624 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



invariably to be found upon children of tender age. The 

 marks disappear on most of the children about the age of 

 four years, but on a few not until they are ten or twelve. 

 Most of the observations have hitherto been made upon 

 infants brought to the hospitals for medical attendance, or 

 left at the orphanages established by religious persons. 



The marks appear to be independent of sex ; they are 

 found on boys and girls alike. They present the following 

 appearance : The colour is variable ; sometimes greyish ; 

 sometimes black or bluish -black ; sometimes of different 

 colours, hke that of a healing bruise. The colour often 

 varies according to the age of the child, being deepest when 

 the infant is newly born, and growing lighter with years. 

 The shapes of the stigmata are uncertain, but their outlines are 

 generally rounded off, and the dimensions are equally variable, 

 sometimes being only of the size of a sixpence, while in other 

 cases it may be as large as the palms of the two hands. The 

 size also varies with age, the surface of the patch gradually 

 diminishing inwards from the exterior boundaries. Some of 

 these marks have been seen that in the first few months of 

 life covered the back of both thighs and the whole lumbar 

 region. Parts of these blotches may remain black while 

 others are getting greyish in process of disappearance, whilst 

 in others different colours are mingled so that it looks like a 

 pattern of mosaic. These spots are not raised in relief above 

 the adjoining surface of the skin, although certain of the very 

 small and very dark places appear slightly raised, as though 

 such a mark was a naviis ; but this raising of the discoloured 

 portion is less sensible to the finger than to the eye. The 

 spots often escape observation if not particularly looked for, 

 because Chinese babies are thickly encrusted with dirt ; but 

 in doubtful cases it is advisable to press the suspected part, 

 which becomes white when the blood is expelled, and allows 

 the tints of greenish-yellow to appear. 



The marks are absorbed by the blood, just as the extra- 

 vasated blood in a black eye is absorbed. 



These marks appear as a racial characteristic — viz., of con- 

 genital and transitory stigmata — in the Chinese people ; but 

 Dr. Nokagawa, the doctor of the Japanese Legation in Pekin, 

 states that the same markings are visible upon infant Japa- 

 nese. The Ainos, the aboriginal inhabitants of Japan, do 

 not present the dark-blue mark which is to be found on 

 Japanese children. The people that inhabit the interior of 

 the larger Philippine Islands — that is to say, the aborigines 

 driven into the mountains and forests by the tribes at present 

 in occupation of the coastal portions — appear also to have this 

 mark. Whatever the origin may be of the Negritos, the 

 Igarotes, the Tinguanes, the Burik, the Ifuagos, the Guinanes, 



