58 ANATOMICAL., PHYSIOLOGICAL, AND 



signs to an African chief who was seated on the sand; he 

 placed in his composition a Negro squatting, but he drew him 

 with one foot resting entirely on the ground, and the other 

 bearing only on the extremity of the metatarsi. At that time 

 Gericault had only a white man as a model ; a Negro would have 

 placed himself differently, with both his feet flat on the ground. 



We might pursue the history of these physiological varieties 

 ad infinitum, it is a large field for the enquirer ; and to men- 

 tion one fact alone, the compared history of development 

 among the different races of mankind has still to be accom- 

 plished, especially the history of the intra-uterine development 

 of the Negro, and even partly the history of the first months 

 of his aerial life. 



III. If organism, operating normally among different races, 

 presents such varities, why can we not suppose that it would 

 hence show correlative differences in its morbid changes ? 

 should there not be, also, an ethnic pathology ? This contains 

 a large question, and yet it was scarcely thought of a few years 

 ago. It seems to have been first proposed and studied by F. 

 Schnurrer in his treatise on Geographical Pathology,* in 1813, 

 in which the author seems to have perceived imperfectly, in 

 all its vastness, the matter which now occupies our attention. 

 The book is divided into three parts ; the first is entirely geo- 

 graphical, the second entirely anthropological, and the third is 

 given up to a description of maladies, commencing with two 

 introductory chapters ; the first describing the diseases of 

 each zone, and the second, containing eleven pages, is a 

 " Glance at the general Characteristics of Disease in each 

 Kace." "In fact," says Dr. Boudin,t in pointing out the 

 novelty of these enquiries, f< there are some races who show 

 themselves completely rebellious to certain pathological forms, 

 for which others, on the contrary, show a remarkable pre- 

 disposition." 



Two particular maladies have been pointed out in this point 

 of view, marsh-poisoning in all its forms, and yellow fever. 



* Geographische Nosologie oder die Lehre von den Verdnderungen der Krank- 

 heiten in den Vcrschiedenen Gegenden der Erde, in Verbindung mit Physicher 

 Geographic und Naturgeschichte des Menschcn, 8vo, Stuttgart, 1813. 



f Trait^ de Geographic Medicale, 1857 : Introduction, p. 29. 



