782 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



appears that the first effects of a sojourn in the tropics is to induce 

 symptoms which point toward the peculiarities of the native type. 

 Thus the increase in the size of the liver indicates the operation of 

 those causes which have finally made the negro's liver normally 

 larger than that of the European.* The only present difficulty is 

 that an unusual strain is suddenly put upon the various organs in 

 this process of gradual adaptation which is often too severe ; as, 

 for example, the high mortality among Europeans from derange- 

 ment of the liver, such as hepatitis, bilious fever, abscesses, and 

 the like, which indicates that some physiological change has taken 

 place which has entailed an excessive demand upon the activities 

 of this organ. Similarly the extreme liability of the negro to dis- 

 ases of the lungs in the temperate zone may be due to his lack of 

 physiological accommodation to those circumstances which have 

 in hundreds of generations produced the European type. To ex- 

 pect that man can in a single generation compass the ends which 

 Nature takes an age to perform is the height of folly. The exact 

 nature of the physiological processes induced by the tropics is, 

 however, so imperfectly known that we must in general rely 

 upon concrete experience for our further conclusions. 



RESULTS OF HYGIENE. Hygiene and sanitation have accom- 

 plished wonderful results in assisting the individual to withstand 

 those immediate effects of climatic change which, as we have 

 said, are so often fatal, f The yearly loss at one time in India was 

 eighty for each regiment of one thousand men. In 1856 it had 

 been reduced to sixty-nine; from 1870 to 1879 it ranged about 

 sixty-two ; and in 1888 the annual loss was only fifty, including 

 deaths and invaliding. J The loss in Cochin- China per regiment 



* This is suggested by Bastian in Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie, Part I, 1869 ; vide also J. 

 R. Mayer, Die Mechanik der Warme, p. 97 (Stuttgart, 1867), and Jousset, p. 108. The 

 physiological characteristics of the negro are well described by Jousset as follows: A 

 weakly developed chest (p. 85), less respiratory power and lung capacity (p. 88), more 

 rapid pulse (p. 95), diminished muscular tension (p. 100), lower temperature (p. 107), less 

 perspiration (p. Ill), and a tendency toward slimness (p. 139). The lessened vitality and 

 power of endurance is also to be noted (p. 144). Pruner Bey confirms these results in his 

 studies of the vascular system of the negro. Vide also Quatrefages, op. cit., p. 407. Drs. 

 Baxter and Gould, in their studies on our soldiers during the civil war, confirm this fully. 

 (Investigations in the Military and Anthropological Statistics of American Soldiers, Cam- 

 bridge, 1869 ; and Medical Statistics of the Provost-Marshal General's Bureau.) 



f Discussed by Hunt, op. tit., p. 140, and by Dr. Montano, op. tit., p. 8 tt seq. ; by David- 

 son, op. tit., for India ; and by Dr. Farr, in Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, xxiv, 

 p. 472. Vide also, for statistical information, ibid., iv, p. 1 ; viii, pp. 77, 193 ; ix, p. 157 ; 

 x, p. 100 ; xiv, p. 109 ; xv, p. 100. Tables of the comparative mortality of British troops 

 in various countries are conveniently given in Revue d'Anthropologie, new series, iv, p. 175. 

 Macculloch, Statistical Report on the Sickness and Mortality of Troops, London, 1840, gives 

 a vast amount of information. 



\ Scottish Geographical Magazine, vii, p. 647. 



