ‘science of sanitation’ which ‘affects the welfare of every individual’, while also ‘illustrat[ing] vividly and in a practical a manner as possible Food, Dress, the Dwelling, the School, and the Workshop, as affecting the conditions of healthful life’ (Acland 1884, 5). It is quite ironic then that in an exhibition which took the approach that the environment affects one’s health (with the environment largely being determined by social class), Galton set up an anthropometric laboratory essentially with a view of obtaining data to prove the complete opposite. To illustrate the importance of healthy surroundings, the exhibition also included ‘sanitary and unsanitary houses’, with the sanitary ones containing the ideal house with proper ventilations and appliances (Acland 1884, 5). Galton’s laboratory was set up on the South Gallery and its annexes, next to the Meteorological Instruments, and advertised in the Exhibition’s booklet as a place where ‘visitors can have their principal physical dimension taken, their hearing power and accuracy of eyesight ascertained, and their strength tested (Acland 1884, 14). Being part of an International Health Exhibition offered Galton not only Page | 4 the opportunity to attract participants from a large pool of people (visitors), but to also connect anthropometry to the exhibition’s theme, health. An interesting aspect for further research would be how exhibitors were chosen. This might be quite important when it comes to Galton setting up his laboratory as part of the exhibition. Galton himself admitted in his memoirs, published in 1909 that he ‘offered to equip and maintain a laboratory there [at the exhibition], if suitable place were given, the workshop set up, and the security of it taken off my hands’ (Galton 1909, 245). Given that his cousin, the successful engineer Douglas Galton, was part of the Exhibition’s committee, this raises the issue of whether the laboratory was set up simply because Francis suggested the idea to his cousin Douglas (and so Douglas did his cousin a favour), and not because he was invited by the committee to participate, if indeed the other participants were invited. If this was the case, then there are a few patterns emerging that might need to be discussed separately. The first is that of Galton having others taking care of the details of his proposed research (‘security taken off my hands’, ‘suitable place is given’, ‘workshop set up’), just like it happened with the anthropometric surveys mentioned above, where Roberts was collecting data and Galton simply advising.