In the past, the human body was used for measurement.

Our standard unit of measure, the foot, actually did come from making a model of a king’s foot!  In fact, MANY units of measurements came from the length and width of human body parts.

Inches began in medieval England and were based upon the width of the human thumb. Thumbs were excellent measuring tools because even the poorest individuals had them available when they went to market.

Using your body as a measurement tool was done often in the past, and back then it was highly useful. However, you can imagine how much inaccuracy could occur, because the length and width of one person’s thumb could be much larger or smaller than another person’s thumb.

Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer, Leonardo da Vinci made a drawing called the Vitruvian Man.

It is accompanied by notes based on the work of the famed architect, Vitruvius. The drawing depicts a male figure in two superimposed positions with his arms and legs apart and simultaneously inscribed in a circle and square. The drawing and text are sometimes called the Canon of Proportions or, Proportions of Man.

Your body, is in fact, very proportional. Leonardo noticed that:

• Your palm is 4 fingers.
• Your foot is 4 palms.
• A cubit is 6 palms.
• 4 cubits make a man.
• A pace is 4 cubits.
• A man is 24 palms.

He also said, quote: “if you open your legs enough that your head is lowered by one-fourteenth of your height and raise your hands enough that your extended fingers touch the line of the top of your head, know that the centre of the extended limbs will be the navel, and the space between the legs will be an equilateral triangle”.

However, there is no such thing as a universal set of proportions for the human body. Each person’s body varies in size, length, and width. However Virtuvius’ measurements are average measurements.

Your body is somewhat symmetrical, and can be used for measurements. Many people recognized that your body could be used for measurement; however we have moved on from those times, and have been accurate about precisely how many inches is in a foot, etc. But that doesn’t mean you couldn’t measure your thumb and see how close your thumb x 12 is to a foot!