The Suggested Anthropometric Survey.

THE SUGGESTED ANTHROPOMETRIC SURVEY.

895

pills." Most parents, at all events among educated people, measure their children as it is, if only at uncertain periods and in no very accurate manner ; its

and

THE LANCET.

these,

at

least, could

have

no

objection

to the

thing being done more completely at school. The question whether our population, as a whole, is preserving or losing its physical strength and vigour is not only, as Sir HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN admitted, "important," LONDON: SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 1907. but it is of more real and vital importance than almost any other which can be proposed. Upon the answer to it depend the future of the Empire and unless we now The Anthropometric may work out that answer for ourselves it may be furnished by Survey. events at a time when those events will have passed beyond THE reply of Sir HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN to theour control. History repeats itself; and that which has deputation which waited upon him on March 5th in order been shall be. The predominance of Rome during four to solicit a grant from public funds for the institutioncenturies reduced the natives of Britain to a state of of a national anthropometric survey may be taken as a ]military weakness and unpreparedness ; and the withdrawal fair example of the habitual attitude of the professionalof the legions by HoNoRius left the country an easy politician towards any question which is merely of national prey to Danish and Teutonic invaders. In course of concern and which does not admit of immediate m stipulatime the self-indulgent habits of the Saxon conquerors tion in the interests of party. The deputation represented were the main causes of their overthrow by the hardy the Royal Anthropological Institute and the Royal Societyand abstemious Normans ; and we, if we would escape of Edinburgh, the Royal Anthropological Society and the the fate which has twice befallen our ancestors, must be anthropometric committee of the British Association, the,careful to see that we do not invite it by allowing its British Science Guild,. and other bodies of analogous,causes to operate unchecked. It is very possible that the character, and the several speakers enlarged upon.thealarm which has recently been felt and expressed concerning absence of any trustworthy information concerning the the alleged physical degeneracy of our people may be in physical condition of the population, either in detached areasexcess of the facts ; but, in the presence of such an alarm, or in the country generally, as well as upon the valuableno Englishman should allow his vigilance to slumber until same

Suggested

assistance in many directions which such information would the facts have been ascertained. It is at least certain that be calculated to afford. Sir HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN the conditions of life among us have of late years under. in his reply began by yielding a practical assent to all the considerable changes, most of them in directions not gone and statements of the and arguments thencalculated to make for physical endurance, and that neither deputation say that "of

course"they would not the extent nor the influence of these changes has become the say "anything definite" on the part of thesubject of any systematic or trustworthy investigation. Our Government. They had "to carry public opinion with ]labouring population has been largely withdrawn from rural them " and for this purpose it was necessary to proceedinto i urban districts, our staple industries, more and more warily." He did not deny that the amount asked for-assisted by machinery, are less and less calculated to .64000 or £5000—was "a modest sum," but "a greatdevelop muscular strength and activity in a large propor1 many modest sums made up a large sum," and so forthtion of those who follow them, and the habits of our people ad ilfljinitwm. He committed the Government to nothingin 9 respect of food have undergone great and possibly farbut a promise of "earnest and careful consideration"" at ]reaching changes. The consumption of fresh meat has some unspecified future time and may fairly be supposedincreased i enormously and forms of food much used and to have dismissed the deputation in a spirit like that ofvalued by our ancestors have been largely superseded by the Irishman who accepted a bill at three months andcompounds prepared in factories and chiefly recommended threw down his pen with the observation, " Thank goodness,to 1 purchasers by the assertion that no trouble or skill is that’s settled." ,required in order to prepare them for the table. In respect We greatly doubt whether the country generally willof food, perhaps more than in any other direction, the net share in the Prime Minister’s cheerful optimism about theof the advertiser has been thrown over the poor and the question which he has so pleasantly sought to shelve, oriignorant, and commercial profit has been sought without whether they will agree with him in the opinion that any ]regard to the deterioration of race by which it may possibly 1 attended. great amount of wariness is required as an antecedent to be the weighing and measuring of school children. To be In the face of such changes, and of our ignorance of their "wary" in such an undertaking would be like drinking :actual or possible effects, surely nothing can be so important tea by stratagem. The project, calmly regarded, does as to ascertain, as quickly and as certainly as possible, what not appear to be of a revolutionary character. How- is i the goal to which they tend. Is it true that, as has been ever s "the small young woman and the small young man effectively carried out, it would not deprive asaid, single "poor man"of his "beer," and it would hardlyare increasingly evident as factors in our urban populations2 induce any large proportion of mothers to seek martyrdom Is it true that our children are growing up increasingly within the classic walls of what was once described, in a defective in height, in chest capacity, in muscular develop( as "a in physical endurance ? We cannot tell, because town for and near London, famous German newspaper, ment,

proceeded

expect him

to

to

"

"

"

