Human biology: From a love to profession and back again.

In 1937-1939, while working with my right hand as psychologist in the Bata Shoe Co. in Zlín, Moravia, with my left hand I was involved in research on age changes in body dimensions and profited from the interdisciplinary orientation of the (Czech) Biotypological Society, of which I was an active member. In 1941 I joined the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene, a research and teaching unit in the School of Public Health of the University of Minnesota. My contributions ranged from philosophy of science through a broadly conceived physical anthropology, including nutritional anthropometry, to the study of behavior. I did field work both in Yugoslavia and in the United States. The research topics included aging, the effects of smoking, and etiology of coronary heart disease. In the collaborative monograph on The Biology of Human Starvation, I co-authored chapters on body weight, physical appearance and external dimension, body fat, a synthesizing chapter on compartments of the body, special senses, neuromuscular functions and motor performance, and seven chapters devoted to psychology. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 11:143-155, 1999. Copyright 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.