666 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



correction must be made for ethnic peculiarities before any defi- 

 nite conclusions become possible.* 



Three diseases are peculiar to the white race and to civiliza- 

 tion namely, consumption, syphilis, and alcoholism,! there being 

 marked differences in the predisposition of each of the barbarous 

 races for them, which often vary inversely with the degree of 

 civilization they have attained ; so that their widely varying lia- 

 bility to contract these diseases becomes an important considera- 

 tion in the ingrafting of any degree of culture or of artificial life 

 upon the native inhabitants of a colonial possession. 



The Aryan race in its liability to consumption stands midway 

 between the Mongol and the negro, climatic conditions being 

 equal. The immunity of the Ural-Altaic stock in this respect is 

 very remarkable. The Kirghis of the steppes, exposed to the 

 severest climatic changes, are rarely affected with it, \ and the 

 pure Turanian stock is almost exempt from its ravages.* This 

 may be one reason why the Chinese are able to colonize in many 

 places even in the tropics where the negro can not live, since it is 

 well known that a tropical climate is fatal to all persons with a 

 consumptive tendency. || The Chinese succeed in Guiana, where 

 the white can not live ; A and they thrive from Mamiatchin, where 

 the mean temperature is below freezing, to Singapore on the equa- 

 tor. That their immunity from phthisis is due in large measure 

 to race, and not to climatic circumstances, seems to be indicated 

 by the results of ethnic intermixture. The Japanese apparently 

 derive a liability to it from their Malay blood, which not even 

 their Turanian descent can counteract.! The Malays, a mixed 

 race, seem to lack vitality in many other respects as well, in all 



* Dr. Bordier, of the Ecole d'Anthropologie at Paris, is perhaps the best authority upon 

 this subject. A fine outline will be found in Revue d'Anthropologie, i, p. 76 ; ii, p. 135 ; 

 iv, p. 236 ; and v, p. 30. Vide also Dr. Montano in Bulletin de la Societe de Geographic, 

 Paris, 1878, p. 444 ; and Bulletin de la Societe d'Anthropologie, 1881, p. 733. In Germany 

 Dr. Buchner has discussed it in Correspondenzblatt der deutschen Gesellschaft fur Anthro- 

 pologie, xviii, p. 17 ; and more popularly in Sammlung gemeinverstandlicher wissenschaft- 

 lichen Vortrage, 1886, No. 42. Dr. Ashmead, in Science for 1892, has raised some inter- 

 esting points. 



f Whether nervous affections belong to this category is a matter of present controversy. 

 Vide Science, December 16 and 30, 1892. Suicide as an ethnic disease is ably discussed 

 by Morselli in his treatise on Suicide. 



\ Revue d'Anthropologie, third series, i, p. 77. 



* Ubid., new series, iv, p. 236. 

 | Jousset, op. cit., p. 300. 



A Bordier, Colonisation Scientifique, p. 472. 



Q Peschel, Races of Man, p. 77,. The mortality table given in Quatrefages op. cit., p. 

 235, seems to contradict this. Cf. Revue d'Anthropologie, new series, i, p. 76 et seg., where 

 tables Of mortality are given. 



$ Revue d'Anthropologie, new series, iv, p. 237 ; and in Bulletin de la Societe d'Anthro- 

 pologie, 1881, p. 733. 



