ANATOMICAL, PHYSIOLOGICAL, AND PATHOLOGICAL VARIETIES.
We have endeavoured to prove in the preceding pages the specific unity
of the biological phenomena in each Order, which are to be found among
the superior animals and man. This unity has led us necessarily to
another, that of _method_; and we have just seen that man forms simply
a family, that is to say, a very secondary division in the zoological
series.
But we have only taken the first step of the path in which we
have to travel. The genus _homo_ shows many varieties, and many
dissimilarities. We must try to estimate their value, and to find out
what the divisions to be established between what we commonly call
_races_ of men may be worth. Now, the only rule to be followed here
is naturally that which is applied by all zoologists to the other
individuals composing the animal series. The only way to arrive at such
a goal will be, first of all, the study of the physical differences,
the necessary basis of a rational classification. Thus we shall, at
least, have important, and what is more, comparable results.
The anatomy of races has been largely written about, and yet we may
even now offer this subject to the serious study of anthropologists;
perhaps, also, in carrying their attention farther than the skin, the
encephalic mass and the skeleton, which have been nearly the sole
objects of study up to the present time, they will find in all systems
dissimilarities of the same order, and as clearly defined.[108] These
differences and varieties are such that they are obvious, and at once
appreciated even by ignorant persons,[109]--they are such that the most
eminent monogenists agree in regarding them as everywhere sufficient to
make a difference in species, or even in genus itself.
They refer to every point of organisation, and we shall see farther on
that they are found to be as decided and as palpable both in the mind
and in the natural constitution. We do not pretend to speak of all of
them in this place, not even to enumerate them; we shall merely quote
the principal points, or those which appear to deserve some special
remark. The number of those which exist, or which are believed to
exist,--for this is a necessary restriction,--is immense; in fact,
if we are the first to admit that there is an infinite variety of
differences, considerable in themselves, between the various kinds
of men, we also wish to avoid falling into the errors which are so
often committed, and which happen from the small number of facts which
have been observed, the investigators having often given the value of
general facts to individual observation.
We find more than one example of these hasty opinions in the history of
anthropological studies. Towards the end of the last century, when the
colour of the Negro had already been for a hundred years the dominant
study of the scientific world of Europe,[110] a certain Kluegel
affirmed (in the _Encyclopédie de Berlin_, 1782) that the lips of the
Ethiopian were of a fine red colour. A great commotion arose; Sömmering
himself was roused; he wrote everywhere, sought for information, and
demanded fresh intelligence, which, quite naturally, was found to be
contrary to the opinion expressed by Kluegel. In fact, we know that in
the Negro the colouring matter extends to most of the mucous membranes
whose structure resembles that of the skin.
The lips are generally black, and we usually find upon the gums, and
even upon the palate, a non-continuous coloured membrane, which forms
spots of a deep violet colour. Kluegel had concluded too hastily from
some particular fact; he had in his mind, very probably, some Negro
with lips, gums, and tongue of a fine rose colour, contrasting as much
as possible with the black of his skin. We have had occasion ourselves
to observe a similar case as regards a native of Soudan, who was also
affected with a sort of partial albinoism of the buccal mucous membrane.
In anthropology, as in all science requiring observation, it is the
averages which ought to be admitted as evidence; they alone have an
absolute value, and can alone lead to positive results. Every isolated
phenomenon has its individual value as regards its simple truth, but we
are exposed to the greatest errors when we begin to generalise from it.
The osseous system has been most studied.[111] In the osseous system,
the head, and particularly the skull. We shall be obliged, later on, to
refer to the value of cranioscopic proceedings, and the classifications
resting on this base.
The face, as well as the skull, has been the object of attentive
inquiry; the smallest differences have been noticed, and almost all
have been formed by some one or other into distinct characteristics.
We may quote here Bérard’s classification, as resumed and developed by
Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. He divided the genus _homo_ into four
groups:--
1. The _orthognathi_, or men with a flat face and oval countenance.
2. The _eurygnathi_, or men with a large face and projecting cheek
bones.
