Human Biologists in the Archives Demography, Health, Nutrition and Genetics in Historical Populations
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Foreword by Sydel Silverman and Michael A. Little
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Human biologists in the archives: demography, health, nutrition and genetics in historical populations
- 2 The use of archives in the study of microevolution: changing demography and epidemiology in Escazú, Costa Rica
- 3 Anthropometric data and population history
- 4 For everything there is a season: Chumash Indian births, marriages, and deaths at the Alta California missions
- 5 Children of the poor: infant mortality in the Erie County Almshouse during the mid nineteenth century
- 6 Worked to the bone: the biomechanical consequences of ‘labor therapy’ at a nineteenth century asylum
- 7 Monitored growth: anthropometrics and health history records at a private New England middle school, 1935–1960
- 8 Scarlet fever epidemics of the nineteenth century: a case of evolved pathogenic virulence?
- 9 The ecology of a health crisis: Gibraltar and the 1865 cholera epidemic
- 10 War and population composition in Åland, Finland
- 11 Infectious diseases in the historical archives: a modeling approach
- 12 Where were the women?
- 13 Malnutrition among northern peoples of Canada in the 1940s: an ecological and economic disaster
- 14 Archival research in physical anthropology
- Index
- References
7 - Monitored growth: anthropometrics and health history records at a private New England middle school, 1935–1960
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 August 2009
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Foreword by Sydel Silverman and Michael A. Little
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Human biologists in the archives: demography, health, nutrition and genetics in historical populations
- 2 The use of archives in the study of microevolution: changing demography and epidemiology in Escazú, Costa Rica
- 3 Anthropometric data and population history
- 4 For everything there is a season: Chumash Indian births, marriages, and deaths at the Alta California missions
- 5 Children of the poor: infant mortality in the Erie County Almshouse during the mid nineteenth century
- 6 Worked to the bone: the biomechanical consequences of ‘labor therapy’ at a nineteenth century asylum
- 7 Monitored growth: anthropometrics and health history records at a private New England middle school, 1935–1960
- 8 Scarlet fever epidemics of the nineteenth century: a case of evolved pathogenic virulence?
- 9 The ecology of a health crisis: Gibraltar and the 1865 cholera epidemic
- 10 War and population composition in Åland, Finland
- 11 Infectious diseases in the historical archives: a modeling approach
- 12 Where were the women?
- 13 Malnutrition among northern peoples of Canada in the 1940s: an ecological and economic disaster
- 14 Archival research in physical anthropology
- Index
- References
Summary
The more complicated the human organism appeared and the more intricate the causation of its numerous ills, the more determinedly the really enlightened physician yearned for a science of human biology … In this extremity a few medical scientists turned to physical anthropology, the illegitimate offspring of medical and zoological indiscretion.
E. A. Hooton (1940: 198)Introduction
In 1936, a young Harvard-trained doctor accepted the position of Resident Physician at a private New England middle school (name of school withheld at the Headmaster's request). On the heels of a Surgical Residency at the Children's Hospital in Boston, this meticulous man was kept busy with the mundane injuries that adolescent boys inflict upon themselves and each other. His records include such notations as ‘bean removed from left ear,’ ‘skiing accident,’ ‘pencil point in roof of mouth removed,’ ‘ruptured spleen from jumping off roof,’ ‘kicked by horse,’ ‘fell out of window,’ ‘football accident’ (notes in the health records of individual boys). The Resident Physician taught a few health-related courses, supervised the cafeteria, and was a key decision maker in the lineup of sports teams (Fig. 7.1). Each year he wrote hundreds of letters and dozens of telegrams to parents advising them of their sons' injuries and bouts of infectious disease. In addition, he monitored the growth and maturation of every boy under his care. Today, the health records of these boys are stored in a dormitory basement.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Human Biologists in the ArchivesDemography, Health, Nutrition and Genetics in Historical Populations, pp. 130 - 158Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002
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