2.--PHYSIOLOGICAL CHARACTERS.
_Functions of nutrition and assimilation_: Digestion, alimentation,
growth, temperature of the body, etc.--_Respiration and
circulation_: Pulse, composition of the blood, etc.--Special
odour--_Functions of communication_: Expression of the emotions,
acuteness of the senses, etc.--_Functions of reproduction_:
Menstruation, menopause, increase in the number of conceptions
according to season, etc.--_Influence of environment_:
Acclimatation--Cosmopolitanism of the genus _Homo_ and the races of
mankind--Cross-breeding.
3.--PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PATHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS.
Difficulties of studying them--Immunities--Nervous diseases of
uncivilised peoples.
2.--PHYSIOLOGICAL CHARACTERS.
The differences observable in the fulfilment of the organic
functions--nutrition, respiration, circulation of the blood,
reproduction, etc.--according to race are unquestionable; but they
are still too little studied for us to be able to speak with as much
certainty of them as of morphological differences. Further, these
functions exhibit so many individual variations that it will always be
difficult to rely on averages; besides, the latter present as far as we
know a great uniformity.
_The functions of nutrition and assimilation_ scarcely present any
varieties according to race. Indigent populations living from hand to
mouth by hunting, fishing, the gathering of fruit, etc., exposed to
the alternations of famine and plenty, surprise us by their faculty of
absorbing a great quantity of food; thus the Eskimo and the Fuegians
feed for several days running on a stranded whale. The tendency to
obesity is observed in certain races more than in others; very
frequent among the Kirghiz, it is rare among their neighbours the
Kalmuks, etc. The early obesity of Jewish women, which is besides
artificially fostered in Africa and in the East, is also to be
noted. Growth in different races would prove of some interest, but
investigations into this subject have been made only in Europe and
America.[116] Great difficulties stand in the way of these inquiries
among uncivilised peoples, as it is almost impossible to ascertain the
exact age of individuals. In a general way stature and weight increase
with age somewhat irregularly, and as if by fits and starts; almost
always a period of rapid growth in height succeeds a period of calm,
during which the dimensions of the body increase in width (shoulders,
pelvis, etc.). It has also been remarked that growth in height is
especially rapid from the month of April to July and August, that it
diminishes from November to March; and that, lastly, weight increases
especially from August-September to the end of November. Sexual
differences make themselves felt from birth. We have already seen (p.
26) that at birth the stature of boys exceeds that of girls by a figure
which varies from two to eight millimetres (.08 to .32 of an inch),
let us say of half a centimetre (less than the quarter of an inch)
on an average. During the first year stature increases very rapidly:
the child a year old is one and a half times as tall as at birth. The
increase is less rapid until the fourth year, when the height is double
what it was at birth. From the fourth year the growth is a little
slower till the age of puberty, when there is a fresh start, and when
the sexual differences are especially marked; girls grow more rapidly
than boys between ten and fifteen years of age, but after fifteen
boys take the lead and grow at first quickly, then slowly till their
twenty-third year, at which age they have almost attained the limit of
their stature; while women seem to stop growing at twenty.
The size of most of the organs increases pretty regularly; the heart in
girls at the age of puberty and the brain in the two sexes are the only
exceptions to this rule. The weight of the brain is 2-1/2 times greater
at one year than at birth, 3-1/3 at five years, 3.7 at ten, and 3.9
at fifteen; later its growth diminishes, to reach its maximum before
the age of twenty, 4 times its initial weight, and to decline slightly
after forty or forty-five years.
