January 9, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



75' 



Finance Committee, John H. Caswell, John H. 

 Hinton, C. A. Posf. 



Vice-president Kemp was then called to 

 the chair, and the president delivered his 

 annual address, entitled ' The Academy of 

 Sciences.' At its close a vote of thanks was 

 carried, on the motion of Professor E. B. 

 Wilson. The academy then adjourned. 

 Henry E. Orampton, 

 Recording Secretary. 



DlSCUSSIOy AND CORRESPONDENCE. 

 NOTES ON NEGRO ALBINISM. 



Last spring, while engaged in archeology 

 work in Coahoma County, Mississippi, I no- 

 ticed some negro albino children hoeing in 

 a cotton field. The fact that there was more 

 than one in the family led me to make in- 

 quiry which brought out the following facts. 

 The grandfather of these children was an 

 albino. He married a normal negro woman 

 and had three normal sons. All three sons 

 married. Two have had only normal chil- 

 dren; but the third, who has been twice mar- 

 ried, is the father of fifteen children, four 

 of whom are albinos. The first wife had five 

 normal children and one albino; the second, 

 six normal ones and three albinos. I was 

 unable to learn anything about the ancestry 

 of these women. 



The particular interest in the case is that 

 the anomaly reappears in one of three lines 

 of descent in the third generation. Accord- 

 ing to Mendel's law of heredity, we should 

 not expect it to reappear at all. Yet, if we 

 suppose that albinism was recessive in the 

 mothers of these albino children, the observed 

 result is just what we should expect. 



These albinos, two of whom have attained 

 full stature, and others in the vicinity, are 

 noticeably taller and have broader shoulders 

 than their normal fellows. Are these accom- 

 panying characters? 



"William C. Farabee. 



NOTE ON MR. PARABEE'S OBSERVATIONS. 



Mr. Earabee has kindly shown me the proof 

 of his interesting ' I^J'otes on ISTegro Albinism,' 

 and generously consents to the publication of 

 the following note with his own. 



The point needs emphasizing that albinism 

 in manunals in general is a recessive char- 

 acter in the sense of Mendel's law. Mr. 

 Earabee writes as if this fact were generally 

 recognized, but I doubt whether this is so. 

 Last winter in my lectures on heredity, which 

 were attended by Mr. Farabee, I showed from 

 the statistics published by von Guaita in 1900 

 that albinism in mice is a recessive character. 

 This result has been confirmed by Mr. G. M. 

 Allen, who has been carrying on breeding 

 experiments with mice, under my direction, 

 for the past two years. Some results of Mr. 

 Allen's work have been in manuscript for 

 several months, but their publication has been 

 unavoidably delayed. Meanwhile Bateson 

 (1902), in two recent important papers on 

 heredity, has made the first published recog- 

 nition of the fact that albinism in mice is 

 a recessive character. 



During the last few months I have been 

 able to demonstrate experimentally that al- 

 binism is a recessive character likewise in- 

 guinea-pigs and rabbits. Mr. Farabee's ob- 

 servations indicate that the same is true also 

 in man. It is probable, therefore, that this 

 is a general law of heredity in all mammals^ 

 But Bateson has shown that in certain crosses 

 among poultry white plumage is a dominanf' 

 character; consequently we must apparently 

 limit our generalization for the present to 

 mammals. Yet it should be pointed out that 

 the white breeds of fowls used by Bateson in 

 his experiments are not pure albinos, since- 

 the eyes, at least, of white birds are pig-- 

 mented. Consequently we must exercise cau- 

 tion in generalizing from those experiments. 



In the case of negro albinism observed by 

 Mr. Farabee, the result is throughout a Men- 

 delian one, on th,e hypothesis that albinism' 

 is recessive. For the original male albino 

 married to a normal negro woman should' 

 have only normal offspring, in whom, how- 

 ever, the alhinic character is recessive. The 

 recorded observation is three sons, all normal. 



Two of the sons, apparently, married wives 

 who were 'pure dominants,' i. e., who were 

 entirely free from the recessive (albinic) 

 character. The theoretical expectation in 

 svich cases is that half the offspring will be- 



