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An excerpt from the beginning of the Author's INTRODUCTION Definition: Anthropometry may perhaps be most simply and comprehensively defined as the conventional art or system of measuring the human body and its parts. The systems of measuring the skull and the skeleton are known separately as craniometry and osteometry, but these terms are frequently merged with that of anthropometry; thus we speak only of anthropometric instruments, anthropometric methods anthropometric laboratories. Object: The object of anthropometry is to supplement visual observation, which is always more or less limited and uncertain, by accurate mechanical determinations. The ideal function of anthropometry would be the complete elimination of personal bias, and the furnishing of absolutely correct data on such dimensions of the body, organs, or skeleton, as might be of importance to those who are to use the measurements. This ideal is not attainable to a perfection, but it is the highest duty for every worker to strive for as close approach to it as may be in his power. Diversity: Anthropometry in general is not and may never be one uniform system. It is a handmaid to various classes of workers who have different objects in view, and measurements that are indispensable to one may be of no concern to another. Measurements of the body were begun and are used by the artisan, and by the artist, the object of the one being a proper fit' and that of the other a correct or artistically superior production. They were and are employed in recruiting armies, with the aim of eliminating the inferiors. They are used to some extent by medical men and dentists, to assist them in reaching diagnosis or tracing improvement in their patients. They enter largely into the modern systems of college and other gymnastics, and lately also into those of the popular baby studies. Certain measurements play important role in criminological and medico-legal identification. Finally, we have measurements that have become invaluable aids to scientific research in physiology, anatomy and especially anthropology.

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