At birth the brain represents 12.4 per cent. of the total weight of
the body, at a year old 10.9 per cent., at five 8.4, at fifteen 3.8,
and at twenty-five 2.3 per cent. only.[117] Unfortunately we have
hardly any parallel observations on non-European populations. The only
observations of this kind based on a sufficient number of subjects
(several thousands) relate to the Japanese. According to Baelz, the
stature of the Japanese increases after the age of puberty only 8 per
cent., whilst it increases 13 per cent. among Europeans. On the other
hand, Drs. Hamada and Sasaki say that growth diminishes greatly among
Japanese men from sixteen or eighteen, and is found to be completely
arrested at the age of twenty-two.[118] There is abundance of evidence
that Negroes, Melanesians, and Malays attain their maximum height
between eighteen and twenty-one. Dietary regimen and comfortable
circumstances have a great influence on growth, as I have already said
when speaking of stature (p. 31).
The activity of transformations in the system certainly presents
differences according to climate, but not according to race. Thus the
alimentary supply is conditioned solely by the heat required.[119]
The _temperature of the body_ hardly varies two or three tenths of a
degree, for instance, among two peoples so different as regards type
and mode of life as the French of the north and the Fuegians. In fact,
the temperature taken in the mouth is from 37.1° to 37.2° C. among the
former and 37.4° among the latter.[120] Besides, among Europeans the
individual variations range between 37.1° and 37.5° C. Among Negroes
the temperature appears to be, on the contrary, a little lower than
that of Europeans.
Let us pass on to the _respiratory functions_. The vital capacity or
the quantity of air in the expanded lungs, which is 3.7 cubic metres
among the English according to Hutchinson, and from 3 to 4 cubic metres
among Europeans in general, falls to 3 metres among the Whites and the
Indians of the United States (Gould), and even to 2.7 among the Negroes
of this latter country. The difference is very trifling; however, it
has to be taken into consideration, seeing that among Europeans persons
of high stature have an absolute capacity superior to that of people
of low stature. Frequency of respiration seems to be greater among
uncivilised peoples than with Europeans (14 to 18 respirations per
minute); it is from 16 to 20 respirations among the Fuegians, 18 to
20 among the Mongol-Torgootes, 19 among the Kirghiz, and 18 among the
Afghans.[121]
For the _circulation of the blood_ here are a few scattered data. The
pulse is the same among the Fuegians (72 beats per second) and the
Tarantchi of Chinese Turkestan (72.9 beats) as among Europeans (71 to
72); it is a little faster among the Whites and the Negroes of the
United States (74.8 and 74 beats), and much faster among the Indians
of America and the Mulattos (76.3 and 77 beats), among the Torgootes
(76.6), and among the Kirghiz (77.7). The number of red globules in the
blood varies but little according to race: Europeans have on an average
five millions of them to the cubic millimetre, Hindus and Negroes seem
to have half a million less, and the Fuegians half a million more.[122]
But these differences are insignificant when we think that the number
of these elements of the blood may vary by a million in the same
subject according to the state of his health, nutrition, etc.
Certain travellers (Erman, Huc) have asserted that they could recognise
a population by its _odour_. Without going so far as this, it must be
admitted that some ethnic groups and, more particularly, the Negroes
and the Chinese have their specific odour, which gets fainter with
scrupulous cleanliness, but, it is said, never disappears. In the case
of the Negro this odour is due especially to the abundance of the
secretion of his very voluminous and numerous sebaceous glands. It was
on this property that the planters relied for putting their dogs on the
scent of the fugitive Negro. The Blacks themselves are perfectly aware
of it, it appears, and those of the West Indies have even framed this
proverb--
“The Lord He loves the nigger well,
He knows His nigger by the smell.”
The odour of musk exhaled by the Chinese is attested by a great amount
of evidence; that of the Australians and New Caledonians appears to be
also duly reported. We must not confound these odours _sui generis_
with those which certain peoples contract from the food they eat, as,
for instance, the odour of garlic among the populations of Southern
Europe and the Jews.[123]
With regard to _muscular force_, the data furnished by the dynamometer
are deceptive, and cannot teach us anything; besides, the individual
differences are enormous.
