Dr Robert Bennett Bean [pictured here] took the measure of his fellow men almost fanatically. Women, too. He measured the parts, then published the copious details, and sometimes pictures, for all to see.
Bean worked at the University of Michigan, then at the Philippine Medical School, then at Tulane University, and finally at the University of Virginia. One of his first published papers, in 1907, was A Preliminary Report on the Measurements of about 1,000 Students at Ann Arbor, Michigan. After that, he turned more specific, looking at this or that particular organ, limb, or bodily region.
Bean measured lots of innards. In Some Racial Characteristics of the Spleen Weight in Man, he wrote: “The white male spleen weighs about 140 grams, the negro male 115 grams, the white female 130 grams and the negro female 80 grams.” Numbers abound also in his Some Racial Characteristics of the Liver Weight in Man, and Some Racial Characteristics of the Weight of the Heart and Kidneys.
He occasionally looked at the entire person…
So begins this week’s Improbable Research column in The Guardian.