ORIGIN OF BLOND EUROPEANS — BLOCH. 615 



pJunged their new-born infants into cold water, a custom that wrung 

 an outcry from Galen, the celebrated Greek physician of that time. 

 Here is what he says on the subject: 



Which of us could stand the sight of a small infant, scarcely born, still all warm, 

 carried to the river and plunged into the water as a piece of hot iron, and this, as the 

 Germans say, in order to put its nature to the test and at the same time to strengthen 

 its body? * * * For whether it stands the test without becoming sick, whether it 

 shows that it can keep its inborn strength and acquire additional vigor from this con- 

 tact with cold water, is something which everyone can know; but whether, on the 

 contrary, if its natural warmth is overcome by the external cold, it must necessarily 

 die, is something which no one knows. What man in his senses and who is not a veri- 

 table savage, a Scythian, would want to submit his infant to such a test, where failure 

 means death, and this without deriving any great advantage from the test? ' 



Aside from the last-mentioned practice, which the Germans con- 

 sidered as probably efficacious, it can be seen from the preceding that 

 they attached great importance to the physical culture of mfancy and 

 youth; but aside from their tall stature the Germans and their prede- 

 cessoi's were also corpulent, for Galen writes on this subject: 



It is said that in cold countries man becomes stout, and as examples are quoted the 

 Celts, the Thracians, the Bythinians, the peoples of the Pontus and the Galatians. 

 All these peoples inhabit a cold country, and are generally stout. - 



(I quote this remark of Galen without msisting on it.) 

 It may be objected, as regards the color, that the Finns and Lapps 

 reside in still more northern regions and yet remain brown. But to 

 this it may be answered that there are blond or red Finns, and it can 

 not be said that mixture is the cause of their light color. There are 

 even entire tribes of Fmns which consist of blonds only. Thus the 

 Mordevs of European Russia are divided into two separate tribes, of 

 which one, the Erses, includes only individuals with blond hair, gray 

 eyes, and light color. The other tribe, the Mokshes, on the contrary, 

 consists of two varieties of individuals, of which those that are brown 

 with dark eyes and tawny skin are equal if not superior to those who 

 are blond .^ 



Among the Finns of Asia there are blonds or reds in a large or small 

 number, according to the locahty. I should state here, anent the red 

 or blond Finns, that I make no distinction from the point of view of 

 anthropology betAveen blond people and people with red hair. In 

 fact, the blond races begin by having the hair red before it becomes 

 blond, just as they may have eyes that are green before they are 

 blue or gray; but before tliis transformation is completed in the 

 entire race there may yet be individuals with red hair and green eyes 

 in the midst of others who are more advanced in this evolution and 

 who have blond hair with blue or gray eyes. This is a phenomenon 



1 Galiea (01.). Opera omnia. Greek and Latin edition of Kiihin. Vol. 6, pp. 61-52. (Extrait des 

 anteurs grecs concernant la gdographie et I'histoire des Gaulcs. Paris, 1S7S-1892. Vol. 6, pp. 43-45.) 

 « Op. cit. 

 ' Smirnov. Les popnliitions flnuoises de la Volga et de la Kama. Trad, du russe. Paris, 1S98. 



