VOL. LI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRAN^SACTIONS. 3/ J 



white. Her mouth soon underwent the same change, and the phenomenon 

 had since continued gradually to extend itself over the whole body ; so that every 

 part of its surface became more or less the subject of this surprising alteration. 

 At the above date, 4 parts in 5 of the skin were white, smooth, and transparent, 

 as in a fair European, elegantly showing the ramifications of the subjacent 

 blood-vessels : the parts remaining sooty, daily lost their blackness, and in some 

 measure partook of the prevailing colour ; so that a very few years would, in all 

 probability, induce a total change. The neck and back, along the course of the 

 vertebrae, maintained their pristine hue the most, and in some spots proclaim 

 their original state: the head, face, and breast, with belly, legs, arms, and 

 thighs, were almost wholly white ; the pudenda and axillae party-coloured ; the 

 the skin of these parts, as far as white, being covered with white hair ; where 

 dark, with black. Her face and breast, as often as the passions anger, shame, 

 &c. had been excited in her, had been immediately observed to glow with 

 blushes ; as also when, in pursuance of her business, she had been exposed to 

 the action of the fire on these parts, some freckles had made their appearance. 

 The young woman declared, that excepting about \^ years before wheli she 

 was delivered of a child, she had never been afflicted by any complaint of 24 hours 

 continuance , and that she never remembered the catamenia to have been either 

 irregular or obstructed, only during this pregnancy : she had never been subject 

 to any cutaneous disorders, nor made use of any external applications, by which 

 this phenomenon might be produced. The efi^ects of the bile on the skin are 

 well known to physicians, and had given rise to an opinion, that its colour was 

 determined by it : but for his part he could not believe it had any thing to do 

 here, since, from all the circumstances he had been able to collect, he could 

 not find the least reason to suspect that this fluid, whether cystic or hepatic, 

 had undergone any alteration. As ustion is known to make the skin of negroes 

 become white, and as she was daily employed in the businesses of cookery, it 

 might perhaps be supposed the effect of heat : but this could never be the case, 

 as she had ever been well clad ; and the change was as obvious in the parts 

 protected from the action of that element, as in those most exposed to it. As 

 an emunctory, the skin seemed to perform its office as well as possible, the 

 sweat with the greatest freedom indifferently pervading the black and white 

 parts. The effects of a blister he was yet a stranger to, as that which he ap- 

 plied on the outside of the arm did not answer the intended purpose : whether 

 this was owing to its being laid on a part too much exposed, or that the corpus 

 reticulare being destroyed, there might be such an adhesion of the cuticle to the 

 cutis, as might render them inseparable, a 2d experiment must determine. 



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