OH. A TREATISE OK PILE. 89 



extremity, and that it is the same with the lower animals. (Elem. Phys. and Anat., 

 p. 330.) 



We have, in our collection, a bristle of a Russian Hog, which is black at the posterior 

 extremity for 2 inches and y^ths. and white for the remainder of the shaft, say 9 inches 

 and -^ths. We have another that is tri-colored, viz: black, white and corneous colored. 



There are, connected with this subject of the coloring matter of pile, several interesting 

 questions, as 1st. Of the nature of the coloring matter. Of this we have disposed in the 

 second Chapter, to which we refer. 2d. Of the seat of the coloring matter. This we have 

 shown is, in a perfect hair, in a central canal; in an imperfect one, the coloring matter is 

 sometimes confined to the cortex, and at others it is extended to the intermediate fibres. 

 This distinction may have been before hinted, but has never been insisted on as an 

 important specific difference, as it certainly is. 3d. Is the coloring matter of the skin and 

 that of the hair identical? There are some writers, of high repute, who advocate the 

 affirmative side of this question. (See Diet, of Sci. Med., v. 43, p. 170.) And there are 

 others who even contend that the coloring matter of the skin is secreted in the bulbs 

 [follicles] of the hair. Gaullier says that, upon removing the coloring matter of a negro's 

 skin, with a blister, he saw it proceeding from the hair bulbs, one portion radiating until 

 it met that of another hair bulb ; and, finally, the whole surface becoming black. 



To this theory of "the skin of a negro being furnished with coloring matter from the 

 bulbs [follicles] of his wool," there are two objections, wdiich appear to be unanswerable, 

 viz : 1st. That the color of the negro's skin* continues to be black, after his wool has 

 become grey \jvhite~] for want of the coloring matter. 2d. That persons with Mack hair 

 have white skins, and no appearance of a black colored rete mucosum. 



It is true that Bichat says that it has been frequently observed, that the red color of the 

 hair accords with the spots of the same color found upon the skin of individuals. (See 

 Anat. Gen., v. 2, p. 789.) But we answer that they are not always so found to agree, for 

 we have in our collection specimens of the hair of Braddock Howard, who was exhibited 

 in Philadelphia in the winter of 1848-9, the whole of whose face, except a small seam 

 upon his forehead, which has the appearance of a scar, is of a vivid purple ; and this color, 

 though not quite of so deep a hue, is traceable to the skin of his head, yet his hair is dark 

 brown, fine and silky. 



So Dr. Emery Bissell mentions the case of a very dark colored Indian, who gradually 

 turned white after he had passed the age of sixty, the color of his pile undergoing no 

 change other than that incident to old age. And in the Museum of Nat. Hist, of Paris is 

 the portrait of a pie-bald negro, whose skin, in the changed part, is pale rose color, and 

 whose wool is colorless. 



OF THE RETE MUCOSUM. In regard to the experiments on the negro's skin and wool, 

 through the agency of a blister, Cruikshank says, that when a blister is applied to the 



* We are speaking of the black persons seen in all our country who are generally denominated, negroes, but which we pre- 

 sume to be very far from being pure negroes ; and Gaultier, most probably, performed his experiment upon this kind 

 of person. 