3. The _prognathi_, or men with a protuberant countenance.
4. Lastly, these races, which are both _eurygnathi_ and _prognathi_,
like the Hottentots, the development of whose face offers an example of
a manifest step towards the exaggeration of this same development in
the anthropomorphous ape in infancy.[112]
It has been endeavoured to establish, by means of averages, an
appreciable difference between the pelvis of various races. Weber has
considered that the form of the superior division is not the same with
all of them. According to him it would be--
1. _Oval_, among Europeans.
2. _Round_, among Americans.
3. _Square_, among the Mongols.
4. _Cuneiform_ or _oblong_, among the Africans.
The same ideas have been resumed and defended by French
anthropologists;[113] it is right, however, to remark, that Weber
himself adds that varieties of every description of pelvis may be met
with among the same race. That which appears certain is the fact, that
in the Negro race the pelvis is, in general, sensibly smaller. This is,
at least, the opinion of Camper,[114] Vrolik, Sömmering, White,[115]
and Bérard,[116] who have measured a great number of them.
The facility in parturition, so remarkable among the inferior
races, has therefore, as a cause, a relative smallness in the head
of the fœtus, even more remarkable. For we must admit that, among
these people, everything happens naturally, as among animals; it is
the laborious childbirth among ourselves which is exceptional and
anomalous, and which requires to be explained. This difficult and
painful parturition, which we so continually see, is, doubtless, the
consequence of civilisation; only it is difficult to decide what may
be its immediate cause, and if this cause resides in the mother or
in the fœtus. Is it the pelvis which has been made narrower in the
European by some custom in our manners--by some habit of education?
or must we admit--and it is a serious question--that the development
of such an organ as the brain _in the fœtus_, is subordinate to the
exercise of the functions of the same organ in the progenitors?
With the osseous system we may connect the differences of height which
are so apparent. Who does not recognise that in Europe, for instance,
the Anglo-Saxons, the Germans, the Norwegians, and the Albanians, are
of great stature; whilst the inhabitants of the south of France, the
Irish, the Spaniards,[117] and the Maltese, represent a shorter variety
of the human race. The members show the most marked differences among
the various races of mankind, by reason of the law which causes the
modifications of organism to become more and more decided, and more
and more clear from the centre to the periphery. Naturalists seek
for characteristics of families and individuals in the fingers and
in the teeth: it is in the extremes of an individual, in the colour
of the hair or the skin, that we generally find the characteristics
of species. We shall only quote in this place facts which may be the
object of some particular remark.
It has been said continually that the Tartars have bowed legs, and
monogenists have not failed to discover from this fact a new proof of
the influences of their mode of life, so necessary in order to maintain
their thesis. They discovered at first sight, in this _general_
infirmity, a consequence of the habit of riding on horseback, without
considering that the Arabs rode on horseback quite as often, and that,
nevertheless, their noble bearing and straightness of limb did not
suffer from it in the slightest. In tracing the source of this error,
we perceive that it is a singular exaggeration of the facts stated by
Pallas, who lived for so long a time amongst the Tartars. He simply
says, “The sole fault in conformation which is _rather frequent_
among them, is a bend in the arms and legs, resulting from a kind of
spoon, or saddle, upon which they are always placed in their cradle,
as if they were on horseback, and therefore, as soon as they learn
to walk, they are obliged at every movement to accustom themselves
to the position of riding.”[118] This is what Pallas says; but it is
very clear that he is here speaking merely of exceptional cases, for
he says higher up, “I do not remember to have ever seen a child who
was a cripple. Their education, which is entirely left to nature, can
only form bodies which are healthy and _without a blemish_.”[119] If
occasionally the accounts of travellers have been exaggerated, it
is not less the rule, that certain races show a conformation of the
extremities very different to what it is among ourselves. Albrecht
Durer has already made this remark. In the Negro, for instance, the
length of the forearm is much greater than in the European. It is
proportional to the height in these two races :: 107 : 100.[120]
The thumb of the Negro’s hand is also generally much less opposed to
the other fingers. In certain races of mankind, the hand itself is of
an extraordinary small size. This is the case among the Bosjesmans, the
Chinese, the Esquimaux,[121] and the Cingalese.[122] It was the same
among the races who built the grand American temples, where we find
upon the stones the imprint in red of their hands.[123] The same thing
has been said about the ancient population of northern Europe, who were
ignorant of the use of iron, and only used weapons made of bronze.[124]
But the study of the magnificent collection of Scandinavian
antiquities in the Berlin Museum, has not proved to ourselves that the
hilts of _all_ these arms were as small as has been pretended.
