Body-build and its inheritance

"Body-build and its inheritance" by Charles Benedict Davenport is a scientific publication written in the early 20th century. It investigates how human body-build—especially the contrast between slender and fleshy types—varies through growth and across populations, and to what extent these differences arise from heredity rather than environment. Drawing on large family records, statistical analyses, and standardized measurements, it develops indices of build and examines patterns across sex, race, geography, and age. The work is a data-rich treatise for readers interested in anthropometry, growth, and genetic inheritance. The opening of the work sets out the motivation from wartime army anthropology: striking diversity in young men’s physiques prompted a focused inquiry into the hereditary basis of build. The preface outlines abundant family data, measurement conventions (e.g., weight/height notation and chest-girth adjustments), and acknowledgments to contributors, then the contents preview three major parts on definition and development, mass heredity studies, and detailed family matings. Davenport begins by clarifying popular terms for slimness and fleshiness, defining two kinds of variation (ontogenetic change versus adult fluctuation), and proposing chest-girth relative to stature as the core index; because adult chest data are often missing, weight is used as a proxy. Early results show only a small average difference between male and female indices, while racial and geographic contrasts are pronounced. He then assembles multi-source measurements to trace the ontogenetic curve: infants are relatively “chubby” at birth, dip briefly, then progressively slenderize until about 12 years before broadening again through adolescence (more in boys), with adult weight typically rising into middle age; actuarial tables are introduced to adjust youthful measures for comparison with parents.