ALBINOS. 



used by the Portuguese, in their voyages to the coast 

 of Africa, as expressive of certain individuals whom 

 they found among the negroes there, having the same 

 features as the other negroes, but with white skins, 

 white hair, and red eyes, and for these reasons form- 

 ing such a contrast with their swarthy countrymen, 

 as was well calculated strongly to draw the attention 

 of strangers, especially in an age during which inter- 

 prise and superstition were both equally energetic. 

 Dampier and his attendants also found Albinos among 

 the red men near the isthmus of Darien, bearing nearly 

 the same relation to the rest of the tribes there as 

 those of Africa bore to the rest of the negroes. 

 Subsequent observation has found them in most parts 

 of the world, though much more abundantly in some 

 than in others. In all places, they have the average 

 features of the rest of their countrymen; but in all 

 countries they have nearly the same colour, or rather 

 the same absence of colour, a pale and death-like 

 white, without tint or bloom of any kind. 



Albinos occur most frequently in the tropical re- 

 gions of the world ; as on the coast of Guinea, in 

 Ceylon, Sumatra, and Java, and the intertropical parts 

 of America. As the latitude increases they are 

 comparatively few ; and there are no notices of any 

 among the people of the extreme north. It does not 

 appear, however, that the heat of the climate is the 

 chief, or at all events the only cause of their occur- 

 rence ; for, among the European ones, two, who exhi- 

 bited themselves in England many years ago, and 

 gained as much money by so doing as enabled them 

 to establish themselves comfortably in their own 

 country, were natives of the cold mountain valley of 

 Charnouni, on the shoulder of Mont Blanc, not far 

 from the perennial icebergs. In such localities they 

 are, as has been said, rare ; while in the tropical parts 

 both of Africa and America, they are, in some places, 

 so numerous that they have sometimes been described 

 as a separate race. That, however, is incorrect ; and 

 it does not appear that there is any hereditary ten- 

 dency in albinoisra, although it appears to be much 

 more numerous among the old residents than among 

 migrants. Farther, it does not appear that albinoism 

 is produced by or in any respect much connected 

 with disease of any kind, or unhealthiness of climate ; 

 for the races among which it is most common are 

 they who can best stand the climate. Indeed, when 

 we would ask for a natural cause for the appearance 

 of those very singular beings, we find ourselves utterly 

 in the dark ; and almost the only rational conclusions 

 to which we can come is, that the darker the aboii- 

 gines of any country, and the more equinoctial the 

 climate, albinos are the more numerous. Buffon's 

 notion that it is the " primitive colour" of the human 

 race, to which they are making constant efforts to get 

 back again, is as absurd as the other attempts at 

 philosophy in that eloquent misleader in natural 

 history ; and would not be worthy of notice, if his very 

 fascinating, but very faulty, book were not still to be 

 met with in the hands of the ignorant. 



The other theories, which claim to be rather more 

 philosophical, are also without any thing like demon- 

 stration. The colour of the albino is the colour of 

 death, before decay has begun to spot its chalky 

 whiteness with the prjnts of corruption ; or it is that 

 colour which the body assumes when the owner 

 stands aghast in the extreme of terror, or is, according 

 to the common saying, " dead with fear." There are 

 many well-authenticated instances of extreme terror, 



or extreme agitation, or grief all of \\ hich have in 

 some measure similar efl'ecis, turning the hair white, 

 and not white merely, but silky, like that of an albino, 

 in the course of a single night; and that, too, without 

 any injury to their general health, or without any 

 more than hereditary tendency to turn grey-haired 

 on the part of the individuals so affected. In conse- 

 quence of this, it has sometimes been supposed that 

 albinoism is the result of fear, agitation, or some other 

 powerful action of the passions in the mother; and 

 though these matters lie beyond the reach of demon- 

 stration, there is no doubt, that at certain stages of 

 the period of gestation, the passions and affections of 

 the mother have a powerful influence upon the child. 

 Still, as we are ignorant, and must, from the nature 

 of the case, remain ignorant of the mode of action in 

 all such matters, we can use them only in a conjec- 

 tural way. The device of Jacob with Laban's cattle, 

 in procuring a " speckled and ring-streaked progeny," 

 by means of the "peeled rods," has been sometimes 

 adduced, but it does not properly come within the 

 scope of the argument. 



The European albinos, which have been the most 

 open to philosophic observation, have had nothing 

 peculiar in the cast of their features, the form, 

 strength, or healthiness of their bodies, or the power 

 of their minds. The only peculiarities are, the skin 

 of the most delicate whiteness, the hair white, of silky 

 texture and shining silvery gloss, and the irides of 

 the eyes of a beautiful pink colour. Still there is some 

 difference between him and the albinos of races na- 

 turally darker : the skin is not so deadly white, but 

 has more of the transparency of lily-white living 

 beauty than of the opaque and chalky colour of death. 



The eyes of albinos of all nations are delicate, and 

 cannot bear the light so well as the eyes of people 

 of the ordinary colour ; and though a very fair com- 

 plexioned European is proverbially* weak-eyed, so 

 much so that " blind fair" is a popular expression, 

 yet one of these can bear the equatorial sun better 

 than an albino negro. 



The most correct information respecting the struc- 

 tural cause of this singular variety of mankind which 

 we have, (though it does not explain, or attempt to 

 explain the inducing cause,) is from the opinion of 

 Blumenbach, borne out by the dissections of Buzzi 

 of Milan. The redness of the eyes is owing to the 

 absence of the black mucous substance {pigment nni 

 negrum) which, in the eyes of those who are not 

 albinos, is spread over the choroid coat of the eye 

 and the iris; and, in other eyes, the light is always 

 the more difficult to be borne the less abundant 

 this pigment is. Whether the darkness of the pig- 

 ment is occasioned by its decomposing the more 

 active portion of the light which falls upon it, and 

 thus defending the parts that are below, is rather a 

 delicate point to be ascertained ; but at all events it 

 is probable, inasmuch as the darkest eyes are best 

 able to endure the light, which ought to be the very 

 opposite effect of the dark colour if there were no 

 specific action in the pigment These facts would lead 

 to the conclusion that the colouring matter is char- 

 coal, in that state in which it becomes one of the 

 best conductors of heat; but what the peculiarity 

 of structure may be which enables some eyes to pro- 

 duce this charcoal more easily and in greater abun- 

 dance than others, we have not any satisfactory 

 means of ascertaining. 



Buzzi was the first who demonstrated that the 



