A History of the Study of Human Growth

by James Mourilyan Tanner

Overview

First published in 1981, Professor Tanner's volume traces the history of studies of the physical growth of children from the time of the Ancient Greeks onwards. The author summarises the background to and the achievement of the surveys of child growth made in the course of social reform throughout the nineteenth century, and shows their relevance for social and economic history. These are studies to which the author himself made outstanding contributions and the text shows an intimate knowledge, both as to programmes and personalities. It is a unique historical record. The author not only follows the evolution of ideas that lies behind the gradual emergence of studies of growth, but also summarises the results of these studies, charting the growth of children during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This book will be of value for medical, social and economic historians as well as for paediatricians and biological anthropologists.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521134026
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	03/18/2010
Pages:	512
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.40(d)

Table of Contents

Preface; 1. Human growth and the Ancient World; 2. The Middle Ages and the Renaissance; 3. Human proportion and the canons of beauty: the artistic and philosophic tradition; 4. Iatromathematics and the introduction of measurement: the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; 5. The first growth studies: Montebeillard, the Carlschule and the recruiting officers; 6. Adolphe Quetelet and the mathematics of growth; 7. The rise of public health and the beginning of auxological epidemiology; 8. Roberts, Galton and Bowditch: social class and family likeness; 9. Educational auxology: school surveys and school anthropology; 11. The contribution from clinical practice: fetal and infant growth; age of manarche; 12. The influence of educational psychology and child development: the North American longitudinal growth studies; 13. Human biology and the study of growth disorders: the European longitudinal growth studies; 14. National monitoring: population surveys and standards of growth; 15. Coda: causes and effects of studies of growth; References; Notes; Index.