896 data for comparison, no means of correctly either the strength or the weakness of former estimating generations. The evidence, in so far as it exists, is not wholly unfavourable, for the operation of the laws collectively known as the Factory Acts has tended greatly to improve the conditions of work and of life among large classes of operatives, more especially with regard to children. An important factor in the agitation by which the Factory Acts were produced was the publication, in 1840, of Mrs. TROLLOPE’s novel, "Michael Armstrong, or the Factory Boy," which was abundantly illustrated by pictures showing the condition of factory " apprenticesat the time, pictures for which it would be difficult or impossible to find any living parallels in our own day, but which, when they appeared, of inaccuracy or exaggeration. were not accused It we

have

no

scientific hæmatologist than of value to the clinician. Dr. DA COSTA’S paper is especially noteworthy and important, not only from the fact that he has examined and correlated the work of previous investigators, but alsofrom the careful critical study which he has made of his own results in the light of their observations. His summary of the general results of previous workers is. " that the iodine reaction occurs with great constancy in conditions of toxsemia both bacterial and non-bacterial; that it signifies a lowered vitality of the iodophilous cells, and that its exact nature is not definitely understood. Of bacterial toxemias productive of iodophilia, such conditions as pyogenic abscess, general sepsis, and many of the specific febrile infections are the underlying factors ; while iodo-

excited by non-bacterial or chemical toxæmia, may develop, for example, in diabetes mellitus, in leukaemia, in dyspnoea, in acetanilid poisoning, after ether narcosis,. facturing population portion to the total population than at present and that com- and perhaps in high-grade anaemias." The nature of the iodophilous reaction may be briefly paratively few of the " apprentices " would be likely to stated to be a peculiar susceptibility of the protoplasm of survive to maturity. Their condition, moreover, was flagrant and unmistakeable, whereas what we have now to dread is an the leucocytes, notably the polymorphonuclear variety in insidious and general decline of strength and activity, rather certain abnormal conditions, to the action of iodine applied than the crushing out of a small section of workers by evils to the dried film which stains it a variable shade of brown, of an overwhelming character. In order duly to protect whereas the protoplasm of normal leucocytes in dried films, ourselves and our descendants against possible and by no assumes a pale lemon-yellow tint only. It is important, however, to note that a fresh moist film of normal blood means problematical evils, we want to know what is the average physical standard of the country at successive years exposed to iodine vapour before drying occurs shows the of life, and how far this standard is departed from in brown staining in a manner precisely similar to that in elried different localities, among different classes, and by the films of abnormal blood, which as suggested by WOLFF children of persons engaged in different occupations. We indicates that the iodophilous substance, presumably want to know how far it is departed from in the numerous glycogen, is normally present in the circulating leucocytes rural districts intended by nature to be healthy but in which of healthy blood, but in the drying of the film it is altered so local "authorities " ordain that the causes of disease shall as to be no longer demonstrable by iodine. Two theories. prevail unchecked. We want to compare the children of ten have been propounded to explain these facts, the first that years old, in places of excessive infantile mortality, with of vVoLFr, which supposes that in the iodophilous leucocytes those of the same age in places where the infantile of disease the glycogen, normally so soluble that it is unmortality is kept within due bounds, in order that affected by iodine, has become abnormally insoluble by the must be

on

may know to what extent the conditions which destroy infant life serve also to impair the health of These questions are not only important, the survivors. we

by the Prime Minister, but they are the accuracy of the replies given to them Upon may depend the future of the Empire and, when compared to them, politicians and party leaders are of no more account than the dry leaves of autumn. When the strong man armed keepeth his house his goods are as

admitted

vital.

philia,

the other hand, that the manuof that time bore a much smaller pro-

remembered,

toxic influence and hence retains the power of staining with iodine in the dried film. The second theory brought forward by SOROCHOAvrrscH explains the reaction by supposing that normally the glycogen is rapidly converted into glucose by a ferment the action of which is hindered action of

in toxic occurs

some

conditions,

in the

so

that

an

accumulation of

glycogen,

protoplasm.

Dr. DA COSTA’S observations were made upon 100 patients. suffering from various acute infections and chronic disorders at peace ; and strength is the only secure foundation of by examining films for the iodine reaction, while in 50 of the cases haemoglobin estimations and blood counts, both dominion. absolute and differential, were also made. In 50 of the cases giving positive reactions the percentage of iodophiles and of the different cells showing the reaction were The Clinical Significance of calculated. Similar observations on 20 healthy subjects. Iodophilia. for purposes of control gave uniformly negative results. In A PATHOLOGICAL and clinical study of the iodine reaction the 100 cases of disease a po3itive reaction was obtained in 64,. of the leucocytes affords the basis of an interesting and im- in all of which it was possible to refer the cause to pyogenic portant paper by Dr. JOHN C. DA COSTA, jun.. published in sepsis or chemical toxæmia. 26 of the patients examined the Proceedings of the Pathologioal Society of Philadelphia, were suffering from enteric fever-of these nine showed N.S., Vol. IX., p. 113, 1906. Since EHRLICH described the iodophilia ; most of these were cases ofsevere infection, reaction in 1883 numerous observations have been made, complicated in two instances by pneumonia and in others by yielding results which in many of the details are so con- local peritonitis, by free intestinal hæmorrhage, and by flicting as to render the test one rather of interest to the general septicaemia. The reaction cannot be said to have