THE anthropometric examinations given in the University of Porto Rico during the last two years have provided data from which to determine the physical development of the Porto Rican. A total of 1,412 examinations has been made, including 616 men and 796 women. These students ranged in age from fifteen to thirty years. A comparison of the physical development of American and Porto Rican boys and girls of the same age shows that the Porto Rican surpasses the American in nearly every point, at the ages of fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen. At eighteen the physical development is about the same, but from that time there seems to be little additional growth on the part of the Porto Rican, while the American continues to develop up to and including the twenty-second year. This seems to confirm the generally accepted theory that a person matures earlier in the tropics than he does in a temperate climate. That the slighter physical development is the effect of geographic or climatic conditions, and is not entirely due to race, is proved by the fact that measurements of Chilean boys, who are of Spanish blood, more nearly approximate those of North American boys than they do those of Porto Ricans. The following tables show a comparison of the development of the Porto Rican students with the average development of American men and women. The measurements are in pounds and inches. TABLE I ==================================================================== |Average measurements | Average | of Porto Rican male |measurements of |students from 16 to 28 | American men | years of age |from 17 to 30 | | years of age ---------------------------+-----------------------+---------------- Height | 64.94 | 67.6 Weight | 110.67 | 138.6 Chest, transversal | 10.26 | 10.8 Chest, anterior-posterior | 7.92 | 7.5 Shoulders | 15.06 | 16.1 Neck | 13.05 | 13.9 Chest, contracted | 30.63 | 33.7 Chest, expanded | 33.25 | 36.7 Waist | 27.92 | 29.1 Right forearm | 9.33 | 10.4 Left forearm | 9.20 | 10.4 Right arm up | 9.61 | 11.9 Right arm down | 8.45 | 10.4 Left arm up | 9.42 | 11.8 Left arm down | 8.22 | 10.3 Right thigh | 17.97 | 20.3 Left thigh | 17.83 | 20.2