Statistical Investigations   359

(d) Keenness and discrimination of the senses are next emphasised as indispensable tests.

(e) Reaction times and judgment times follow ; memory of form and memory of number. These points are sufficient to indicate that Galton from the earliest time laid as much stress on the psychical as on the physical tests of an anthropometric laboratory. Nay, he went further ; he asserted that

(f) There is need for a medico-metric section in an anthropometric laboratory. This section would make as exact and complete a report of the physiological and medical status of an individual as is feasible in the present state of science by the help of the microscope, chemical tests and physiological apparatus.

Such a "medico-metric" laboratory Galton holds would be useful to the general practitioner who could send his patients to be examined in the same manner as physicists send their delicate instruments to Kew Observatory to have their errors ascertained. Great stress is laid on the physician writing case notes of the successive illnesses of private patients even as he takes clinical notes at the bedsides of his hospital patients. These notes should be preserved by the patient and accumulating with the years would form his medical life-history, and be a unit-contribution to the medical history of the family. Galton emphasises the value they would be as an heirloom to the children of the subject and to their medical attendants in future years by throwing light on hereditary peculiarities. In short Galton saw in the anthro pometric laboratory a centre for standardised family records of biographical interest to all members of the family, of value from the medical point of view to each individual during his life, and to his descendants as suggesting hereditary dangers and vital probabilities. Lastly and perhaps for Galton himself the most important advantage was the material they would ultimately provide for much needed statistical research into human genetics.

For the race the value of such records is incontestible, but all men have not Galton's power of calm self-introspection, and the effect of studying his family medical history in the case of a neurotic subject might well be disastrous for the individual.

The idea of medical family histories was further developed by Galton in a paper entitled "Medical Family Registers" in' the Fortnightly for August, 1883'.

In this paper Galton defines more closely what he means by medical histories and states that he has consulted a number of eminent medical men (Simon, Beddoe, Duncan, Gull, Ogle, Ord, Richardson and Wilkes) who have approved the scheme. In this article he suggests for the first time-as far as I am aware-a system of monetary prizes.

"I have made arrangements to initiate the practice of compiling them [Medical Family Registers] through the offer of substantial prizes, open to competition among all members of the medical profession. The prizes will be awarded to those candidates who shall best succeed

(a pencil carried in measured time round the convolutions of a maze without touching the sides), needle (a fine knitting needle put through a series of holes of decreasing diameter without contact) and other similar tests have been introduced replacing skill in games.

1 N.S. Vol. xxxiv, pp. 244-50.