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Anthropology & Medicine. Let doctors consult with anthropologists for light on human physical evolution, for data on human variation and for the furnishing of normal standards, said Dr. Ales Hrdlicka of the Smithsonian institution. "The vast collection of both normal and pathological material in our Osteological, brain, and other collections is used nowhere near as much as it should be by the medical man and the surgeon. . . . [Physical anthropology shows for example] that the normal stature of an adult American male is not 5 feet 7½ inches, but anywhere between, say, 5 ft. 4 in., and 6 ft. 3 in. The normal male pulse is not invariably 71.5, but ranges between 66 and 78 per minute. The normal pelvis, head, and any other part or organ, may show as much as 10 to 16% normal variation in size, with a considerable variation in form. The 'normal' course of lobar pneumonia or any other affection is not 'just so,' but will oscillate between such and such limits."
According to Dr. Hrdlicka the only U. S. medical schools offering courses in anthropology are those of Johns Hopkins, Harvard University of Virginia, Western Reserve, Washington University of St. Louis, Universities of Chicago and Stanford.
Tall & Short People. The smallest people in the world are the Negrillos of central Africa and the Aymaras of central South Africa. Almost as short are the Eskimos, Lapps and northern Siberians. They all lack one thing—abundant food. The tallest peoples live along the northern European coasts, along the Baltic, in western Asia, eastern Africa and in the temperate zones of North & South America. Their common possession is abundant food. However there are short peoples (Japanese, Mediterraneans, Central Americans, Fuegians, Malays and southern Asiatics) who have descended from taller stocks and who have an adequate food supply. Because they all live close to the oceans, Professor Robert Bennett Bean of the University of Virginia reasons: "Sea areas and probably sea foods have an influence in reducing the stature by increasing the iodine intake. [The thyroid gland in the neck utilizes the iodine and controls bodily growth.] . . . Looked at in its broadest sense, environment molds the individual, selection retains the fittest under different environments and heredity carries on the results."
Genetics. President Clarence Cook Little of the University of Michigan advised biological investigators to turn more and more from their habitual and comparatively easy study of insects to the study of mammals. There are, said he, at least five great divisions of genetic problems which are capable of successful investigation in laboratory mammals, viz., the genetic bases for size & growth, fertility & sterility, susceptibility or resistance to disease, lethal action of genes during development, and psychological differences. Studying those fields, investigators might learn the possibility of controlling the ratio between the sexes, of developing resistance to infectious diseases and elimination of hereditary defects, of gaining new light on the inheritance of mental characteristics.
Having said this and having attended several other of the Nashville talks, President Little then took a train for Battle Creek, Mich., where he presided over the Third Race Betterment Conference (see col. 2).