Hitchcock graduated from Amherst College (1849) and Harvard Medical School (1853). He served as Professor of Hygiene and Physical Education in 1861, a position he held continuously to 1911. With his father (the President of Amherst College), the Hitchcock's penned the first father and son anatomy and physiology textbook in the United States. Interestingly, the book also contained a final chapter dealing with religious inferences from anatomy and physiology, including proofs of the existence of God.

From 1861 to 1888, Hitchcock measured almost every Amherst student for 6 segmental heights, 23 girths, 6 breadths, 8 lengths, 8 measures of muscular strength, lung capacity, and pilosity (amount of hair on the body). In 1889, Hitchcock published a 37-page anthropometric manual that included five tables of anthropometric statistics of students. This compendium described how to take physical measurements, test eyes, and examine lungs and heart before testing muscular strength. The first of its kind to analyze anthropometric and strength data, it influenced Yale, Harvard, Wellesley, and Mt. Holyoke to include anthropometric measurements as part of their physical education and hygiene curriculum.

You can discover more about the life of Edward Hitchcock, Jr. from the Archives Reference Library in Frost Library on the Amherst College Campus. Once you enter the library, go down one flight of stairs. The references librarians are "wonderful" and can help you with original documents, including Hitchcock diaries, original manuscript materials, dossier, and other related materials.

More extensive biographical contributions appear in: McArdle, W.D. et al. Exercise Physiology. 4th edition. Williams & Wilkins Publishers. Baltimore, 1996.