The foot varies not less. The Negro races of the Oceanic Islands, and
of Africa, appear to show an exaggerated development of the heel-bone.
MM. Quoy and Gaimard have especially remarked it among the inhabitants
of Vanikoro. In fact, there is hardly anybody who will forget, when
once he has seen it, the special aspect of the instep in the Negro,
ridged with numerous folds commencing from beneath the ankle. This is,
besides, a particular mark, which is far from showing itself, as may
be well believed, among _all_ people who walk without foot-covering.
The foot of the Nubians, and especially that of the females, shows
quite different characteristics. The five metatarsi seem to rest their
whole length upon the ground, without being shaped by the instep;
their anterior extremities are slightly diverted, the toes having the
same spaces between them, so that the foot is flat, but otherwise
than by the faulty conformation to which we give this name among
ourselves. This structure is, besides, perfectly represented in all
Egyptian statues without exception, and more sensibly, indeed, if we
compare with those which are in the galleries of the British Museum, a
fragment of a colossal foot,[125] found also in Egypt, at Alexandria,
but evidently of Greek or Roman origin; the toes are close together,
the great toe alone being separated, the upper part of the foot being
arched, as among Europeans.
This resemblance between all the Egyptian statues and the foot of
the inhabitants of Upper Egypt, or Nubia, cannot be an accidental
circumstance. It is, besides, a veritable problem in anthropology, to
determine its value in accordance with the monumental iconography of
the ancient Egyptians. M. A. Maury has determined with precision the
authority of the portraits--almost all alike--which cover the walls
of the temples. We ourselves, when visiting the famous cavern of
Abou-Simbel, were far from finding all that the writings of certain
anthropologists and partisans of Egyptian art, such as Gliddon, Nott,
etc., had promised us. Doubtless, one can perfectly distinguish
certain types,[126] that is indisputable;[127] but to desire to find
a _people_ in each portrait,--Scythians, Arabs, Philistines, Lydians,
Kurds, Hindoos, Jews, Chinese, Tyrians, Pelasgians, Ionians, etc.,--is
it not to give too great an influence to the Egyptian artists, who
were copyists without skill, and but clumsy inventors? Egyptian art,
whatever may have been said of it, has always been very much farther
from being a copy of nature than Grecian art; the one tended to the
ideal, the other tended to transform it. Certain trees which we see
thrown down in the bas-relief of the great temple of Karnak, are
assuredly pure imagination. It may have been the same with many other
subjects to which a scientific value has been given.
Let us return to anatomical differences, and to that which has,
since antiquity, most vividly struck the masses, as well as serious
investigators. We are going to speak about those colours in the skin
of man which run through almost the whole of the chromatic scale, from
dead white to the deepest brown.[128] There is no system which has not
been thought of in order to explain these differences, even up to the
influence of Noah’s curse.[129]
Unfortunately, we are wanting in those histological and chemical
researches which are necessary in order to form the bases of a complete
history of the colours of the skin in the human race.[130] We can
merely say, that the recent works upon certain morbid states, such
as Addison’s disease, and others which may approach it, by making
us acquainted with the pathological circumstances under which the
European with a white skin becomes almost as black as a Negro, and by
identical anatomical modifications, have nearly proved that atmospheric
phenomena have not the influence which monogenists give to them, and
that the first origin of the colour of the epidermis in the human race
resides rather in the depths of the organism, inaccessible to celestial
radiation.[131]
The varieties which the pilous system presents is the chief point,
and equal at least in importance to those of the cutaneous system.
