23 John Shortt, an ethnologist, who provided important information on the Todas’ bodily features in An Account of the Tribes of the Nilgiris (Madras, 1868) [Editor].24 The ratio of the maximum width of the head to its maximum length, multiplied by 100. This parameter was first introduced by the Swedish anatomist Anders Retzius in the mid-nineteenth century, for the racial classification of ancestral populations. Its useful-ness was disputed in the early twentieth century by Franz Boas [Editor].