SECT. II.] CONGENITAL DEFORMITIES. 113 



partly effected the depopulation of Australia, though it cannot 

 be considered as the only one, and can hardly be looked upon 

 as a sign of deficient vitality in the organization of the natives. 

 The number of females still decreases in Australia. 1 In the 

 known districts of Australia the proportion of males to females 

 among the natives is =3 : 2 ; that of adults to children, only 

 =5 : 2. The mortality among the children is enormous, the 

 greater proportion of them do not outlive the first month. 2 

 Sturt, however, 3 observes, that among the smaller tribes in the 

 interior, there is an excess of women in the proportion of 2:1, 

 or even greater. This has also been asserted by others. 4 



Congenital deformities are rarer among most savage peoples 

 than among civilized nations; and it is now generally ac- 

 knowledged that the views of Ulloa, Robertson, and others, 

 who would explain this fact by infanticide, are erroneous. 

 At the time of the conquest there were already in Peru, in 

 regions subject to sudden alterations of temperature, many 

 cripples and blind. 5 In the environs of Leon there were ob- 

 served many one-eyed individuals ostensibly in consequence 

 of the great dust. Such persons were rarely met with in 

 Nicaragua. 6 Captain Landolphe 7 saw, during his lengthened 

 travels on the African coasts and in America, only one de- 

 brmed Negro. Brehm also has confirmed the rarity of deform- 

 ties among Negroes in East Sudan ; but singularly enough, 

 le considered it as a resemblance to brutes, since more refined 

 and intellectual labours are the source of many diseases. Ellis 8 

 observes of Tahiti, that deformities had been rare in former 

 :imes, but are more frequent now; there are specially many 

 aunchbacks in the Society Islands. 9 Pickering 10 speaks of 



1 Eyre, " Journals of exped. into Central Austr.," ii, p. 417, 1845. 



2 Fechner's Central blatt., pp. 29, 208, 1853 ; Westgarth, in " Journal of 

 :he Ind. Archipelago," Dec. 1851. 



3 " Narr. of an exped. into Central Aust.," ii, pp. 77, 136, 1849. 



4 D'Urville, " Voy. de 1' Astrolabe," i, p. 495, 1830. 



5 Gemara, p. 276. 



6 Oviedo, " Hist. gen. y nat. de Ind.," xlii, c. 4. 



7 " Mem. cont. Fhist. de ses voy. p. Quesne," i, p. 137, 1823. 



8 " Polynes. Kesearches," i, p. 80, 1832. 



9 " Lesson Compl. des CEuvr. de Buffon," ii, p. 214. 

 10 " The races of man," 1849. 



