ONTOGENETIC DEVELOPMENT OF SKIN COLOR OF NEGRO. 5 



colored (say N 45 per cent). The skin was not measured, but is esti- 

 mated at N 25 per cent. The physician who attended the mother 

 states that it was much Hghter at birth. The scrotum, a hne about 

 2 mm. broad running in the mid-ventral line in the pubic region nearly 

 to the umbilicus, and the areolae around the nipples were twice as dark 

 (say N 50 per cent). On this child the lanugo, which was abundant 

 on the forehead and back, was dark brown, as were also the head hair, 

 eyebrows, and eyelashes. The hair of the head was not so dark as that 

 of the mother. While the hair of both parents formed a close coil (of 

 about 5 mm. diameter), that of the child was only wa\n>\ The super- 

 intendent of the Good Samaritan Hospital (for colored persons) at 

 Columbia, South Carolina, where many full-blooded negresses are 

 confined, stated that the hair is always nearly straight at birth, and 

 that the straight hair ma}' be seen at the extremity of the curved hair 

 when, as happens within a few weeks, the close curl makes its appear- 

 ance. This has been observed by Pruner-Bey (1861) and by Bloch 

 and Vigier (1904). The same superintendent states that the color of 

 the transverse helix of the external ear (pinna) acquired its permanent 

 pigmentation earlier than the rest of the skin of the face ; and this fact 

 was strikingly shown in the 6-day child seen at the hospital, and has 

 been repeatedly confirmed since. 



In an infant, 7 days old, at the Memorial Hospital, Richmond, 

 whose mother's father was half Indian — the rest of the mixture being 

 chiefly if not wholly negro — the skin color had much more red than in 

 the child described at the beginning of the preceding paragraph, and 

 the hair of the head was ver>' dark brown ; the lanugo was very abun- 

 dant on the back and quite black. 



At the Bellevue Hospital, New York City, a child was examined 

 (about 48 hours after birth) whose mother was the daughter of a white 

 man and a mulatto woman — her owti skin color probably at least 40 

 per cent N. The father of the infant was darker than the mother. The 

 infant had already at least 20 per cent N (estimated) on the upper 

 arm, but the exposed hands were darker, while the soles and palms 

 were light. The skin of the scrotum and penis were very dark (say 

 50 per cent N), and the areolae and pubic line were much darker than 

 the surrounding skin. There were slight inequalities in the density 

 of pigmentation in different areas of the buttocks. The hair was nearly 

 straight, the lanugo and head hair dark brown. In a female child of 

 18 days, from a brown-skinned woman and her lighter husband, the 

 hair was coming in curly, though straight on its ends. Over the back 

 were bluish-black patches, a prominent one at the upper end of the 

 sacrum (about 4 by 8 cm.), and others lying irregularly over the back. 

 These correspond in position and general appearance \\*ith the sacral 

 spots described for the Japanese. These sacral spots have been studied 

 histologically by Adachi (1903), who finds them to be areas where a 



