The Variability of Organ Weights
By Kevin
Not about economics, but interesting nonetheless to those who think economic data are too variable to be of much use: Weights of Human Organs at Autopsy in Chandigarh Zone of North-West India. A selection from the table:
The abstract:
Mean organ weights in 2025 subjects who died and autopsied at Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh revealed that they in general were heavier than reported from otherparts of India. Various organs continued to attain their maximum weight up to 40-50 years of age.For men over 20 years, the coefficient of variation seems to much lower for the brain than for the heart, lungs, etc. However, the size of the prostate is measured at more than 60 grams for adults, when Merck tells me it should be about 20 and other information tells me it should max out at a little over 30. There's a confounding element at work here, somewhere -- especially since the accuracy of these data points are supposed to be pretty solid:
After removing the extraneous tissues and draining of the blood, each organ was weighed on electronic weighing machine having the accuracy of ± 0.1gram.What am I missing here?
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