ABSTRACT
Stature estimation involves estimating living height from skeletal dimensions. The theoretical underpinnings of estimating living stature from skeletal measurements date back over two centuries. Jean Joseph Sue (1710-1792) was a French anatomist who published data on maximum length of long bones and several body measurements, including stature, from 14 cadavers ranging from six weeks in utero to 25 years’ old (Sue 1755). Sue published this data to provide artists with information about body proportions (Stewart 1979). Sue’s measurements were introduced to the medico-legal community by Matthieu Joseph Bonaventure Orfila (1787-1853), a professor of legal medicine who published two textbooks on the subject (Orfila 1821-1823; Orfila and Lesueur 1831). Orfila also added measurements from 51 cadavers and 20 skeletons to Sue’s original data set. To estimate stature by using the Sue-Orfila skeletal measurements, the user looked up the bone measurement and corresponding cadaver length
History 195 Stature estimation methods 196 Additional considerations 198 Summary 199 Review questions 200 Glossary 200 References 201
in a table. Cadaver length can vary from living stature by as much as two inches, so a certain amount of error was incorporated into the Sue-Orfila stature estimates.