_Functions of Relation._--A whole chapter could be written on the
muscles and gestures serving for the _expression of the emotions_, and
on their differences according to race.[124] Let us content ourselves
with a single example connected with astonishment and surprise. These
feelings are expressed almost everywhere by the raising of the eyebrows
and the opening of the mouth; several peoples (Eskimo, Tlinkits,
Andamanese, Indians of Brazil) accompany this play of feature by a slap
on the hips; the Ainus and the Shin-Wans of Formosa give themselves a
light tap on the nose or the mouth, whilst the Thibetans pinch their
cheek. The Negro Bantus have the habit of moving the hand before the
mouth as a sign of astonishment, and the Australians, as well as the
western Negroes, protrude their lips as if to whistle (Fig. 141). In
a general way the play of physiognomy is more complicated the more
the people is civilised. Certain peoples execute movements of facial
muscles difficult to imitate, such as the protrusion of the upper lip
alone, which the Malays execute with the same facility and grace as
a chimpanzee (Hagen). I shall speak in Chapter IV. of conventional
gestures. The _attitudes of the body_ in repose also vary with the
different peoples: the kneeling attitude is common to Negroes (Figs.
135 and 142); the squatting position is frequently used by them and the
peoples of the East, and also by the Americans; the upright position on
one foot, the other being bent and the sole supported on the knee of
the former, is met with as well in Oceania as among the Bejas, Negroes,
etc.[125]
The _acuteness of the senses_ is superior to ours among uncultured and
half-civilised peoples. The Andamanese can discover certain fruits in
the forests a long way off, being guided solely by the sense of smell.
Taking as a unit the normal visual acuteness calculated according
to the formula of Snellen, we shall have the following figures for
different populations:--1.1 for the Germans; 1.4 for the Russians; 1.6
for the Georgians; 2.7 for the Ossetes and Kalmuks; 3 for the Nubian
Bejas; and 5 for the Indians of the Andes. It is in a Kalmuk that the
individual maximum of visual acuteness (6.7) has been noted.[126] An
interesting fact has been observed by Dr. Herzenstein from the study
of 39,805 Russian soldiers, viz., that visual acuteness is greater as
the pigment of the iris and the hair is more developed. In fact, we
only find among the fair-haired 72.4 per cent. of individuals whose
visual acuteness is stronger than the normal, and 2.7 per cent. whose
acuteness is weaker, whilst among the dark-haired the corresponding
figures are 84.1 and 1.7; they see then, other things being equal,
better than the fair-haired.[127]
_The functions of reproduction_ are so difficult to study, even among
civilised peoples, that it is almost impossible to say anything
positive about them when dealing with savage peoples. Thus, for
example, we can scarcely draw up an exact table of the first appearance
of menstruation. This period varies from the age of ten (Negresses of
Sierra Leone) to that of eighteen (Lapps). The influence of climate
is unquestionable; authors as competent as Tilt in England, Krieger
in Germany, Dubois and Pajot in France, are agreed on this point.
They state that the first indication of the period of puberty appears
between eleven and fourteen in warm countries, between thirteen and
sixteen in temperate countries, and between fifteen and eighteen in
cold countries. But they are also obliged to admit the influence of
other factors--race, occupation, dietary regimen, etc. Thus in Austria,
with the same climate and in the same social conditions, Jewish
girls menstruate at fourteen to fifteen, Hungarian girls at fifteen
to sixteen, and Slovak girls at fourteen to sixteen (Joachim); on
the other hand, it is known that dwelling in a town, indolent life,
premature sexual excitations, accelerate the appearance of the menses.
Alimentation has also its share of influence in the matter. Thus
among the badly-fed girls of the despised caste of Illuvar (Southern
India) their periods appear at about sixteen, while the girls of India
in general menstruate at eleven, twelve, or thirteen.[128] It must
not be thought that in all countries the appearance of the menses
is also indicative of the period when sexual relations begin. Among
the majority of the peoples of India, among the Turks, the Mongols,
the Persians, among the Polynesians, the Malays, and the Negroes,
young girls enter into sexual relations much before the appearance
of the menses--at eleven, ten, and even nine years of age. The time
when marriage takes place is also not an indication; it is a matter
of social convention, among the savage as among the half-civilised.
