BLOOD-GROUPS AND RACE— MILLOT 507 



organism, such as stature, skull-form, pigmentation, hair, age of onset 

 of puberty, etc. All these attempts appear to have failed, the differ- 

 ent correlations announced having all been more or less falsified by 

 the results, in the light of more extended observations. Thus, it had 

 been stated that in Sweden the majority of group B subjects were 

 brachycephalic ; but this has not been generally established, and it 

 may be regarded as a mere coincidence. Some doctors believed they 

 could detect a relationship between the serological properties of blood 

 and the liability to certain maladies, such as infectious fevers, cancer, 

 etc. Victims of tuberculosis, for instance, belonged most frequently 

 to group A, whilst members of group B suffered from a noticeable 

 weakness of the nervous system, and amongst them psychoses were 

 more often observed and criminals most common. But existing obser- 

 vations are not nearly numerous enough to justify such conclusions. 



Lastly there is the important belief that the reactions of iso-agglu- 

 tination are not peculiar to the human species. They have been 

 found in several other mammals. In most they appear to be much 

 weaker and less constant than in man, and to result from different 

 agglutinogens; on the other hand, human agglutinogens and agglu- 

 tinins are also found in the anthropoid apes, gorillas, chimpanzees, 

 orang-u tangs and gibbons. It follows that one could transfuse the 

 blood of a chimpanzee into a man of the same group without ill 

 effect, whilst transfusion of human group B blood would have serious 

 consequences. 



These few general observations are enough to demonstrate the 

 great interest, from many points of view, of agglutinative phenomena 

 and the researches which they have inspired. We shall next see that 

 a knowledge of this subject is of the greatest importance for anthro- 

 pologists, and that the fact of belonging to a given group — a fact, as 

 we have seen, independent of age, sex, and every other physiological 

 condition — seems, on the other hand, to be a very definite function 

 of race. 



It had been noticed ever since the first investigations, that the 

 proportions of the different groups maintained a remarkable con- 

 stancy in a given population, amongst the Germans or the ItaUans, 

 for instance. But the suggestion (due to MM. L. and H. Hirszfeld) 

 that there might be a relation between the anthropological content 

 and the distribution of agglutinogens was not put forward until later. 

 Being attached during the war to the medical service of the Army of 

 the East, these biologists had opportunities of examining the serolog- 

 ical properties of the blood of a large number of soldiers or civilians 

 belonging to very different races. They established three categories: 

 One marked by a high percentage of subjects of group A and a low 

 percentage of B, and including the majority of European races (Euro- 

 pean type); a second showing on the contrary a high percentage of 

 B and a low one of A, comprising Mongoloids and Ethiopians (Asio- 



