154 NATURAL SCIENCE. September. 



Anthropology. 



It is well known that the Negrillos of Central Africa, i.e. from 

 the country of the Mombuttus to the West Coast, resemble in many 

 ways the brachycephalic Negritos of South-Eastern Asia. Side by side 

 with these rounder headed pigmies are dolichocephals ; one of these, 

 a Babinga (Aka) woman from the Sangha River, is the subject of a 

 paper by Dr. R. Verneau, in V Anthropologie (vii., p. 153). The esti- 

 mated cranial capacity (1 ,440 c.c.) is by no means small, it being above 

 the average European female. The skull is very dolichocephalic 

 (73-2), very platyrhine(63'5), mesoseme(87-8), and has a considerable 

 sub-nasal prognathism. The pelvis exhibits characters intermediate 

 between those of a true negress and a European. Themesaticephaly 

 which is met with to the west of the pigmy territory, may be due to a 

 crossing between brachycephalous Negrillos and Negros of tall stature ; 

 these are the semi-dwarfs (" demi-nains") of Mr. Hamy. If a com- 

 parison be made between the measurements given by Dr. Verneau and 

 those published on various pigmy peoples, it will be evident that the 

 former could scarcely belong to a person of pigmy stature, that is, with 

 an average male stature below 4 ft. 9 in., and we must, for the present, 

 be sceptical as to this individual being a true dolichocephalic pigmy. 



The subject of infantilism, femininism, and the hermaphrodites of 

 antiquity, has been carefully studied by Mr. Henry Meige in 

 V Anthropologie for 1895. ^^ came to the conclusion that "there 

 exist in nature several bodily conformations in which the morpho- 

 logical characters of the male are associated in the same individual 

 with those of the female. These hybrid forms should be considered 

 as anomalies of development resulting from a congenital alteration of 

 the trophic centres which regulate the evolution of the sexual organs. 

 They can be referred to infantilism, femininism, and virilism." Mr. 

 Meige finds that the representations of hermaphrodites in the ancient 

 world fall into two classes: — i. Those which are simply artistic 

 creations, in which the female form — more rarely the male — is pro- 

 vided with organs that belong to the other sex. 2. Those which 

 represent a natural type, these being forms exhibiting infantilism, or, 

 most frequently, femininism. These the author believes were copied 

 from the life. In the current number of the same journal Dr. O. 

 Ammon has a communication on the same subject, in which he points 

 out that though permanent infantilism may occur, in most instances 

 this is only a transient stage ; that is to say, virile development may 

 be exceptionally retarded. 



The causes of this sexual retardation may be racial or due to 

 unfavourable economic conditions. Usually these cases of retarded 

 virility occur among very poor families, but he has sometimes seen 

 boys of the middle classes, in comfortable circumstances, not attaining 

 a virile character till the age of seventeen, whilst the mean age of 

 puberty of this class is from thirteen to fourteen years of age. It is 

 clearly necessary that the subsequent history of the patient should be 