Thus among the Mongol Torgootes girls begin to have sexual relations
at fourteen on an average, and marry at eighteen; for boys the
corresponding figures are fourteen and a half and nineteen (Ivanovsky).
The time of the _appearance of the critical age_ is subject to so many
fluctuations that even for European populations it is scarcely possible
to establish averages, but most of the figures oscillate around the
ages of forty-five to fifty. It is known that in woman ovulation
goes on regularly throughout the year without those accelerations
or exasperations of the genesic functions in certain seasons which
are observed among animals in heat. In this respect the human female
differs totally from wild animals (except the apes, among whom
menstruation has been noted), and approximates closely to the female of
domestic animals. And yet certain facts seem to indicate that it has
not always been so. These facts have reference to the greater frequency
of conceptions during certain periods of the year.
The Swedish physician Wargentin was the first to point out in 1767
this frequency in his own country. Since then, several statisticians,
doctors, and naturalists have confirmed it: Quetelet for Belgium and
Holland (maximum of births in February, the maximum of conceptions in
May); Wappæus for Central Europe (two maxima of conception, in winter,
and at the end of spring or the beginning of summer); Villermé (same
periods) for different countries, including those of the southern
hemisphere; Sormani for Italy (conceptions in July); Mayr for Germany
(conceptions in December); Beukemann for the different provinces of
the German empire (maximum of conceptions in December in the north,
in spring in the south); Hill for India (maximum of conceptions,
December-January); lastly, different authors for Russia (maximum of
conceptions in winter).
The explanations which have been put forward up to the present of
this phenomenon are of different kinds. According to certain authors,
the maxima observed in many countries in the spring are owing to the
fact of there being in this season “plenty of everything,” better
nourishment, in short, something which compels the genesic instinct
of man, like that of most animals, to participate in the “awakening
of nature.” To this it is replied by other observers that in certain
countries the maxima are reported in the winter months, that is to say
in the season when the temperature and the relative absence of the good
things of life do not seem to be _a priori_ favourable to generation;
these scientists look for the cause in the social organisation. They
notice that in countries of the north it is in the month of December
that, after having finished their work in the fields, the inhabitants
give themselves up to festivities and rejoicings, and that it is
in this month the greatest number of unions are contracted; on the
other hand, in the south the most popular festivals are those of the
spring at the awakening of nature. Others, again, assert that these
differences are owing as much to religion as to latitude.
All these explanations are somewhat unscientific, and have never been
verified by figures or experience. According to Rosenstadt,[129] cosmic
and social influences do not count at all in the question, for often
the periods during which recrudescence of conceptions occurs are the
same for countries differing entirely in climate, religion, and manners
(Italy, Russia, Sweden). These influences may, at the most, create
conditions favourable to the bringing about of the phenomenon, may
prepare the ground for it. But as to the phenomenon itself it would
be, according to Rosenstadt, merely the remains in man of his animal
nature, a “physiological custom” inherited from the animals, his
ancestors.
