Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-xxrs7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T16:15:47.532Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Influence of Social Class and of Creed on Anthropological Characters [Der Einfluss der socialen Schichtung und der Confession auf die anthropologischen Charaktere]. (Zeit. f Morphy Bd. iv, H. 1, 1901.) Pfitzner, W.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2018

Extract

Professor Pfitzner has continued his interesting “social anthropological studies” at the Strasburg Anatomical Institute by an attempt to investigate the influence of social rank and of creed, an attempt not without difficulties, owing to the slight range of social class among the persons dying in hospital, and the absence of any fit standards of comparison among persons of higher social class. As regards the latter point he has, so far as size of head is concerned, reached certain results, though not without the expenditure of much time and diplomacy in gaining information from hatters, in the course of which he was compelled to acquire a large number of hats. He found that while the sizes of very cheap hats range very well with the sizes of the heads of his subjects at the Anatomical Institute, the more expensive hats have a different and higher range of size. He himself possesses a remarkably large head, and he finds it impossible to obtain a hat that fits him among the very cheap class of goods, even the manufacturers, when the tradesmen offered to procure the article desired, being unable to supply the right size; but among the expensive class of hats he has no difficulty in finding one to fit him, or even one that is too large. He concludes, therefore, that the well-to-do social classes have larger heads than the lower social classes. In a somewhat similar manner, by acquiring skill in estimating the height of well-to-do persons as they passed his shoulder in the street, he was able to convince himself that the hospital subjects are short as compared with the well-to-do, and that, in fact, heights which are fairly common among the latter practically never occur at all among the former.

Type
Part III—Epitome of Current Literature
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1902 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.