CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



enough, but as they are not racial peculiarities, 

 they are of little interest to the anthropologist. 

 Peron's dynamometrical observations on muscular 

 power shewed that the natives of Van Diemen's 

 Land were inferior to the Australians in this 

 respect, and these again to the Timorese, and all 

 were inferior to the Europeans (Peron, Voy. de 

 Dicouv. aux Terres Australes, ii. p. 417, 2d ed. 

 1824). The weakness of the Timorese, he says, 

 is due, not to want of food, but their laziness 

 and hot climate ; that of the Australians, to bad 

 nourishment. Freycinet's observations are more 

 recent. He found 



Kilogrammes. 

 Creoles (white) from lie de France could lift 64-4 



Frenchmen in 60-3 



Sandwich Islanders 66-2 and 58-3 



Mozambique Negroes 57' * 



Malagascnes S^'9 



Natives of the Carolines 54 >2 



New Zealanders 5 I- 4 



Timorese and Papuans 40-0 



Australians. 45 -6 



Buckton (Western Australia, p. 91, 1840) gives 

 different results : 



Mean Strength Mean Strength 



of Arms. of Hips. 



Kilogrammes. Myriagrammes. 



12 Tasmanians 50-6 



17 Australians 50-8 10-2 



56 Timorese 58-7 n-6 



17 Frenchmen 69-2 15-2 



14 Englishmen 71-4 16-3 



That the Tasmanian race was degenerating, by 

 the time Buckton made his observations, faster 

 than the others, may in part explain the difference 

 between his and Freycinet's statistics. 



PHYSIOLOGICAL PECULIARITIES. 



It is not to be expected that the various races 

 should have each physiological peculiarities that 

 would enable us to classify them into distinct 

 groups ; for it is a general law in biology that all 

 animals and we include under this term man 

 belonging to the same species have the same 

 arrangements as regards animal functions and 

 economy. We find in varieties of the same species 

 a pretty general similarity existing as regards 

 animal heat, frequency of pulse, fecundity, dura- 

 tion of life, gestation, &c. In fact, it has always 

 been one of the very strongest arguments against 

 those who maintain the doctrines of polygeny or 

 the specific distinctness of the different races of 

 mankind, that no corresponding physiological 

 differences could be found in these races. Physio- 

 logical differences and peculiarities there are ; 

 but they are only such as could be easily acquired 

 by the operation of widely differing conditions of 

 life or existence. These conditions may be, of 

 course, internal or external, arising from culture, 

 progress in refinement, and civilised modes of 

 life, and the nature of climate and surrounding 

 environment As regards duration of life, there 

 are few observations that can be called reliable. 

 All over the animal kingdom there would seem 

 to be a relation between reproductive power and 

 longevity. Where the former is high, and greatly 

 exercised, the length of life perhaps on the whole 

 tends to be less. In the races of mankind, all we 

 know on the subject leads us to infer in the mean- 

 12 



time that the duration of life is greatest in the 

 highest races, and that life is shortest in the 

 savage and more primitive ones. Just as there is 

 in the higher races greater power of acclimatis- 

 ation, less death from epidemic disease, and 

 greater muscular strength, so there is greater 

 longevity. The causes may be the same in both 

 cases, and may be chiefly traced to better nutri- 

 tion, greater ingenuity in warding off the attacks 

 of disease and injurious influences of all sorts. 

 The duration of life is longest in the temperate 

 zone, and becomes less as we approach the 

 tropics. Examples of centenarians, more or less 

 well authenticated, might be adduced in all races, 

 from the highest to the lowest. According to 

 the United States census of 1850, examples of 

 advanced age (i. e. from eighty to one hundred) 

 occurred more frequently among the free coloured 

 population, and still more among the Negroes, 

 than among the whites. The duration of life is 

 of course intimately connected with the question 

 of the influence of disease on different races. 

 Some of the American anthropologists, who 

 are sticklers for the plurality of races, have 

 tried to shew that the various races suffer from 

 different specific diseases. The attempt was a 

 signal failure ; and no one believes more in this 

 direction than that different races vary as regards 

 their predispositions to diseases. It has been 

 held that the specific distinctness of the Negro 

 from the white race was proved by the fact, that 

 the Negro was not liable to be attacked by yellow 

 fever as the white was in south-western parts of 

 North America. But this is due more to acclima- 

 tisation than to any specific racial peculiarity ; for 

 even white people in the West Indies who have 

 become acclimatised, enjoy a certain immunity 

 from yellow fever as well as the Negroes. Then, 

 again, Negroes of the third generation, who were 

 sent from America to Africa, suffered from the 

 diseases peculiar to the African climate, as did 

 white unacclimatised persons. There is one 

 strange physiological peculiarity that seems pretty 

 well authenticated, and that is, that what phy- 

 sicians call the vix medicatrix natures, or innate 

 healing power, is much greater in the lower than 

 in the higher races. The Malays are said to have 

 this high healing power particularly well marked 

 in consequence of their strictly vegetable diet, 

 which reduces the tendency to inflammatory 

 attacks. Parky ns (Life in Abyssinia, voL ii. p. 268) 

 relates instances of people being punished by the 

 most horrible mutilations, and yet recovering 

 simply by their own innate healing power, with- 

 out any treatment at all Yet it would appear 

 that from the mere contact of different races, 

 though both may be in good health at the time 

 of meeting, destructive epidemics are originated, 

 which seem much more fatal to the aborigines 

 than to the higher race who came in contact with 

 them. * 



There is no proof that sexual development is so 

 much affected by race as by the influence of climate. 

 Hence it is that in races inhabiting the torrid 

 zones, women arrive at the age of puberty much 

 sooner than in temperate regions, though it must 

 be noted that there are many exceptions to this 

 general statement Yet it is clear that Jewish 

 women arrive at puberty much earlier than the 

 women of the nations amongst whom they live ; 

 and it is difficult to resist the conclusion, that this 