If we think that a classification of races, based simply upon the
characteristics of the hair, as has been proposed,[132] would leave
much to be desired, and would be far too artificial, we do not doubt,
however, but that the pilous system can furnish indications of great
value when they have been combined in a wise manner with other
characteristics, as Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire has done.[133]
Doubtless, the colours of the hair, from flaxen to black, and from
brown to red, are innumerable in France, and as generally so in
countries where the mixture of races has been carried as far as
possible; but it must be remembered that among a purer population,
less mixed with foreign blood, the constancy of characteristics taken
from the hair is remarkably great.[134] Besides, the differences which
present themselves do not relate merely to colour; the hair of a race
of men may be either smooth, or woolly, or crisped, for in general
these two latter terms are wrongly and indifferently used, when they
ought really to point out two particular and distinct states. It is
thus that the inhabitants of Lower Nubia, for instance, who have a very
deep shade of colour, possess curled hair, truly _woolly_, and quite
different to that of the Negro, whose hair is really _crisped_.[135]
Other characteristics may be demanded from the length of the
hair, from its transverse section,--the figure of which may vary
considerably,--from its flexibility or its quantity; in fact, even from
its manner of being placed in the head, the arrangement of which upon
the scalp has never been properly studied, and which may, perhaps, vary
with the different races of mankind. In fact, human hairs, like that
of many mammalia, are not placed at equal distances the one from the
other; they approach each other in little groups. This is especially
seen in the nape of the neck, and among the Negro race much more so
than among the Europeans.
This fact, joined to the irregularly prismatic form of the hair in the
Negro, is doubtless the origin of the following peculiarity: when the
head of a Negro has been shaved, and the hair begins to grow afresh,
one is especially struck with its strange appearance. It is arranged
in little tufts about the size of a pea, so that the head, it has been
remarked,[136] resembles nothing more closely than an old worn-out
brush.
This peculiarity is special to the Negro, and is not found in the
north-east of Africa, where the neighbouring population have _woolly_
hair. Among the enumeration of the numberless perfections which a
dogmatic Hindú requires from Buddha, and which Çakhya-Mouni possessed,
it is said, “The hair of Buddha shoots forth in little ringlets.”[137]
It is impossible to describe better what happens with the Negro.
All this Hindoo tradition is, besides, a veritable enigma for the
anthropologist. Why is Buddha depicted with the palms of the hands
descending to the knees?[138] Why is the mendicant son of a king,
born on the banks of the Ganges, always represented with the features
or characteristics of a Negro, with black skin, and crisped hair?
Nevertheless, Çakhya-Mouni did not belong to these inferior varieties
of the human race, of whose existence in the Indian Peninsula we have
already spoken; in that case, he would have been unfit to formulate any
doctrine, either moral or philosophic.
The rest of the pilous system, not less than that of the hair, merits
the attention of the anthropologist. Thus, a very especial fact,
and to which, in our opinion, sufficient importance has never been
attached, is, on the one hand, the relative abundance of the beard
among the various races of mankind; and on the other, the time of its
development. The Chinese, for example, is for a long time beardless,
and it is only about his fortieth year that a few stiff hairs begin to
appear upon his face.
Among the Negroes, the Americans, and the Polar race, the hair is, in
the same way, very slightly developed on the face. “The length of our
beards (of thirty days growth), which had not been shaved since we left
the _Victory_,” said Sir John Ross,[139] “was, among other things, a
source of great amusement, while one of them, a stranger, whose beard
was of unusual length among this tribe, claimed consanguinity with us
on that ground.” The thick and close beard seems, in regarding the
matter closely, the exclusive appanage of that race which, sprung
from the Imaüs, spread over the whole of Europe, and whose finest
representatives still inhabit the table-lands of Iran.[140] Our
neighbours, the Semites, are far from being so well provided; and
Lieut.-Colonel H. Smith has[141] not, perhaps, done wrong in proposing
to make an abundant pilous system the characteristic of one race, just
as the crisped state of the hair would become the characteristic of
another.