Primitive man would inherit from his ancestors the habit of procreating
by preference at particular times. On the arrival of this period of
sexual excitement fecundations would take place wholesale. With the
development of civilisation man has sexual relations all the year
round, but the “physiological custom” of procreating at a certain
period does not entirely disappear; it remains as a survival of the
animal state, and manifests itself in the recrudescence of the number
of conceptions during certain months of the year. This conclusion is
corroborated by the fact that among certain savage tribes copulation
seems to take place at certain periods of the year; for example,
among the Australians at the time of the yam harvest (see Chap. VII.,
_Marriage_, etc.).[130]
It is perhaps as a survival of these habits that we must regard the
annual festivals followed by wholesale marriages among the Sonthals,
and the wholesale marriages still practised to-day in Brittany on the
eve of Lent. Thus in the little market-town of Plougastel-Daoulas
(Finistère), containing only 7000 inhabitants, thirty-four marriages
were celebrated at once on the 5th of February 1896, and the preceding
year, before Lent, forty-eight couples had been united on the same
day in this locality.[131] The famous “Bharzwad Jang,” or “Marriage
of the Shepherds,” a ceremony practised by certain tribes (Mer, Shir,
Rabai) of Western Kathiawar (India), is also perhaps a survival of
this custom. It consists in the celebration of marriage on the same
day, but at stated intervals (of about twenty-four years), of all the
bachelors of the tribe. At the last ceremony of this kind, which took
place from the 28th of April to the 3rd of May 1895, 775 couples were
thus married at once.[132]
The question of the _fertility_ of women in different populations is
one of great interest as regards the future of these populations, but
it is scarcely more than outlined yet. If we know in a general way
that the birth-rate is very low in France and somewhat low in the
non-immigrant part of the population of the United States, that it is
very high in Russia and among the Jews, etc., we know almost nothing
about the subject in connection with uncivilised peoples; in their
case, as in our own, we must take into account the different elements
of the problem--social conditions, voluntary limitation (Australians),
infanticide (Polynesia), etc.
_Influence of Environment._--I can scarcely treat here as fully as I
could wish such interesting questions as the influence of external
circumstance, of acclimatation and crossings or hybridisation,
inasmuch as they are still very little and imperfectly studied. The
direct influence of environment has rarely been observed with all the
scientific exactness to be wished. Ordinarily we have to rest satisfied
with phrases which do not mean a great deal.[133] Even the influence
of conditions so abnormal as the complete absence of light and solar
heat, those sources of everything living, during several months, has
only been observed incidentally. Nossiloff,[134] however, has noted day
by day the influence of the polar night on an ordinary population (not
hardened and picked, like the crews of polar expeditions) and proved
its depressing action, manifesting itself in general apathy of body
and mind, in a tendency to drowsiness, and in diminution of the height
and the thoracic perimeter; this action is especially noticeable in
children, who visibly pine away during this period. Unfortunately the
observations of Nossiloff are limited to a small number of subjects.
It is more than probable that all the modifications which the organism
undergoes as a result of the influence of environment are mostly of
a chemical nature, and have only a remote effect on the human frame.
According to W. Kochs,[135] the whole question of acclimatation in
tropical countries resolves itself into the quantity of water in the
organism. He bases his deductions principally on the difference found
to exist in the quantity of water contained in the flesh of oxen of
the Argentine Republic in comparison with that found among cattle of
Northern Germany. The former have from 80 to 83 per cent. of water,
while the latter have from 72 to 75 per cent. only. If it is the same
with man, as Kochs supposes, he would have from 7 to 8 per cent. less
solid matter to burn in his body in the tropics than in temperate
countries, and the vital energy would be affected accordingly. Thus
only the organism that had acquired the quantity of water necessary
for supporting the heat of the tropics would be acclimatised; this is
so true that Whites acclimatised in tropical countries suffer more
from the cold in Europe than their compatriots who have never left
Europe.[136] Besides, the Negroes of Senegal begin to suffer from
cold when the thermometer falls below 20° C. (68° Fahr.), whilst the
Fuegians who are not more warmly clad bear very well the cold of 0° to
-4° C. (32° to 25° Fahr.).
Taken as a whole, the genus _Homo_ is _cosmopolitan_. In fact, man
inhabits the whole earth from the icy regions of Greenland (in the
neighbourhood of the eightieth degree of N. latitude) to the torrid
zone which stretches between the tropic of Cancer and the Equator. He
is found in countries situated at 75 or 200 metres below the level
of the sea (Caspian depression, depression of Louktchin in Eastern
Turkestan), as well as on table-lands at an elevation of more than
5000 metres (Thibet). But if we consider the numerous sub-divisions of
the genus _Homo_ which are called species, sub-species, or races, the
question of cosmopolitanism becomes more complicated as at the same
time the positive data for its solution are less numerous.
