Other Contributions
Flower made valuable contributions to structural anthropology, publishing, for example, complete and accurate measurements of no less than 1,300 human skulls, and as a comparative anatomist he ranked high, devoting himself especially to the study of the mammalia. His foremost studies were on marsupials, whales and primates, and he was the first person to show that lemurs are primates.
He also worked on the deformities produced in the human foot by badly-designed boots and other coverings 'among both civilised and barbarous nations'. His Fashion in deformity was a favourite theme in which he criticised the use of corsets with illustrations of distorted female skeletons.
Flower was also a leading authority on the arrangement of museums. He insisted on the importance of distinguishing between collections intended for the use of specialists and those designed for the instruction of the general public, pointing out that it was as futile to present to the former a number of merely typical forms as to provide the latter with a long series of specimens differing only in the most minute details. His ideas, which were largely and successfully applied to the museums of which he had charge, gained wide approval, and their influence entitles him to be looked upon as a reformer who did much to improve the methods of museum arrangement and management.
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