The systems of animal life, doubtless, show as many varieties among
different races of men as the systems of the life of relationship; only
these varieties are much less known. It will be sufficient for us to
remember in this place the darker colour of the blood and the _sperma_
among the Negro race, as already remarked by Aristotle and verified by
Jacquinot, and the equally dark tint of the nervous centres; so that
the whole œconomy of the Negro is, even in the most hidden parts (and
those most distant from solar or atmospheric influence), impregnated
with colouring matter.
Let us notice, also, the development of the small _labia_ among
the Hottentot women, that of the _prepuce_ and the _clitoris_
among the Semitic race, and even the size of the _penis_ among the
Ethiopians--such a size that it would almost impede the union of a
black man with a white woman, whilst the union of a white man with
a Negress would occur without any impediment. This remark, quite in
agreement with the theories of M. d’Eichthal, has been made by a
monogenist;[142] we have merely the right to wonder at it. How can
we reconcile this impossibility, were it even a shade of a real one,
with the notion of indefinite and universal reproduction, which all
monogenists--wrongly, as we shall see--make one of their strongest
arguments in favour of the specific unity of man?
II. What we call physiological differences are certain functional
forms of the same organ, particular to certain races. This is, as may
be seen, an entirely artificial distinction, since these differences
must necessarily and forcibly refer to material, that is, to anatomical
differences.
These alone, either from their small value, or from some other
cause, have been hitherto unknown; whilst their effects, being more
sensible, have not failed to escape our observation. If an Esquimaux,
for instance, eats in one day the food of six English sailors,[143]
it is evident that the intestines, the stomach, and the glands which
border on them, present special modifications with reference to this
kind of nourishment, so different from the frugivorous diet for which
man’s organism is adapted. When a Tartar sees further than a European
who is using a telescope,[144] it is certain that such a functional
superiority depends only on the material quality of the organ,--from
a more perfect arrangement of the visual apparatus,--from the more
perfect nature of the medium refractive powers of the eye.
It has often been desired to refer these kind of modifications to the
education of the race or the individual. The education of the race by
itself, independently of the ordinary course, seems to us difficult
to admit, since education, in this case, would suppose a triumphant
struggle against the ordinary course of things. Every animal comes
into the world as its parents came, or, at least, apparently so. If he
brings with him, by inheritance, certain particular characteristics,
they must necessarily in time become obliterated either by their
own means, or by destroying all those who possess them (the case of
hereditary degeneracy). In fact, if perfection in a race were possible
by means of an individual, the consequence would be that very soon our
descendants would be no longer in relationship with the circumambient
medium, which would be an absurdity.[145]
As to individual education, it has an undeniable influence; but this
does not suffice to explain such important differences. We never find
that Europeans, who happen to be thrown among savages, attain to these
peculiarly fine and delicate perceptions so special to many aborigines.
And, moreover, the American residing in boundless forests, where the
view is always restricted, has as piercing a glance as the Kalmuc upon
his plain. The question of the education of an organ or a system by
the individual himself will be cleared up, doubtless, one of these
days, by attentive anatomy. And since we are upon the subject, let us
remember that an important study still remains, hitherto merely glanced
at,--that of the influence which, for instance, the milk of an animal
or a female of another race may have upon the development or the health
of a white child.
The differences which we call physiological are very numerous; we
shall, however, only quote two or three from among the most striking.
The principal point, perhaps, is the peculiar smell of the Negro.
