River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1881-02-24
Do Men Grow Until they are Thirty!
London Post

At meeting of the Statistical So
ciety last evening q paper on Stats
teal Observations on the Growth of the
Human Body Males in Height and
Weight from Is to 80 years of age, as
illustrated by the records of the Bor
ough jail of Liverpool" by Mr.. j. L.
Danson, was read. He said About
twenty years ago / had occasion to Wis
it the Borough jail at Liverpool. Hav-
ing got access to the Jail records, |
found them, on examination, quite
worth the labor to be given TO them
and selected the figures relating to the
years 1857 and 1858 as likely to afford
fair sample of the new material thus
made available. From these figures |
found that only inference of any value
could with any degree of certainty be
deduced; that doing that the men thus
passed under examination did not on
an average attain their full weight
much, if at all, before 80 years of age.
A certain persistent irregularity in
duced me to refer, with some hope of
an explanation, to suggestion made
some years before by M. Mil
lot. French statist. After a
careful examination OF the fig
CURES resulting during long
series of yea1s from the measurement
of the annual draft of conscripts in
that country, he had observed that the
men of the same age, brought forward
in successive years, differed considera-
bly, in their average height, and on a
comparison of these returns with those
Of the annual prices of corn in the To-
calities in which these men were born
and reared he observed some coinci-
dence of deficient height in the con-
scripts with high prices in the years of
their CESSATION and infancy. This led
him to the conclusion that wherever a
deficiency occurred it might be due to
early want of sufficient nutriment and
thence to defective harvests. The pris-
oner on entering the Jail is taken to
room kept for the purpose and is there
registered. As part of this process he
is put on to a broad metal plate near
the level of the floor. As he depresses
this plate his weight is indicated on
lever, and a projecting arm, sliding ON
a metal bar behind him till it touches
his head marks his height on the bar.
The weights are taken to pounds and
the heights to quarters of an inch, and
are at once, with other particulars, re
corded in book close at hand. Until
January. 1873, the prisoners were meas
ured in their foot-coyering, whatever
that might happen to be. At that date
the practice was changed by tax
ing off their boots or shoes while be-
ing measured SO much for the
probable accuracy of what we are
told as to the height and weight OF
these men. Tables were then given of
heights and weights taken between
1867 and 1873. But it seems now to
be we'll understood among those best
acquainted with the subject that mere
height and weight in a soldier, rs in
others working in the open air. Is OF
less consequence than maturity. The
late DR.. Parkes, in his Manual of
Practical Hygiene" drew the attention
of our naval and military authorities
to some important details in the final
growth of the bones and muscles of the
human body, whence it is to be inferred
that the men of this and other Euro
pean countries do not, in fact, arrive at
physical maturity till they are about
so years OF age; and so do not before
that age, acquire their flll capacity for