Historical note: Early history of the anthropometry of body composition

A pioneering paper outlining an anthropometric approach to the study of body composition, written by the Czech anthropologist Jindrich Matiegka, was published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology in 1921. For a long time we have searched for information about the history of the idea and of the paper itself. In recent years, we were able to identify relevant correspondence in the archives of the Smithsonian Institution of Washington.