This is so strong, that it even impregnates for some time a place
where a Negro may only have remained for a few hours, and it is so
characteristic, that it alone constitutes a grave presumption in
matters of slave-trading; for Humboldt has stated concerning the
Peruvians what Le Cat and Haller said about the savages of the
Antilles, that they could perfectly trace a Negro by scent, thanks to
this odour; and it is, at the same time, a new proof of the sensitive
perfection of the American race. This odour is quite independent
of age, and sometimes is almost insupportable in young children;
it is also independent of sweat, and, in fact, of all the means of
cleanliness of which a Negro can make use.[146] It is due, according to
all appearance, to a secretion from the same glands which, in the white
man, give such a peculiar odour to the arm-pits; but this latter is
absolutely different from that of the Negro.[147] With regard to this,
we must not lose the occasion of noticing one of those contradictions
into which monogenists have so often fallen, and, indeed, it could
not be otherwise. “The dog does not come from the jackal,” says M.
Flourens,[148] “for the jackal has such a peculiar smell, that it does
not seem possible that, in this case, the dog should not have preserved
some traces of it at least.” Shall we reason in the same manner in
order to make a special race of the Negro, and would this monogenist
accept it?
Another very remarkable physiological peculiarity, and one quite
as worthy of being noticed, since it has a certain effect upon
physiognomy, upon the _facies_ of a race, is a special mode of
standing, consisting in holding oneself in a squatting position, the
sole of the foot on the ground, and the thighs bent up against the
hams, without the _ischia_ touching the ground. This effect is what
Cook called “a monkey countenance.”[149]
We find nowhere that the Greeks,--the inhabitants of the ancient
continent generally,--the Arabs, or even the ancient Egyptians
themselves, have ever been accustomed to this position, which
necessarily implies some anatomical modification, whether it be in the
separation of the pelvis, the direction of the neck of the thigh-bone,
or the torsion of the bones, etc.[150] This position seems, on the
contrary, to have been always the peculiarity of the Melanesian races;
it is the ordinary mode of _standing_ among the inhabitants in the
upper course of the Nile, and the Negroes of Africa and the Oceanic
Islands. They place themselves thus in order to look at anything,
to chat together, or to deliberate. The magnificent drawings which
illustrate the account of the travels of the English Embassy to the
Emperor of Abyssinia,[151] represent this monarch as reviewing an
entire army of infantry drawn up in order of battle, and all squatting
in this manner.
The ancient Egyptians generally kept themselves either on their knees
or seated on the ground, the legs brought together, and the knees
touching in front of the chest, as thousands of statues, figures, and
pictures show us. But their artists have just revealed to us that the
people of Central Africa have always been as they are at the present
day. The great painting of Beït-Oually, in Nubia,[152] represents
Rameses the Great as charging a troop of Negroes from Soudan; on
one side, farther off, we see a Negro near a saucepan, preparing,
doubtless, some food; he is squatting in the manner of which we
have just spoken. In this place, as is often the case, the Egyptian
artist has been clever in seizing a profile by its most significant
characteristic.[153]
Géricault wished at one time to make a drawing of an episode in the
“Shipwreck of the Medusa,” Coréard making signs to an African chief
who was seated on the sand; he placed in his composition a Negro
squatting, but he drew him with one foot resting entirely on the
ground, and the other bearing only on the extremity of the metatarsi.
At that time Géricault had only a white man as a model; a Negro would
have placed himself differently, with both his feet flat on the ground.
We might pursue the history of these physiological varieties _ad
infinitum_,--it is a large field for the enquirer; and to mention one
fact alone, the compared history of development among the different
races of mankind has still to be accomplished, especially the history
of the intra-uterine development of the Negro, and even partly the
history of the first months of his aërial life.