Apart from the European and Negro races, peoples have never changed
their habitat abruptly--have not transported themselves in a body
into climates very different from their native country, though slow
migrations, advancing from place to neighbouring place, have been
numerous at all times and among all peoples; these have been followed
by acclimatation, the sole criterion of cosmopolitanism. It must also
be remarked that civilised peoples withstand better than savages
changes of every kind. In this respect the former bear a stronger
resemblance than the latter to domestic animals, which rarely become
sterile outside of their native country. According to Darwin,[137]
this results from the fact that civilised peoples, as well as domestic
animals, have been subjected in the course of their evolution to more
numerous variations, more frequent changes of place, and also more
important crossings.
The question whether each race of mankind can live and reproduce
itself--that is to say, become acclimatised--on any point of the globe
will, evidently, only be resolved when attempts of this kind are
undertaken by each race and pursued during several generations. Now
there are no exact data on this subject except for the so-called white
race and in some measure for Negroes. Without reckoning cosmopolitan
peoples like the Jews and the Gypsies, it is certain that the majority
of European peoples can as a race get acclimatised in the most diverse
regions, in Canada (English and French) as in Brazil (Portuguese and
Germans), Mexico (Spaniards), Australia (English), Southern Africa
(Dutch Boers). The assumed failures of acclimatation are connected
with countries where there has never been any European _colonisation_
(India, Java), and where it is known that there are isolated cases of
the collective acclimatation of several families.
According to Clements Markham and Elisée Reclus, the Englishman not
only as an individual but as a race is able to live in the Cisgangetic
peninsula.[138] Many generations of Englishmen have flourished in
various parts of India. Numerous examples could be cited of children
being acclimatised without detriment to their strength or health.
According to Francis Galton, the mortality in 1877 of European soldiers
in India (12.7 per 1000) was less than that of native soldiers (13.4)
and Hindus in general (35). In the Dutch Indies the Dutch have kept
themselves in good health for several generations.[139] We must leave
out of the question certain unhealthy regions (like Lower Senegal)
where the natives suffer almost as much as Europeans. On the whole,
the so-called white race appears to have the aptitude of acclimatation
in all countries, provided, of course, that it makes the necessary
sacrifices for several generations.
If it be said of certain regions that they are not colonisable by
Europeans, it is thereby implied that the sacrifices entailed by
acclimatation are out of all proportion to the advantages to be gained
by colonisation. As to Negroes, they thrive in temperate countries like
the United States, where they multiply at the same rate as the Whites.
By a strange anomaly they do not seem to thrive as well in Mexico, in
the Antilles, and in Guiana--that is to say in the same isothermal zone
(26°-28° C., or 70°-82° Fahr.) as their native country; nevertheless
they live and reproduce there.
Upon the whole, if we consider (1) that the most mixed and most
civilised races are those which are soonest acclimatised, (2) that
the tendency of races to intermingle, and of civilisation to develop,
goes on increasing every day in every part of the world, we may affirm
without being accused of exaggeration that the cosmopolitanism of
mankind, if it does not yet exist to-day in all races (which seems
somewhat improbable), will develop as a necessary consequence of the
facility of acclimatation. For it to become general is only a matter of
time.
As to the fertility of acclimatised families, it has been established
outside of hybridisation. Thus it has been possible to trace back
certain English families in the Barbadoes for six generations.[140] As
much may be said of the French in the islands of Mauritius and Réunion.
In the Brazilian province of Rio Grande do Sul, between 25°-30° S.
latitude--that is, in a sub-tropical region--it has been ascertained
that there are three or four generations of German colonists,
whose children enjoy very good health.[141] Lastly, in Matabeleland
there are already two or three generations of Dutch.[142] It must
be said that certain European races are more capable than others of
becoming acclimatised in tropical countries. Thus it is universally
acknowledged that people of the south of Europe--Spaniards, Italians,
Provençals--become sooner acclimatised in Africa and equatorial America
than the English and the Germans of the north.