III. If organism, operating normally among different races, presents
such varieties, why can we not suppose that it would hence show
correlative differences in its morbid changes? should there not
be, also, an ethnic pathology? This contains a large question, and
yet it was scarcely thought of a few years ago. It seems to have
been first proposed and studied by F. Schnurrer in his treatise on
_Geographical Pathology_,[154] in 1813, in which the author seems to
have perceived imperfectly, in all its vastness, the matter which now
occupies our attention. The book is divided into three parts; the
first is entirely geographical, the second entirely anthropological,
and the third is given up to a description of maladies, commencing
with two introductory chapters; the first describing the diseases
of each zone, and the second, containing eleven pages, is a “Glance
at the general Characteristics of Disease in each Race.” “In fact,”
says Dr. Boudin,[155] in pointing out the novelty of these enquiries,
“there are some races who show themselves completely rebellious to
certain pathological forms, for which others, on the contrary, show a
remarkable pre-disposition.”
Two particular maladies have been pointed out in this point of
view,--_marsh-poisoning_ in all its forms, and _yellow fever_.
Africans are evidently, at least in parts, exempt from these two
diseases, which only attack them with a very minor force. It has
been said that the question of marsh-poisoning is still very
doubtful; it was allowed that the Negroes were less exposed to its
attacks than other men, but it was desired to enter the question of
acclimatisation[156] into the calculation of facts. All the countries
we know that are inhabited by blacks, being nearly all subject to the
noxious influence of marshes, it was pretended that even stranger
Negroes had acquired from infancy, in their own country, an immunity by
which they benefited later in life, and even had the power of handing
it down to their descendants.[157] It is thus that some have explained,
for instance, the unhappy results of the English expedition to the
Niger in 1841. Out of 145 whites belonging to the crews, the three
vessels, after a navigation of about forty-nine days on the river, had
lost 40 men (130 were attacked). Out of the twenty-five coloured men
embarked in England, and who were mostly born in America, eleven were
seized with illness, but not one of them died.[158] This individual
acclimatisation can only be either a fiction, or a proof in support
of the ideas which we defend. In the presence of a morbid influence
which shows itself and continues, two things alone can happen,--either
destruction, or permanent (that is to say, _specific_) modifications
of œconomy, in harmony with the ordinary manner in which this animal
population continues to exist.
The yellow fever, exercising its ravages upon shores equally distant
from whites and negroes, has brought very decisive arguments into
the question. We know, in fact, that the whites suffer in America
from the black vomit in all its violence; whilst the Negroes are not
attacked by it, or if they are, its effects are insignificant.[159] A
ferocious maxim, one worthy of the conquerors, has explained--since
the sixteenth century--this prerogative, which the Spaniards had so
much reason to envy, “If we did not hang a Negro, he would never
die.”[160] If some authors have timidly advanced the theory of a former
acclimatisation[161] with regard to marsh-poisoning, the greater number
of observers, Fenner, Nott, and Bryant, ought to admit that there was,
even in the constitution of the black man, an obstacle--otherwise
absolutely unknown in his nature--to the manifestation of the
yellow fever;[162] and that the black blood appeared to carry on
this resisting force to the mixed breed, even if they were born far
away.[163]
An extremely interesting experiment relating to this immunity of the
Negro from the yellow fever, was tried largely during the disastrous
Mexican expedition, and the conditions of this experience ought to
give it a capital value. At first, our soldiers paid a terrible
tribute to this scourge, and then the French Government took up the
excellent idea of profiting by the resistance of the Negro race
to the black vomit. It asked for a battalion of blacks from the
viceroy of Egypt, consisting of men recruited from the limits of
Soudan, from Berber to Khartoum. It was not without anxiety that the
issue of this physiological experiment was watched, since it did not
happen, as in our laboratories, _in anima vili_. Some had confidence
in the functional uniformity of the Negro race, as being beyond all
local action; others believing wrongly, as we said, in a former
acclimatisation of the only inhabitants of the western coast of Africa,
expected to find that all these Negroes from the other side of the
continent would perish. However, in spite of what they had at first
said, they could very soon verify the almost complete immunity of the
Negro battalion at Vera-Cruz.[164] It was the first time, if we are not
mistaken, that anthropology has been directly applied in the Old World
to social science. Some time ago anthropologists were consulted by the
government of the Northern States of America upon certain questions
of slavery, at the time when terrible dissensions were budding in the
shadows of the distance.