But in spite of the facility of acclimatation, race-characters hardly
seem to change in the new environment; the chemical constituents of the
tissues having changed, the body adapts itself without change either in
outward form or even colour.
The German colonists of Brazil and the Steppes of the Volga bear
a perfect resemblance to each other after more than a century of
separation from their race-brothers of Swabia or Franconia. It is the
same after two or three centuries with the English of the Barbadoes,
the French of Réunion, the Dutch of the Transvaal, etc.
The phenomena of _hybridity_ are even less studied than those of the
influence of environment; I shall speak of some of these in regard to
different populations, but the facts are too isolated and disputed for
any general conclusions to be drawn.
In reality, all that we know is that a great number of races produce
half-breeds by crossing, but whether these half-breeds in so crossing
produce a new race or revert to one of the ancestral types has not been
demonstrated. Humanity appears to move in a confused medley of the most
diverse and composite forms, without any one of them being able to
persist; for the means of persistence, artificial selection or sexual
selection, are wanting. The only selection which may have a decided
influence on the predominance of the characters of a race in its
interminglings is that which proceeds from the _number_ of individuals
of each of the races concerned in the blending and their respective
fecundity, but this selection has hardly begun to be studied.
3.--PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PATHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS.
It remains to speak of _psychological characters_--that is to say,
of temperament and the different manifestations of mind, feeling,
and affections. But it must be admitted that it is almost impossible
to treat these in the face of many contradictory facts. Speaking
generally, it may be said that the American and Mongoloid races are
grave, meditative, a little obtuse, melancholic; and that, on the
contrary, the Negro races and Melanesians are playful, laughing,
lively, and superficial as children. But there are many exceptions to
such general rules. Each traveller, each observer, tends to judge in
his own way a given people according to the nature of the relations
(pacific, hostile, etc.) which he has had with it. We are unable to
affirm anything when we have once made up our minds to escape from the
commonplace generalities that savages are wanting in foresight and
general ideas, that they are cruel, that their imitative faculties are
highly developed, etc.
_Pathological characters_ are better known, as for example, in regard
to immunities. It is a proved fact that Negroes, for instance, are
proof against the contagion of yellow fever; that they resist much
better than Europeans the terrible intermittent fevers which prevail on
the coasts of Africa. But if savage peoples enjoy certain immunities,
they are, on the contrary, very susceptible to the infectious diseases
which civilised peoples introduce among them; whole tribes have been
exterminated by syphilis, measles, and consumption in South America,
Polynesia, and Siberia.[143] There are also diseases peculiar to
certain populations, such, for example, as the _sleeping sickness_
among the Wolofs and Songhaï, which manifests itself in an invincible
tendency to sleep.[144] It has long been asserted that savage peoples
are not afflicted by nervous and mental diseases. Nothing of the
kind. The genuine “great hysteria” of Charcot has been observed among
Negresses of Senegal, among Hottentot women and Kafirs, as well as
in Abyssinia and Madagascar.[145] Other nervous diseases have been
noticed among Hurons and Iroquois,[146] and in New Zealand. Some forms
of neurosis appear to be limited to certain ethnic groups. Such is the
“Amok” of the Malays--a sort of furious and imitative madness perhaps
provoked at the same time by suggestion. Developed especially among the
Malays, it is also met with among the Indians of North America, where
it has been called “jumping” by the Whites. The “Myriachit” of the
Ostiaks and other natives of Siberia, the “Malimali” of the Tagals of
the Philippines, the “Bakchis” of the Siamese, are similar diseases.
Under the name of “Latah” are designated among the Malays all sorts of
nervous diseases, but more particularly the imitative madness which
impels women to undress before men, to throw children up in the air
in imitation of a game of ball, etc. Besides, the name Latah is also
given to a mental state in which the patient is afraid of certain
words (tiger, crocodile), and which is met with somewhat frequently
not only among the Malays, but also among the Tagals and the Sikhs of
India.[147]